Samantha Smith, the 13-year-old “ambassador” to the Soviet Union, died in a plane crash. Smith was best known for writing to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov in 1982 and visiting the Soviet Union as Andropov’s guest in 1983. In late 1982, Smith, a fifth-grader at Manchester Elementary School in Manchester, Maine, wrote a plaintive letter to Soviet leader Andropov. She said that she was “worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are you going to have a war or not?” A few months later, Smith’s letter was reprinted in Russia and it was announced that Andropov was writing a response. Smith received his letter in April 1983. Andropov assured Smith that he did not want a nuclear war with the United States or any other country. Calling Smith a “courageous and honest” little girl, Andropov closed the letter with an invitation for her to visit the Soviet Union. In July, accompanied by her parents, Smith embarked on a two-week trip. She was a hit in the Soviet Union, and although she did not get to meet with Andropov, she traveled widely and spoke to numerous groups and people.
Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 was a scheduled flight from Logan International Airport to Bangor International Airport in the United States on August 25, 1985. On final approach to Auburn/Lewiston Municipal Airport, the Bar Harbor Airlines Beechcraft Model 99 crashed short of the runway, killing all six passengers and two crew on board. Among the passengers was Samantha Smith, the 13-year-old American schoolgirl who had become famous as a goodwill ambassador to the Soviet Union and had been cast on the television show “Lime Street.” Altitude data from the aircraft’s transponder showed that Flight 1808 did not begin its descent to intercept the precision approach until after passing Lewiston, when the plane was already above the glide slope for the approach. This may have caused the flight crew to rush both the descent and the approach and descend too steeply. The actual altimeter settings on both the captain’s and the first officer’s altimeters could not be determined because of fire and impact damage. The aircraft flew into trees 4,007 feet (1,221 m) from the end of Runway 4 and struck the ground 440 feet (130 m) to the right of the extended runway center line. There were no survivors.
The effort by the Air Force to perfect a weapon that can destroy satellites has taken on new scientific and political importance because of the program’s identification with “Star Wars,” according to Government officials and outside experts. On its surface, the anti-satellite program, which is scheduled for its first test against a target in space next month, is one small step in nearly 30 years of American research into anti-satellite weapon. But both supporters and critics said the program had become closely identified, both in technology and arms control implications, with President Reagan’s plan for research into an antimissile system, formally known as the Strategic Defense Intitiative and more commonly called Star Wars. One Pentagon official involved in space policy said in an interview Friday that the overlap between anti-satellite technology and “Star Wars” was so great that if the United States was forced to stop testing anti-satellite weapons, “it would slow down certain parts of S.D.I. today and probably prevent the completion of the research program.” Such a ban has been proposed both by the Soviet Union and by some American arms control advocates, who contend it is essential to prevent an accelerated arms race in space.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization this week will launch a major naval exercise to test its ability to protect vital sea lanes from North America to Europe. About 165 ships and submarines and hundreds of aircraft from the United States, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, West Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal will be involved. The monthlong operation, code-named OCEAN SAFARI 85, will begin Thursday in Boston. It comes a month after the Soviets conducted a huge naval exercise in the North Atlantic and the Norwegian Sea.
Bonn announced the arrest of a presidential secretary on charges of spying. The unidentified 50-year-old woman, a member of the office staff of President Richard von Weizsacker, was the fifth West German Government employee to be identified this month as a probable East German spy. She was arrested tonight, according to the federal prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe. On Friday, East Germany announced that a senior West German counterespionage officer, Hans Joachim Tiedge, had defected and sought asylum. Two Bonn secretaries and a West German Army messenger are thought to have preceded him covertly to East Berlin.
Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, M15, regularly provides the British Broadcasting Corp. with background material on “subversives” involved in industrial disputes and radical groups suspected of terrorist activity, the Observer newspaper reported. The London newspaper said BBC executives have acknowledged that the material could have an effect on news coverage, raising more questions about the network’s independence. Earlier, the Observer disclosed that MI5 routinely conducts background checks on BBC job candidates.
