President Reagan has sent Vernon A. Walters, the chief American delegate to the United Nations, to European capitals to seek support for possible American action against Libya and to discuss Libyan involvement in terrorism, Administration officials said today. At the same time, Mr. Reagan announced that he would send Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d to Europe later this month to discuss ways to combat terrorism in view of the recent attacks at a discotheque in West Berlin, aboard a Trans World Airlines jet over Greece and elsewhere. White House officials said counterterrorism experts from the State Department, Justice Department and other agencies would confer with European officials on Monday and Tuesday before Mr. Meese’s visit. Mr. Walters, a veteran diplomat and former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, met today in London with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and is to confer on Monday in Rome with Prime Minister Bettino Craxi. Mrs. Thatcher agreed to the use of British bases by American planes striking at Libya, Reuters reported from London, quoting a newspaper report there. Mr. Walters is also expected to visit Paris and Bonn to present the American view of the scale of Libyan involvement in terrorism and the threat posed by the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. He is also expected to discuss Mr. Reagan’s views on retaliation against Libya.
Responding to the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque a week ago, the three Western powers responsible for security in that city announced today that they were taking measures to check “international terrorism” and eject persons “posing a threat to the population of Berlin.” A statement issued in the name of the United States, Britain and France said the measures were “exceptional and provisional.” In a concession to French wishes, the statement did not name Libyan diplomats stationed in East Berlin. Both American and British military commanders had pressed for a specific ban on Libyan envoys on the ground that they were implicated in the bombing of the discotheque, which took the lives of an American serviceman and a Turkish woman and left 230 others wounded.
Prime Minister Bettino Craxi said today that he did not expect any planned military action by the United States against Libya to come before Monday, when a White House envoy will brief Italian officials. Meanwhile, a Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman announced that the foreign ministers of the European Economic Community would meet Monday at The Hague to discuss the growing tension between the United States and Libya. Italian officials said they had strengthened security at North Atlantic Treaty Organization bases in Sicily after threats on Friday by the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, to attack cities in southern Europe if Libya was attacked. The developments came amid indications that wariness over American military action among the Western allies might be forestalling any possible American military strike against Libya.
Malta proposed to an emergency meeting of the Security Council today that the United Nations Secretary General intervene to stave off new United States-Libyan clashes. The council met in closed session for nearly four hours, held a brief public meeting and then recessed until Monday to consider Malta’s draft resolution.
Thousands of West German farmers, marching against Common Market agriculture policies in dozens of protests around the country, blocked Danish and Austrian border crossings with tractors and converged on market towns. The farmers were pressing demands for a 4.7% rise in price guarantees this year as against the freeze or cut that the European Commission in Brussels, the European Communities’ administrative arm, is proposing in an effort to reduce growing stocks of surplus food.
Irish police raided the homes of dozens of known criminals and drug dealers in the Dublin area in a fruitless search for the kidnapers of Jennifer Guinness, 48, a member of the wealthy banking and brewing family. The hunt was shifting away from the Irish Republican Army and in the direction of common criminals, police sources said. No arrests were made. In addition to the raids, the belief that the kidnappers had a nonpolitical motive was bolstered by police disclosure that jewelry as well as cash was stolen in the abduction and by a denial by Sinn Fein, the IRA’s legal political wing, that guerrillas were involved. A $2.6-million ransom has been demanded.
Greece will announce the lifting of a 46-year-old technical state of war with Albania next month, the Greek national news agency said today. The state of war dates back to the October 1940 invasion of Greece by Italian troops based in Albania, which was then under a regime backed by Italy’s Fascists. It remained in force after World War II because of Greek claims to part of southern Albania.
By making the first recorded visit by a Pope to a synagogue, Pope John Paul II will be turning his back Sunday on centuries of anti-Semitism in a place where the fate of Jews was long decided by the Pope. The much-traveled John Paul will have to journey but a mile to set foot in the ochre-colored central synogogue that serves one of the oldest Jewish congregations in the world. But the visit is being seen by both Catholics and Jews as a symbol of the enormous steps the two groups have taken toward each other over the last two decades. “I see the visit of the Pope as the crowning achievement of the church’s policy over the last 20 years,” said Rabbi Elio Toaff, Rome’s Chief Rabbi.
