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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Tigers New Blight On Baseball’s Troubled Year

Murray Chass New York Times

On a daily basis, people say Major League Baseball should do something about Marge Schott, should do something about Albert Belle. What baseball should do something about, though, is the Detroit Tigers.

In the best interests of baseball, the acting commissioner, the executive council, the American League president and anyone who has compassion for people and passion for the game that used to be should do something about the Tigers. They should declare the Tigers’ remaining games exhibitions, not to be counted in the standings, and declare their games already played to be exhibitions and remove them from the standings.

Projections are meaningless, but to put the Tigers’ performance in perspective, if they were to continue at the pace they have established the first seven weeks, they would win 43 games and lose 119, record numbers for a 14-team league. Putting it in further perspective, that would come humiliatingly close to the first-year Mets’ 40-120 in ‘62 .

At the same pace (7.7 runs a game), the Tigers’ opponents would score 1,253 runs, a total that would shatter records for all league sizes and shapes. As an example of just how bad the Tigers’ pitchers are, that total would exceed by nearly 300 the record for most runs allowed in a 162-game season.

High-scoring games are one thing. If baseball officials believe runs and home runs will attract more fans, let the scoring continue. But the Tigers’ games go well beyond the call of business.

In the Tigers’ weekend series with Chicago, the White Sox, no scoring machine themselves, scored 11, 16 and 14 runs, punctuating the final game with a pair of grand slams. Opponents have scored in double figures in eight of the Tigers’ last 16 games and 14 times overall this season.

In short, it has become far too easy for teams to score against Detroit pitchers. They don’t even have a challenge anymore. Play the games, but use them for what they are - batting practice.

It has become far too easy, too, for journalists to elicit the most inane and offensive comments from Marge Schott. Like shooting fish in a barrel, reporters who ask the Cincinnati Reds’ managing partner a question they know will get some dumb comment that will gain attention.

Therefore, it is time to make Schott off limits. No more cheap and easy stories. If we don’t ask, she can’t tell.

Furthermore, baseball officials should take no action against Schott. Anything they try to do will lead them to court, and baseball needs a nasty legal fight over the Reds’ franchise less than it needs to get rid of Schott. At the rate she is going, she is headed for the economic equivalent of a 43-119 record.

Reds fans will let Schott know it is time for her to bow out and either sell her share or step aside and let someone else operate the club. She is a hard-nosed, bottom-line businesswoman, and a growing number of empty seats, left unfilled by fans tired not necessarily of her comments but of her decimation of the team, will prompt her to get out.

For precedent, see the Mets of the late 70s, who, under the misguided stewardship of the de Roulet family and its Rasputin, M. Donald Grant, drew a decreasing number of fans until a record low of 788,905 showed up in 1979. The de Roulets sold the Mets before the next season.

Baseball officials have tried to do something about Belle, but no amount of counseling is going to change him. At least the Indians hope it won’t. The Indians like the Albert Belle who leads the league in home runs, is tied for the lead in RBIs and is fourth in hitting. And who can blame them?

The Indians know Belle hits best when angry. The last thing they want to do is defuse his anger. The trick for Dr. Charles Maher, the Rutgers professor who serves as the Indians’ sports psychologist, will be to find a way to persuade Belle to stop menacing members of the news media without diluting the intensity and anger that stoke his fire.

It might be in the best interests of baseball to have Belle tone down his off-field behavior, but it is in the best interests of the Indians to keep him hitting. The way the Indians hope it works is that baseball officials can lead Belle to a shrink, but they cannot make him think.

Officials will monitor Belle’s counseling visits but not their content. Neither Belle nor Maher will be conducting any interviews on the subjects discussed in their sessions. If Belle’s power and production start slipping, though, know the counselor went too far.

Has Darryl Strawberry gone so far with his off-field problems that he has ended his major league career? Shunned by every major league organization, Strawberry began his comeback Sunday night when the St. Paul Saints of the independent Northern League started their exhibition schedule looking ahead to their May 31 season opener.

“I talked to our manager last night,” Marvin Goldklang, the Saints’ owner, said Monday, referring to Marty Scott. “Based on what he’s seen, he thinks Strawberry ought to be playing in the big leagues.”

Why isn’t he?

“I think the concern is more one of media reaction than a lack of ability or unwillingness to take on a player with his background,” Goldklang said.

If the major leagues are big enough to hold Marge Schott and Albert Belle, they should have room for Darryl Strawberry.