British Airways Boeing 737 with 80 people aboard made an emergency landing at Heathrow Airport today after a signal light indicated that one of its two engines had overheated, officials said. They said the plane landed safely with only one engine working after the pilot shut down the port engine. The incident occurred three days after 54 people were killed aboard a British Airtours Boeing 737 jet that burst into flames and broke in two while roaring down a runway while preparing to take off at Manchester Airport. American experts have said a combustion chamber in the port engine of that plane appeared to have failed. The engine involved in the incident today was the same type as that involved in the fire Thursday, but an airline spokesman said: “We think it was a minor problem. It may have been a fault in the warning light.”
Senior members of the governing French Socialist Party failed today to agree on a manifesto to be presented to the party’s October congress. The failure exposed serious internal rifts seven months before key parliamentary elections, which are scheduled in March. A faction led by Michel Rocard, a former Agriculture Minister, declined to back a draft manifesto submitted to the party’s steering committee by Secretary General Lionel Jospin, who represented a majority group loyal to President François Mitterrand. Mr. Rocard, who has said he will be a candidate in the 1988 presidential election, told members he would submit his own manifesto to the party’s congress.
Agriculture Secretary John R. Block arrived in Moscow today and said he and a top-level team of American farm figures were seeking to expand agricultural trade with the Soviet Union during a weeklong “good will” trip. Speaking at the airport after being met by the Soviet Agriculture Minister, Valentin K. Mesyats, Mr. Block said American-Soviet agricultural relations were productive but “not entirely trouble-free.”
A Katyusha rocket fired from Lebanon landed today in northern Israel but caused no casualties or damage, military sources said. The rocket attack was the second in 24 hours and the fourth since Israel withdrew most of its forces from Lebanon more than two months ago.
Muslim forces shelled Christian areas in Beirut today in a new violation of a Syrian-brokered truce. Sniper fire kept all gates closed along the Green Line, which divides Beirut into Christian and Muslim sectors. The police said 16 motorists remained missing after rival Christian and Muslim militias grabbed them Saturday as they tried to cross the Green Line. Other victims of kidnappings were released in an exchange hours later. The total number of those kidnapped was unknown. The abductions caused the army on Saturday to close the only one of six crossing points that had remained open on the line. A truce was reached Thursday to end 12 days of bombardment of residential areas in and around Beirut.
Iraq claimed that its warplanes dropped tons of bombs on Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal in the Persian Gulf, the second attack on the vital site reported in 11 days. A marine salvage executive who asked not to be further identified said the terminal’s jetties sustained substantial damage. “Kharg has been hit again by Iraqi military aircraft, apparently to aggravate an already unfavorable oil loading situation caused by the mid-August raid,” said one gulf-based executive. However, neither Lloyd’s of London nor the Iranian government immediately confirmed the attack. Iran and Iraq have been at war for five years. In Baghdad today, an unidentified military spokesman said in a radio broadcast that eight 1,100-pound bombs had been dropped on Kharg to “impede work on extinguishing fires resulting from the previous strike.” All warplanes returned to their bases after the attack, the spokesman said. Meanwhile, Iran’s official press agency said Iranian forces had penetrated more than four miles inside central Iraq early today, killing or wounding 200 Iraqi soldiers. Iraq did not report such an Iranian advance.
India’s main Sikh political party, Akali Dal, confirmed Surjit Singh Barnala, a confidant of slain leader Harchand Singh Longowal, as acting president, a party spokesman said. The spokesman said in Chandigarh, capital of violence-torn Punjab state, that Barnala, 60, a former lawyer, was elected at a meeting of the Akali Dal’s 25 district chiefs. Longowal was shot to death by Sikh extremists last week.
Soldiers on a training mission have killed 26 Tamil rebels at a terrorist training base, a spokesman for the Sri Lankan Ministry of National Security said today. It was the highest reported death toll in clashes between security forces and Tamil separatists since peace talks collapsed a week ago.
The spokesman said the soldiers came across the rebel camp Saturday in a jungle area about 143 miles east of Colombo and were “forced to take some military action” when the guerrillas opened fire. He did not mention any army casualties.