20,000 mine workers protest the closing of the Hasselt Belgium mines.
Vice President George Bush ended a 10-day trip to the Middle East by attending ceremonies marking the opening of an oil refinery in Marib, Yemen, built by his longtime friend, Texas oilman Ray L. Hunt. Scores of Yemeni troops stood guard as Bush and President Ali Abdullah Saleh dedicated the 10,000-barrel-a-day refinery. Bush hailed U.S. relations with nonaligned Yemen as “fundamentally important.”
Hanoi, saying it is disappointed that progress in the search for Americans missing since the Vietnam War has not elicited “cooperation and good will” from the United States, has suddenly shifted to a much harsher public stance toward Washington. The shift, which comes after less than a year of improving relations, raises the possibility that efforts to determine the fate of more than 1,700 Americans still unaccounted for in Vietnam will be halted, according to Hanoi officials. Recent public statements from Hanoi also indicate that the Vietnamese are becoming alarmed at signs of reinvigorated Thai-American military cooperation and the likelihood that more American support will be given to rebels fighting the Vietnamese-backed Government of Cambodia. After Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger toured the Cambodian border area last Tuesday while on a visit to Thailand, the Vietnamese News Agency, envisioning what it called “a U.S. comeback to Southeast Asia,” said: “The military cooperation between Washington and Bangkok is increasing to the dangerous point of reopening U.S. military bases in Thailand. This dangerous policy of Bangkok is directly threatening the fundamental national interests of Thailand.” Deputy Foreign Minister Hoàng Bích Sơn told newsmen in Hanoi that U.S. officials generally accepted Hanoi’s two-year plan, made counterproposals that Hanoi accepted, then rejected “small” changes proposed by the Vietnamese. He did not specify what they were.
Two American language students were attacked by 10 Chinese men after a bicycle accident in the city of Xian, one of the Americans reported. Colin Cowles, 22, of Berkeley, said he and Robert Masterson, 28, of the University of New Mexico, were involved in a bicycle accident and altercation in which a Chinese man fell and hit his head Friday at Shaanxi Normal University. That night, the 10 Chinese, armed with a chain, sticks and rocks, went to the campus dormitory and attacked them.
Philippine Muslim rebels and regional military officials said they called a cease-fire in five southern provinces pending negotiations on autonomy for the nation’s minority Muslim population. Macapanton Abbas, a leader of the one of three factions of the Moro National Liberation Front, has set up a committee with the region’s military commander, Brigadier General Jose Magno, to enforce the cease-fire. Abbas negotiated a similar cease-fire early last week with another regional command covering five other provinces on Mindanao island.
Some 5,000 demonstrators urging the return of Ferdinand E. Marcos blocked a major highway here tonight as they waved placards and danced to the beat of drums and chanted the former President’s campaign slogans. Riot policemen threatened to disperse the crowd but later withdrew and allowed them to flood a portion of the same road that was occupied by hundreds of thousands of supporters of President Corazon C. Aquino during a military revolt that forced Mr. Marcos to flee the country Feb. 26. Johnny Madrid, an actor who plays villains in popular films and who was one of the leaders of the demonstration, said: “We are all Marcos loyalists. We want justice. We want Marcos back as our President.”
Two months after the ouster of the Duvalier regime, Haiti is drifting without direction or leadership, according to diplomats, foreign experts and local business executives. “This Government is just not governing,” a senior American diplomat told colleagues this week. “Tensions are getting as high again as before Duvalier left.” Conversations with Haitians and foreign diplomats give the strong impression that the Government barely exists. They complain that ministers are absent and that vital decisions, including those affecting the economy, are simply not made.
The president of the Nicaraguan Central Bank has charged that the United States is making it impossible for his Government to win approval of a $58.4 million agricultural loan from the Inter-American Development Bank. “The bank has completely caved in to pressure from the American Administration,” said the Central Bank president, Joaquin Cuadra Chamorro, in an interview last week. “It is ceasing to be an honest international lender and is becoming a political agency of the United States Government.”