The pilot of a Chinese bomber that crash-landed in a South Korean rice field asked for political asylum in Taiwan, but the plane’s radio operator wants to return to China, the South Korean Defense Ministry said. The asylum request is being considered, the ministry said. The navigator was killed when the aircraft, a Chinese modification of the Soviet IL-28, crashed after running out of fuel as South Korean jet fighters guided it toward an air base. A farmer working in a field was also killed.
President Ferdinand E. Marcos, who said earlier this month that he was seriously considering calling a presidential election this year, has now apparently decided against it. The next scheduled presidential balloting is in 1987. The decision has been indicated indirectly in the last two days with the publication of Government-controlled opinion surveys and a statement that the public opposes elections this year. Today, at a five-hour caucus of the ruling party, the New Society Movement, the President received “reports from all over the country that there is an overwhelming rejection of the proposal to hold snap elections,” according to a press release from the presidential palace.
A spokesman for the main pro-independence group in New Caledonia says the group will probably call for a boycott of elections in the French Pacific territory. The group will meet early next month to decide whether to take part in the vote, the spokesman said. The statement by the spokesman, Susanna Ounei, follows the French Parliament’s approval last week of a new structure for the territorial assembly. The restructuring is designed to give native Melanesians, though a minority of the population, a slight majority of seats over European settlers and is part of a French Government plan to eventually grant New Caledonia limited independence.
Salvadoran leftist rebels ended a six-day traffic sabotage campaign that kept vehicles off roads in the eastern part of the country and cost the economy millions of dollars. The transportation stoppage, the sixth this year, saw the destruction of 25 vehicles by guerrillas. At least one civilian was killed and four wounded. Meanwhile, the auxiliary bishop of San Salvador, Gregorio Rosa Chavez, said there is a possibility that 13 mayors abducted by the rebels almost four months ago will be freed “before September 1.”
Immediately after the overthrow of President Gaafar al-Nimeiry in early April, the Sudan’s new leaders declared that settling the long civil war in the south was their “top priority.” They proclaimed a one-sided cease-fire, promised amnesty to any rebels willing to lay down their arms, and offered the religiously and ethnically distinct southern regions increased autonomy. The new Prime Minister, Dr. al-Gazouly Dafallah, even sent a personal message to Colonel John Garang, the American-educated head of the rebel group known as the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army. The Prime Minister wrote, “Your place is with us here, and it is an honor that must not be missed.” But that and other approaches to Colonel Garang have failed. After a brief pause, the conflict has widened and worsened. “There is more fighting now than there has been in at least a year,” a senior Western diplomat said.
Uganda’s ruling Military Council has dismissed Prime Minister Paulo Muwanga, Radio Uganda said on the eve of crucial peace talks with rebel leaders. Muwanga, vice president and defense minister under ousted President Milton Obote, was replaced by former Finance Minister Abraham Waligo. Muwanga’s dismissal, ordered by General Tito Okello, head of the Military Council, met one of the key conditions of the National Resistance Army before it would agree to talks. The meetings are scheduled to begin today in Nairobi, Kenya.
Five weeks after South Africa proclaimed a state of emergency, those most affected by it and some of those detained under its provisions say they see patterns that suggest a many-pronged attack by the authorities. Some former detainees say the methods designed to secure official aims are harsh. Others say solitary confinement is common, while a civil rights group says it fears the police are torturing their captives. Such assertions are impossible to substantiate because the police do not acknowledge using cruel methods of interrogation, and often those who say they were tortured also say they were alone with their interrogators at the time. Some of the more than 1,000 detainees released since the emergency was proclaimed have refused to talk to reporters, even when guaranteed anonymity. A police spokesman said people with complaints about police behavior during their detention could give details to police officials, who would investigate them.
The police reported four incidents of unrest in South African black townships today. The incidents came against the backdrop of the authorities continued crackdown on dissent. Meanwhile, 336 of about 800 schoolchildren whom the police rounded up last week in the black township of Soweto near Johannesburg were ordered to appear in magistrate court Monday on charges of violating emergency regulations on school boycotts. The children awaiting hearings have been released into the custody of their parents. At least 400 others, those under 13 years old, were released earlier without being charged.
Space shuttle Discovery’s launching was postponed a second time at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after a computer failure was found 25 minutes before the shuttle’s scheduled liftoff. It was the second postponement in two days for the Discovery and its crew of five astronauts. The original takeoff, scheduled for Saturday morning, was delayed because of the weather. The takeoff has been reset for 7:02 AM Tuesday. With each passing day and the manifest vagaries of Florida weather in the summer, there was growing concern among shuttle officials that the Discovery might not reach orbit in time for the most spectacular part of its mission, the repair of a crippled satellite by two astronauts maneuvering in space. Arnold Aldrich, manager of the shuttle program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said that with the supply of maneuvering fuel on board the Discovery must be launched Tuesday, Wednesday or possibly Thursday if it is to gain a position in orbit where it could rendezvous with the stricken Leasat 3. Any delays beyond Thursday, Mr. Aldrich said at a news conference here, would force the astronauts to cancel the repairing and confine themselves to the primary objectives of the flight, deploying three communications satellites in the first three days of the mission. The flight would thus fall short of the eight days now planned.
No curbs on foreign shoe imports are planned by President Reagan, but he is considering a series of punitive actions against “unfair” trade practices, Administration officials said. This approach would represent an apparent answer by Mr. Reagan to the strong protectionism feelings in Congress and his long-held opposition to trade curbs, the officials said. They said the most likely target of the proposed punitive actions would be the flood of counterfeit products from Taiwan that infringe upon American copyright laws.
President Reagan goes horseback riding and does chores around the Ranch.
A 13-year-old boy in Kokomo, Indiana, barred from attending seventh-grade classes because he has AIDS, begins school today — by telephone. Ryan White, a hemophiliac who contracted the disease through a blood transfusion, has been out of school since December, when officials barred him for fear he would infect other pupils. The school will pay for the telephone system, which links the boy’s home to classrooms. State health officials have said that Ryan’s condition does not threaten other students and have urged school officials to reconsider. Ryan and his mother, Jeanne White, have filed suit against school officials.
Business is good on the Amtrak line. Amtrak long-distance trains have been running at capacity or near it all summer. While Congress is studying possible cutbacks of as much as 15 percent in Amtrak’s annual operating subsidy, a railroad passenger monitoring organization estimates that July ridership on the Amtrak system is up about 7 percent from last summer, while advance bookings since June have been running 15 to 20 percent ahead of a year ago. Its passenger-related revenues rose to $61.8 million in July, the highest for any July since the system was established in 1971, a spokesman said.
The auto union’s 50th birthday is being celebrated today with ceremonies and “oral histories” of veterans of the organizing battles of the 1930’s and 1940’s that made the United Auto Workers one of the nation’s most powerful unions. But its membership has declined since 1979 by several hundred thousand as the flood of imports from Japan and Europe has eliminated jobs in Detroit. More membership losses will soon follow when more than 125,000 Canadian members will formally withdraw to form their own union.
Police have arrested seven members of the youth gang believed responsible for most of the highway holdups that have plagued Miami motorists on Interstate 95 this year. “I can safely say they are responsible for the majority of the I-95 robberies. It’s the core group,” a police spokesman said. More than 100 highway robberies have occurred since January, perpetrated by young men who held up stranded motorists or hurled debris to halt vehicles and rob their occupants. Police said the robberies have fallen off sharply since authorities began a crackdown this month.
A man dubbed the night stalker who is believed to have killed 14 people shot a man and sexually attacked a woman today, the 35th and 36th assaults attributed to the killer, the police said. A 29-year-old woman called at 2:40 AM to say her boyfriend had been shot by a man in their home in Mission Viejo, 55 miles southeast of Los Angeles, said Lieutenant Richard Olson of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. The woman’s friend suffered a bullet wound to the head and she was sexually attacked, Mr. Olson said. The shooting victim, William Carns, 29, was listed in extremely critical condition at Mission Community Hospital. The killer has entered suburban homes at night through unlocked windows or open doors and is a suspect in slayings in southern California and San Francisco. Survivors of the attacks have described the killer as having curly black hair and gapped, badly stained teeth.
A United Airlines Boeing 737 with 74 persons aboard was delayed from taking off for 44 minutes in Cleveland after a valve. malfunctioned on one of its two engines. A United spokeswoman said the Pratt & Whitney engine involved was similar to an engine that exploded on a British Airtours Boeing 737 in Manchester, England, last week, touching off a fire that killed 54 persons. United mechanics fixed the problem.