Suspected Peruvian leftist rebels dynamited U.S. targets in Lima, damaging the offices of Kodak, Citibank, Diners Club, a U.S. government agency warehouse and a residence of a U.S. Christian service group, the controversial, fundamentalist Summer Institute of Linguistics. No injuries were reported in the attacks. No group claimed responsibility, and police questioned more than 200 suspects. Dynamite hurled from cars also damaged the entrance of a branch of New York-based Citibank and blew out windows at the Peruvian headquarters of the Kodak Company, the offices of the Diners Club credit card company and the offices of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, a Texas-based group that has studied Peruvian Amazon tongues since the 1950’s.
Liberia’s opposition political parties, rejecting appeals for national reconciliation, called this week for General Samuel K. Doe to step down as President of the West African country. Stephen Byron Tarr, secretary general of the Liberia Action Party and a spokesman for a newly formed coalition of four opposition groups, said Liberia’s economic and political problems had worsened under General Doe. He accused the general of fostering deep ethnic divisions that developed after a disputed election and a coup attempt last year. “General Doe has not been accepted by the people,” Mr. Tarr said during a visit to the United States, which included meetings with State Department officials. “We will demonstrate that we are willing to take the risks associated with expressions against him. We hope he and his supporters will have the good grace to leave like the leaders of the Philippines and Haiti.”
After more than three years of economic austerity intended to revive Zaire’s moribund economy, there are still no signs of economic growth or development, according to Western diplomats, economists and bankers. Yet, in the eyes of many Western countries, Zaire’s economic experience has become a test case for Africa of efforts to salvage an economy shattered by mismanagement, corruption and wasteful spending. At the same time, Western diplomats are increasingly seeking to paint a more favorable picture of Zaire, a country where corruption reached legendary heights and whose human-rights record has for years been regarded as among Africa’s worst. There is, diplomats say, a new Zaire emerging, albeit painfully, in Africa.
Breyten Breytenbach, South Africa’s leading poet in the Afrikaans language who once served seven years in prison for terrorism, has returned quietly to this country after four years of self-imposed exile. A fierce opponent of apartheid, Mr. Breytenbach said today that he decided to return to his country because “I am irrevocably tied to Africa, because I identify with the liberation struggle of the South Africans.” Mr. Breytenbach has refused invitations to come back to South Africa in the past. This evening, however, Mr. Breytenbach stepped onto the stage of the State Theater in Pretoria to receive the Rapport Prize for Literature. The prize, which was founded this year, is sponsored by Rapport, the country’s only Afrikaans-language Sunday paper.
President Reagan had little grasp of the large cuts in Government spending that his Administration sought upon taking office five years ago, according to his former budget director, David A. Stockman. “When he was later called on to justify the cuts,” Mr. Stockman writes in his memoirs, “he would remember only that he was making a cut, not why.” The President’s “body of knowledge is primarily impressionistic,” Mr. Stockman says. “He registers anecdotes rather than concepts.” After months of seclusion, Mr. Stockman has begun publishing kiss-and-tell recollections of his four and a half years as the powerful and sometimes indiscreet architect of the drive, which he now calls a failure, to produce a “minimalist government — a spare and stingy creature, which offered evenhanded justice, but no more.” The book, “The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed,” will not be published until April 23. But the first of two sets of excerpts appear in the April 21 issue of Newsweek. The first installment and a news release on the second, while containing no earth-shaking revelations, shed new light on the relationships and attitudes of the principal policymakers. Of a 20-minute Reagan lecture on taxes, Mr. Stockman recalls: “What do you do when your President ignores all the palpable relevant facts and wanders in circles? I could not bear to watch this good and decent man go on in this embarrassing way.”
President Reagan makes a radio address to the Nation on federal income tax and the budget.
President Reagan places calls to 2 widows of FBI Agents whose husbands were killed while trying to apprehend armored-car robbery suspects.
A federally financed survey found that most American students demonstrated unsatisfactory writing skills. The 10-year study concluded that, despite some recent improvements, the writing abilities of 10- to 17-year-old students remain in dismal shape and show a “clear cause for concern.” The study said: “Despite an increased emphasis on writing at all grade levels during the decade, students in 1984 appeared to be only just regaining their 1974 levels of proficiency.” The report was issued by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, established by Congress 17 years ago to test how well the nation’s schools are doing in various subjects.