Marriott Corp. heir J. W. Marriott Jr., injured in a boat explosion at his summer home in New Hampshire, was in stable condition and “resting comfortably” in a Boston hospital, a spokesman said. Marriott, 53, president of the worldwide hotel and restaurant conglomerate, received firstand second-degree burns in the blast. Officials said Marriott was fueling a boat in his boathouse “when somehow a spark ignited and away it went.”
The Justice Department encouraged the Labor Department to continue its investigation of Jackie Presser in 1983, several years after the FBI had begun using the teamsters’ president as an informer, investigators in the case said today. Robert E. Magee, the former Deputy Inspector General who supervised the Labor Department’s investigation of Mr. Presser, said in an interview that he confronted the Justice Department in 1983 about what he said was the FBI’s “unusual investigative behavior.” The Federal Bureau of Investigation is part of the Justice Department. “There were no alarm signals raised by anyone in the Justice Department,” he said. “No one indicated there had been any impediment to the investigation which was under the supervision of Department of Justice prosecutors in Cleveland.”
A charter bus skidded out of control on a bridge over the Monocacy River, killing five people and injuring 12 others. The bus bounced violently between guard rails for 200 feet, hurling several passengers into the water. A spokesman for the Maryland State Police, Bill Tower, said 17 people were aboard the Baltimore Motor Coach bus when it went out of control on the bridge on Interstate 70 about 12:15 PM in a rainstorm about 35 miles northwest of Washington. He said the bus was torn nearly in half. “Witnesses said people were thrown from the bus every time it hit the bridge,” he added. Mr. Tower said the initial investigation indicated that the bus was going too fast for driving conditions on the bridge, which was wet from rain. The bus driver, George Brown, 68 years old, of Baltimore, died later at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, he said.
Plutonium concentrations higher than those found in New York City’s water supply last month have been routinely found in water systems of suburban Denver near the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, researchers say. But the levels are below government safety standards. The Colorado Department of Health reported that plutonium levels in water of Broomfield, Arvada, Boulder and Golden have been nearly three times as high, and Westminster levels nearly twice as high this year as the reading of 21 femtocuries taken in New York after an anonymous terrorist claimed to have contaminated the city’s water supply.
Salvage workers today raised a sunken trawler off Cape Cod and found 103 bales of marijuana aboard, bringing to nearly 600 the number of bales found in the scuttled ship, officials said. Investigators planned to trace a registration number on the 60-foot vessel to try to determine the boat’s owner, according to the Coast Guard. Fishermen discovered the sunken boat Wednesday about two miles from Wellfleet. The authorities believe the vessel was scuttled when its occupants ran into trouble. Divers removed nearly 500 bales of marijuana from her hull over the next three days. A salvage company from New Bedford raised the vessel and pumped her out so the rest of the load could be removed.
The New York City Tribune, founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in 1983 as an alternative to the city’s three major daily newspapers, announced it is suspending publication until 1986. Editor-in-Chief Robert Morton said today’s edition would be the last of the year. He said the paper’s owners, News World Communications Inc., plan to resume publication January 1 at a new, modern plant. He attributed the shutdown to the paper’s “ambitious reorganization.”
Executions rose sharply in 1984 to 21, and a record of 1,405 inmates were on death row by the end of the year, a Justice Department report said. There were 11 executions from 1977 through 1983. There have been 15 executions in 1985, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which estimates that the total number of death-row inmates has reached 1,540.
Sea species that live without sunlight are being found by biologists in increasing numbers on the ocean floor. Recent scientific reports suggest that these marine animals that include giant clams, mussels and tube worms, may be the life forms most likely to survive an all-out nuclear war, and may be examples of what life might be on other planets.
Major League Baseball:
The St. Louis Cardinals won their fifth straight today with a 5–2 victory over the Braves that sent Atlanta to its sixth consecutive defeat. The first-place Cardinals remained one game ahead of the Mets in the National League East. Kurt Kepshire (10–7) went seven and two-thirds innings, scattering five hits. He had a shutout until Terry Harper hit the first pitch of the seventh inning into the left-field seats for his 15th homer of the year.