The National Conference of Black Mayors said the federal government is creating an “extremely hostile environment” and demanded more money for cities, minorities and the poor. “We can find the dollars for everything else, for attacking Libya… for supporting the contras in Nicaragua, things which are, in my view, un-American,” said Mayor Richard G. Hatcher of Gary, Indiana, as about 175 mayors concluded their convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The mayors urged President Reagan and Congress to reauthorize federal revenue sharing and demanded vigorous programs to enhance equal employment opportunities for minorities and women, to protect civil rights and to help the homeless.
Volunteers canvassed a two-square-mile area of Atlanta, stopping people on the streets and in stores in hopes of finding clues to the slayings of four black women, all killed since March 1. The victims, between the ages of 60 and 85, lived alone and were smothered or strangled. All were sexually assaulted and their apartments ransacked. “Somebody knows something, somebody saw something.” said state Senator Arthur Langford, who organized the canvass.
Two men who killed two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and wounded five others before dying themselves in a furious exchange of gunfire Friday were described by law-enforcement officials today as ruthless criminals living behind a mask of suburban respectability. Neither of the two men, Michael Lee Platt, 32 years old, and William R. Matix, 35, had criminal records, the authorities said. Their neighbors knew them as industrious workers for a local landscaping service, but the F.B.I. and the police say they may have been linked to a series of armored car robberies, an execution-style shooting and the disappearance of two other men. No Evidence of Terrorism The F.B.I. said that no evidence has yet linked the two men to any organized extremist groups.
A 54% majority of Americans currently perceives the United States and the Soviet Union to be about equal in nuclear strength, the largest proportion to do so in Gallup surveys spanning the last four years. At the same time, a 47% plurality believes the United States is spending too much rather than too little for defense, while 36% think the military budget is “about the right amount.” These views may be influenced, in part, by the perception that about one-third of each tax dollar spent for defense (37 cents) is wasted.
Prosecutors in the espionage trial of Jerry A. Whitworth have presented evidence, seized in searches of two homes, linking him to the theft of classified Navy materials. The prosecutors said part of a classified Navy wartime contingency plan was found in Mr. Whitworth’s home and a secret Navy publication bearing part of his palm print on one page was found in the home of John A. Walker Jr. Mr. Walker, who has confessed that he led a Soviet spy ring, is expected to be the key Government witness against Mr. Whitworth, who is accused of being a member of the ring. Philip J. Newpher, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in San Francisco, testified that a classified Navy communications document, an “Annex K,” was found in a filing cabinet in a search May 31, 1985 of the mobile home where Mr. Whitworth lived with his wife, Brenda Reis, in Davis, California.
Consumers face a multibillion-dollar “aftershock” of costs to dismantle nuclear power plants unless utilities develop savings programs to help finance retirement of more than 350 facilities, a report by Cynthia Pollock of the Worldwatch Institute said. Estimates of decommissioning costs range from $50 million to $3 billion for each reactor, and much of the bill is expected to come due between the years 2000 and 2020, the report said. Unless policies are changed, Pollock said, most of the bills will be paid by a new generation who used little of the power from the plants. During decommissioning, plant owners will choose a process to decontaminate radioactive facilities and protect the public from exposure.
Students protesting the University of Illinois’s investments in companies doing business with South Africa tore down their campus shantytown yesterday rather than risk expulsion. And students at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, ended their takeover of that school’s library after the university’s president, David McLaughlin, refused their demands that the university sever its ties with companies doing business in South Africa. The protesters at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Ill., dismantled the camp 90 minutes before a noon deadline the school had imposed. They were protesting the university’s $17 million in investments in companies doing business in racially divided South Africa. They risked expulsion if the shanties, built without permission Tuesday, were not removed. At Dartmouth College, officials yesterday rejected demands by students to cancel its $63 million in investments in firms doing business in South Africa and threatened to suspend demonstrators who occupied the school’s library. At Yale University, students met with officials from the Yale Corporation’s Committee on Investor Responsibility in hopes of getting that school to sell its estimated $350 million to $400 million in investments in companies doing business in South Africa. The meeting ended in an impasse. At the University of Connecticut, the board of trustees voted to sell $217,000 worth of investments in such companies.
Alton Coleman, already under two death sentences for slayings in Ohio, stood impassively today as he heard a jury recommend that he be executed for the strangling of a 7-year-old girl during a six-state crime spree in 1984. The jury convicted Mr. Coleman Friday for the murder of 7-year-old Tamika Turks of Gary and for attempted murder and child molesting in an assault on her aunt, then 9 years old. Lake Superior Court Judge Richard Maroc will announce his decision on the recommendation next month. Mr. Coleman, 30, of and a companion, Debra Denise Brown, 22, were arrested in July 1984 in Evanston, Illinois. She is awaiting trial in the Indiana case.
A man whose daughter was killed in San Francisco’s Golden Gate park in 1983 has been freed on $25,000 bail after he pulled out a gun during a court hearing and shot the man accused in the girl’s slaying. The man, Jack Spiegelman, 47 years old, posted bond Friday shortly after bail was ordered by Judge David Garcia in Municipal Court following the wounding Thursday of the suspect, Daniel Morgan, 39. At the bail hearing, the judge said Mr. Spiegelman, a cabinet maker, “had set himself up as judge, jury and executioner” in seeking to avenge the slaying of his 17-year-old daughter. The judge’s only bail condition was that Mr. Spiegelman stay away from the Hall of Justice, except to attend court hearings in his own case.
The Supreme Court of the United States has refused to block the execution Tuesday of Daniel Morris Thomas, who was convicted of murder and rape, in Florida. The Justices, by a 7 to 2 vote, denied an emergency request by Mr. Thomas, who was convicted in the slaying of a Polk County man and the rape of the man’s wife while the victim lay dying of five gunshot wounds. Justices William J. Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, who oppose capital punishment in all circumstances, voted to spare Mr. Thomas. Florida has scheduled two executions for Tuesday. Both men are named Thomas, but are unrelated. The second case involves Ed Clifford Thomas, 25 years old, sentenced to die for crushing the skull of Rusell L. Bettis in Broward County in 1981. His appeal is pending before the Florida Supreme Court.
A hog farmer who resisted eviction with the help of 100 armed supporters burned his mortgage note after donations from church members throughout Georgia enabled him to pay off the debt. Oscar Lorick, 66, entertained about 1,300 well-wishers at his farm, near Cochran, Georgia, to celebrate regaining the 79 acres that have been in his family for 119 years. After the stand-off between Lorick’s backers and the Bleckley County sheriff called attention to Lorick’s plight last December, Atlanta businessman Frank Argenbright Jr. helped to lead the drive that raised the $75,000 needed to clear the deed.
A Federal prosecutor’s affidavit says preliminary findings in a grand jury investigation indicate that organizations affiliated with Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. have raised money by defrauding hundreds of people across the country. The 18-month grand jury inquiry, in Boston, is one of several overlapping civil and criminal investigations of LaRouche groups being carried out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Election Commission, the Internal Revenue Service and the United States Secret Service. An affidavit filed in Federal District Court in Boston by the office of United States Attorney William F. Weld said the investigation’s early findings “indicate an extensive nationwide pattern” of credit card fraud by LaRouche operatives, leading to “hundreds of unauthorized charges apparently totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Wrongdoing Is Denied Many of the records of the inquiries normally would be secret but have become public because they were filed in court in response to lawsuits and other legal actions Mr. LaRouche has initiated against the Government. Mr. LaRouche and his associates deny the allegations of wrongdoing. He and his assistants have leveled a wide range of accusations against some of the Federal officials investigating him, asserting that they are drug dealers, Nazis or K.G.B. agents, Federal officials say.