Dwight Gooden wins his 14th consecutive game and his 20th of the season 9–3 over the Padres. Gooden will finish the season 24–4. Gooden, at 20 years, 9 months of age, is the youngest pitcher ever to win 20 games. Bob Feller was a month older when he first won 20 in 1939. Gooden was not at his best today, but the Met hitters pounded out 16 hits to make a rainy afternoon at Shea Stadium historic. It was a day of other crowning achievements for the Mets. Darryl Strawberry, playing with a bruised and bent taped-up middle finger on his left hand, reached base five times and drove in four runs, one with a thunderous home run over the center-field wall, his 20th. Carter had three hits. George Foster had two and the relief pitcher Roger McDowell stopped the Padres cold over the last three innings, allowing just an infield hit.
The Expos spanked the Dodgers, 6–1. Hubie Brooks went 3 for 3 and drove in three runs to back the five-hit pitching of Bill Gullickson. The Dodgers’ Bob Welch had a personal eight-game winning streak snapped. Gullickson (12–9), who pitched his third complete game, had a three-hit shutout until the ninth, when he gave up two more hits, a walk and a sacrifice fly by Greg Brock. Welch (9–2), whose only other loss of the season came June 18 against the San Diego Padres, yielded a first-inning run when Brooks’s sacrifice fly scored Tim Raines. Brooks again knocked in Raines from third with an infield single in the third. Gullickson had a run-scoring double in the fourth inning and Montreal added three runs in the seventh against Carlos Diaz.
Dave Rucker pitched five scoreless innings of relief, and the Phillies pounded 10 extra-base hits, including home runs by Juan Samuel, Von Hayes, Kevin Gross and Glenn Wilson, as the Phillies crushed the visiting Giants, 14–5. Trailing by 5–4 in the bottom of the fourth, the Phillies posted their second four-run inning of the game and knocked out Jim Gott (4–10). Rick Schu and Luis Aguayo hit consecutive doubles, and after Rucker’s sacrifice, Aguayo was caught at the plate on Jeff Stone’s grounder. Samuel then hit an inside-the-park home run to left center, driving in Stone ahead of him and knocking out Gott. Hayes then hit the reliever Mark Davis’s first pitch for his 13th home run of the year.
The Reds downed the Cubs, 5–3. Nick Esasky drove in two runs with a homer and a single, and Bo Diaz doubled home the tie-breaking run for Cincinnati in the sixth inning. Tom Browning scattered seven hits over six innings to improve his record to 13–9, the most victories by a rookie pitcher in the majors this season. Pete Rose did not play, keeping him 12 hits short of breaking Ty Cobb’s career mark of 4,191.
Sammy Khalifa singled home Mike Brown from third base with one out in the ninth inning to give the Pirates a 10–9 victory in the second game of their doubleheader with the Astros. In the opener, Rick Reuschel hit a bases-empty homer and a two-run double and scattered four hits for Pittsburgh as the Bucs won, 9–3.
Harold Baines blasted a three-run homer and Floyd Bannister won his first game in more than two months as the Chicago White Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5–3, today. It was Bannister’s first victory since June 10, after seven losses and six no-decisions, and broke Toronto’s three-game winning streak. The White Sox broke their own five-game losing streak in the process. Bannister (6–11) gave up only Jesse Barfield’s second-inning double through the first five innings. Bannister struck out eight before leaving with one out in the sixth.
The afternoon was a struggle for the Yankees, but it probably should not have been. Not after Dan Pasqua, the rookie from Yonkers, drove in four runs, and certainly not after Don Mattingly crushed a two-run homer in the seventh inning. The Yankees needed all those runs and more because the Mariners scored five times in the bottom of the seventh after Ed Whitson, who had a one-hitter after six innings, gave up two-run homers to Alvin Davis and Jim Presley. The 7–0 lead dissipated into an 8–5 victory over the Seattle Mariners today, giving the Yanks a sweep of the three-game series. It also moved them one critical game closer to the Toronto Blue Jays, who lost at Chicago and now lead the American League East by three games with six weeks remaining.