A midshipman at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis who was suspended for allegedly using cocaine has been reinstated and will be allowed to complete his studies, the Navy says. The forced resignation of Midshipman Jeffrey M. Bellistri was overturned Friday by Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr. after he decided that “there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate that Bellistri knowingly used cocaine,” the Navy said. The midshipman, a senior, was banned from attending classes March 10 after the superintendent recommended that he be discharged because of the results of a random urinalysis test last November. Midshipman Bellistri repeatedly denied using cocaine and said he was the victim of either a mix-up or a drugging.
Rural areas, which for most of the past decade have drawn residents from bigger cities and their environs, now appear to be losing ground once again. According to Census Bureau figures, the nation’s metropolitan areas have re-established themselves as the magnet for most people on the move. This turnaround in what was briefly hailed as “the renaissance of rural America” is attributed to many variables of life and livelihood. They include weaknesses in rural economies, airline and telephone deregulation that have reduced services and increased costs to rural residents, the tendency of grown children to stay on in their parents’ city home rather than move away, and the preference of people for doing business face to face. #4.9 Million Moved, Both Ways “It is much easier to mention these facts than to explain them,” said Richard L. Forstall, a Census Bureau researcher specializing in metropolitan population patterns.
Greek-American writer Arianna Stasinopoúlou (Arianna Huffington) (35) weds American politician Michael Huffington (38); they divorce in 1997.
The consensus is in: Halley’s comet was a fizzle. The celebrated once-in-a-lifetime visitor from space, which triggered mass hysteria in 1910 and mass merchandising in 1986, surprised astronomers last week by fading and losing most of its tail just as it was making its closest approach to Earth. Appearing small, fuzzy and feeble, the comet came within 39 million miles of Earth on Thursday, and now it is streaking off to the cold fringes of the solar system, renewing an ancient cycle that will bring it back in 2061. For astronomers who had waited decades for the chance to study the famous chunk of ice and rock, its brief visit turned out to be a spectacularly successful opportunity to learn some of the many mysteries of comets. For millions of others who purchased binoculars and telescopes for the historic visit, stood outside in their pajamas or traveled thousands of miles for a clear vantage point, the real mystery was why anyone would make such a fuss about what was, as it turned out, little more than a wispy blob of light.
Major League Baseball:
The Chicago White Sox nipped the Boston Red Sox, 3–1. Reid Nichols drove in all three Chicago runs with a pair of singles and Tom Seaver earned his 305th career victory as the White Sox snapped a season-opening four-game losing streak. Seaver allowed four hits in seven innings. In the sixth inning, Dwight Evans walked, advanced to third on two infield outs and scored on Jim Rice’s infield single. Wayne Tolleson opened the Chicago first with a triple and scored on Nichols’s single. Chicago added two more runs in the fifth on Nichols’s two-run single.
The Indians downed the Tigers, 6–2. Joe Carter, Brook Jacoby and Pat Tabler hit home runs, and Ernie Camacho pitched out of a bases-loaded, none-out jam as the Indians held off the Tigers. Carter’s two-run homer highlighted a three-run first inning against Jack Morris (1–1), who has been tagged for six home runs this season. Morris walked four batters in the first inning, throwing 48 pitches as the Indians took a 3–0 lead. Camacho tied a major-league record held by 17 pitchers when he struck out four batters in the ninth.
Craig Reynolds hits a pinch grand slam in the 6th to account for all of Houston’s scoring as the edge the Braves, 4–3. Reynolds slammed a 1–2 pitch from Rick Mahler (1–1) over the right-field wall for his third career grand slam and his first pinch-hit home run. Singles by Denny Walling and Alan Ashby and a walk to Dickie Thon set up Reynolds’s two-out smash, which erased a 2–0 Atlanta lead. Nolan Ryan (1–1) pitched seven innings and gave up two runs on four hits while striking out five. Ryan increased his record career strikeout total to 4,092. Mahler, who was bidding for his second consecutive shutout, went five and two-thirds innings and gave up the four Houston runs and nine hits. The Braves took a 1–0 lead in the fourth inning when Rafael Ramirez led off with a single, stole second, continued to third on the catcher Ashby’s throwing error and scored on Terry Harper’s sacrifice fly. Atlanta added another run in the sixth on doubles by Claudell Washington and Dale Murphy. Dave Smith took over for Ryan in the eighth inning and recorded his second save. He was nicked for a run in the ninth on singles by Harper and the pinch-hitters Chris Chambliss and Ted Simmons. The Astros have won three games in a row while the Braves have dropped three straight.
Making his first start in nearly 3 years, Kansas City’s Dennis Leonard shuts out Toronto, 1–0, on 3 hits. Leonard, a 3-time 20-game winner, had undergone 4 knee operations since tearing a tendon during the 1983 season. Through three years, four operations and thousands of lonely hours of rehabilitation, Dennis Leonard never gave up on himself. In that, too, he was mostly alone. But the three-time 20-game winner experienced “my greatest thrill in baseball” today, pitching a three-hitter in leading the Kansas City Royals to a shutout of the Toronto Blue Jays in his first start since early in the 1983 season. “I couldn’t ask for more,” said Leonard. “It’s a great feeling.” The 34-year-old right-hander outdueled Jim Acker, although a strong wind probably robbed Toronto’s Jesse Barfield of a second-inning home run.
Jeff Leonard led off the 11th inning with his third home run of the season, lifting the San Francisco Giants to a 7–6 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers Saturday night. Leonard, who was 3-for-5 in the game, hit the third pitch from left-hander Dennis Powell, 0–1, over the center field fence. Greg Minton, 1–0, allowed no hits over the last 2 ⅔ innings for the victory. Run-scoring singles by Chili Davis, Bob Brenly and Brad Wellman highlighted a three-run ninth inning that gave San Francisco a 6–5 lead. But the Dodgers rallied to send the game into extra innings on Ken Landreaux’s sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth.
Danny Tartabull drove in three runs with a single and a two-run homer, and Gorman Thomas capped a five-run seventh inning with a two-run homer, as the Seattle Mariners thumped the Twins, 10–4, in Minneapolis. Mike Morgan allowed four hits in five and two-third innings and was bailed out of a sixth-inning threat by Paul Mirabella.
George Steinbrenner never promised Lou Piniella a rose garden, but Piniella promised Steinbrenner a fast start and the manager is keeping his promise. With Butch Wynegar clouting his second three-run home run of the young season, the Yankees defeated the Milwaukee Brewers, 7–3, yesterday, for their fourth victory in five games. Dave Winfield, who had only one hit in his first 17 times at bat, socked a home run in his 18th attempt and also walked with the bases loaded. The 4–1 start, the best for the team since a 5–1 opening in 1976, has catapulted the Yankees into first place, where they have not been by themselves since June 11, 1981, the day the 50-day strike started. Furthermore, this is the first time since 1976 that the Yankees have been on top of the American League East alone after five games.
Joaquin Andujar controlled himself in his Oakland A’s debut Saturday. But his pitches in the 9–3 loss to the California Angels were wilder than his behavior in the seventh game of the 1985 World Series. “I’ve never observed him this wild,” A’s manager Jackie Moore said. Andujar faced seven batters in the first inning, getting behind four of them with a full count and another by 3–1. The results were a full-count single by leadoff batter Gary Pettis, a full-count single by Rob Wilfong, a full-count walk to Wally Joyner, Reggie Jackson’s bases-loaded sacrifice fly on 3–1 and a full-count walk to Brian Downing.
At the Vet, the Mets plate a run in the top of the 14th only to have the Phillies score 2 runs to win, 9–8. Randy Niemann gives up 6 hits and 3 walks in the last two innings. The game took 5 hours 3 minutes and 14 pitchers and more twists than a soap opera to complete, and the Mets would rather forget that it happened. But it did: They blew a three-run lead in the bottom of the ninth inning and a one-run lead in the bottom of the 14th today, and suffered a galling defeat to the Philadelphia Phillies. The teams struggled from early afternoon into dusk in a remarkably gyrating game on national television, and they scored a combined total of 17 runs, made 36 hits and left 39 runners on base. But it all turned into an extravagant waste for the Mets as they lost for the first time this season. They took a 7–4 lead with four runs in the eighth inning, only to see the Phillies bounce back with three in the ninth for a tie. And they broke the tie with one run in the top of the 14th, only to see the Phillies roar back with four singles and one walk with the bases loaded for two runs and the game. The Phillies used eight pitchers, starting with 41-year-old Steve Carlton and ending with Charles Hudson, who was supposed to start next Monday’s game. The Mets used six pitchers, starting with Sid Fernandez and ending with their entire bullpen, which took the heat in both rallies by the Phillies — especially Roger McDowell in the ninth and Niemann in the 14th.