Pete O’Brien knocked in four runs, three with a bases-loaded triple, and Toby Harrah drove home three runs to power Texas to a 7–3 win in Kansas City. Charlie Hough (13–12) held the Royals to five hits, including solo home runs by George Brett and Lonnie Smith. The knuckleballer pitched his 11th complete game of the season. Bud Black (8–13) lasted just five and one-third innings and gave up 11 hits. Texas took a 3–2 lead and in the seventh scored four runs, three on O’Brien’s triple.
Meanwhile, a rainout in Boston cost the American League batting leader Wade Boggs two hits in his race with Brett. Boggs singled in each of the first two innings against Minnesota, raising his average to .363. However, his mark reverted to .360. Brett was batting .358 after the game. The Red Sox-Twins game will be made up on August 31 in Minneapolis.
Rod Carew and Bob Boone delivered run-scoring singles during a three-run sixth inning that helped California beat the error-plagued Tigers, 7–1. Chet Lemon, the center fielder, committed three of the Detroit’s five errors. Lemon made one of three miscues during the sixth-inning rally, and then made another error during a four-run eighth. The Angels trailed, 1-0, when Gary Pettis drew a leadoff walk in the sixth from Walt Terrell (12–7). Rob Wilfong then sacrificed and reached base when the first baseman Darrell Evans misplayed the ball. Boone singled in Pettis and Wilfong scored on the play when Lemon overran the ball. Boone, who had gone to second on Lemon’s miscue, was thrown out trying to go to third on Dick Scofierld’s infield grounder. Schofield went on to steal second and continued to third on the catcher Manny Castillo’s error. He scored on Carew’s single. The Angels scored four times in the eighth, including one when Lemon threw wildly to the plate.
The Indians swept two from the Brewers, 6–2 and 2–0. In the second game, George Vukovich hit a two-run homer in the fifth and Ramon Romero and Bryan Clark combined on a six-hitter as Cleveland pushed its winning streak to four. Tom Waddell (7–5) of Cleveland pitched seven strong innings in the opener. Romero (2–2) blanked Milwaukee on four hits over the first five innings. He was lifted when the first two Milwaukee batters reached base in the sixth. Clark pitched two-hit relief. Mike Hargrove led off the Cleveland fifth by striking out, but reached first base on a wild pitch on strike three by Danny Darwin (7–15). One out later, Vukovich knocked him in with a home run.
At Oakland, the A’s reach Mike Flanagan for 5 runs in 4+ innings and beat the Orioles, 10–4. It is Flanagan’s first loss in Oakland after 10 straight wins. Tim Birtsas pitched a five-hitter and Steve Henderson and Dave Kingman hit two-run homers off an old nemesis, Flanagan. Henderson and Kingman both hit homers in the fifth inning off Flanagan (2–3). Flanagan had a record of 15–4 against the A’s. The Orioles had only one hit off Birtsas (10–4) before Lee Lacy led off the sixth with a homer. Lacy connected again in the eighth and Floyd Rayford hit a two-run homer with two outs in the ninth.
St. Louis Cardinals 5, Atlanta Braves 2
Detroit Tigers 1, California Angels 7
Toronto Blue Jays 3, Chicago White Sox 5
Chicago Cubs 3, Cincinnati Reds 5
Milwaukee Brewers 2, Cleveland Indians 6
Milwaukee Brewers 0, Cleveland Indians 2
Texas Rangers 7, Kansas City Royals 3
Los Angeles Dodgers 1, Montreal Expos 6
San Diego Padres 3, New York Mets 9
Baltimore Orioles 4, Oakland Athletics 10
San Francisco Giants 5, Philadelphia Phillies 14
Houston Astros 3, Pittsburgh Pirates 9
Houston Astros 9, Pittsburgh Pirates 10
New York Yankees 8, Seattle Mariners 5
Born:
Alexander Nikulin, Russian NHL centre (Ottawa Senators, Phoenix Coyotes), in Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.
Taylor Mehlhaff, NFL kicker (New Orleans Saints), in Aberdeen, South Dakota.
Died:
Samantha Smith, 13, American peace activist and actress (invited to the Soviet Union during Cold War), dies in plane crash.
History Diaries 