Johnny Ray hit a three-run homer off Lee Smith in the eighth inning as Pittsburgh rallied to beat Chicago, 3–1. The victory was the first for the Pirates in three games. Steve Kemp, a pinch-hitter, walked with one out in the eighth after Smith had replaced the Cubs’ starter, Matt Keough. After R. J. Reynolds struck out, Joe Orsulak singled and Ray hit a homer over the right-field wall. Rick Rhoden allowed four hits over eight innings, including Leon Durham’s home run in the fourth inning. Rhoden struck out five and walked two before Cecilio Guante came on in the ninth to earn his first save with the help of a diving catch by Orsulak in center field on Ryne Sandberg’s sinking line drive. Keough was subbing for Scott Sanderson, who was unable to start because of a strained muscle in his right side. Keough, seeking his first major league victory in two and a half seasons, blanked the Pirates on four hits over seven innings until being lifted for a pinch-hitter.
Nick Esasky hit a two-run homer to cap a three-run ninth inning rally to lift the Reds past the Padres, 3–2. With one out in the ninth, the pinch-hitter Max Venable doubled to knock out Lance McCullers in favor of Craig Lefferts. Dave Parker doubled in Venable to chase Lefferts. Parker advanced to third on Tim Stoddard’s wild pitch and Esasky hit a 1-0 pitch for his first homer to give the Reds a 3-2 lead.
John Tudor scattered five hits over six and one-third innings for his 18th straight victory at home and also singled and drove home two runs tonight, helping the St. Louis Cardinals remain the only unbeaten team in the major leagues with a 6–3 victory over the Montreal Expos. Tudor (2–0) struck out five and walked three in posting his 22nd triumph in his last 23 decisions. He got relief help from Ken Dayley and Todd Worrell as the Cardinals ran their record to 4–0. Montreal’s Floyd Youmans (0–1) surrendered an unearned run in the first inning — he committed a balk and then threw wildly to third on a pickoff attempt — before Tudor keyed a three-run third with an run-scoring single.
Scott Fletcher bounced a two-out single to left field in the bottom of the eighth inning to score Oddibe McDowell from second for the winning run, as the Texas Rangers edged the Baltimore Orioles, 2–1. Fletcher’s game-winning hit came after McDowell walked with two out and stole second. Two previous baserunners in the inning had been caught stealing and McDowell appeared to be picked off first, but the first basemen Eddie Murray dropped the pitcher Brad Havens’s throw and McDowell made it safely to second. The Texas reliever Greg Harris got the victory after Mickey Mahler went six and one-third innings and allowed one run on seven hits. Havens relieved Mike Flanagan with one out in the seventh.
Boston Red Sox 1, Chicago White Sox 3
Detroit Tigers 2, Cleveland Indians 6
Atlanta Braves 3, Houston Astros 4
Toronto Blue Jays 0, Kansas City Royals 1
San Francisco Giants 7, Los Angeles Dodgers 6
Seattle Mariners 10, Minnesota Twins 4
Milwaukee Brewers 3, New York Yankees 7
California Angels 9, Oakland Athletics 3
New York Mets 8, Philadelphia Phillies 9
Chicago Cubs 1, Pittsburgh Pirates 3
Cincinnati Reds 3, San Diego Padres 2
Montreal Expos 3, St. Louis Cardinals 6
Baltimore Orioles 1, Texas Rangers 2
Born:
Brad Brach, MLB pitcher (All-Star, 2016; San Diego Padres, Baltimore Orioles, Atlanta Braves, Chicago Cubs, New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds), in Freehold, New Jersey.
Chris Hawkins, NFL cornerback (Tennessee Titans), in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Died:
Valentin Kataev, 89, Russian-Ukrainian novelist and playwright (Embezzled).
History Diaries 