At the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Pripyat, Ukraine, the plant’s operators prepare to conduct a special test to see how an emergency water cooling system would fare in the event of a complete loss of power. The test will begin a little after 1 AM on Saturday, the 26th of April.
The test was to be conducted during the day-shift of 25 April 1986 as part of a scheduled reactor shutdown. The day shift had been instructed in advance on the reactor operating conditions to run the test, and a special team of electrical engineers was present to conduct the electrical test once the correct conditions were reached. As planned, a gradual reduction in the output of the power unit began at 01:06 on 25 April, and the power level had reached 50% of its nominal 3,200 MW thermal level by the beginning of the day shift.
The day shift was scheduled to perform the test at 14:15. Preparations for the test were carried out, including the disabling of the emergency core cooling system. Meanwhile, another regional power station unexpectedly went offline. At 14:00, the Kiev electrical grid controller requested that the further reduction of Chernobyl’s output be postponed, as power was needed to satisfy peak evening demand. Soon, the day shift was replaced by the evening shift.
At 23:04, the Kiev grid controller allowed the reactor shutdown to resume. The day shift had long since departed, the evening shift was also preparing to leave, and the night shift would not take over until midnight, well into the job. According to plan, the test should have been finished during the day shift, and the night shift would only have had to maintain decay heat cooling systems in an otherwise shut-down plant.
The night shift had very limited time to prepare for and carry out the experiment. Anatoly Dyatlov, deputy chief-engineer of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP), was present to direct the test. He was one of the test’s chief authors and he was the highest-ranking individual present. Unit Shift Supervisor Aleksandr Akimov was in charge of the Unit 4 night shift, and Leonid Toptunov was the Senior Reactor Control Engineer responsible for the reactor’s operational regimen, including the movement of the control rods. 25-year-old Toptunov had worked independently as a senior engineer for approximately three months.
Britain announced today that it was curtailing the studies of more than 200 Libyan aviation students and that they will have to leave the country. The Government said the Libyans will no longer be eligible to remain as students and will be deported if they do not leave voluntarily. It did not specify when they would be expelled if they failed to leave on their own. Authorities said the action was being taken for reasons of security. There was no public indication that any of the students had been involved in terrorist plotting, and the Government did not explain why it thought they posed a security threat. Today, 22 Libyan students ordered out of Britain earlier this week for reasons of security — one more than originally announced — were taken to Heathrow Airport under heavy guard and put on a Libyan Arab Airlines flight to Tripoli. The students chanted slogans denouncing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Reagan. Among those leaving was a student pilot named Abdel Massoud, 23 years old, who was reported to have telephoned the Tripoli radio and volunteered to fly a suicide mission after the American clash with Libyan patrol boats in the Gulf of Sidra this month. Britain broke diplomatic relations with Libya nearly two years ago after a police constable was shot and killed in front of the Libyan People’s Bureau, the equivalent of the embassy.
The move appeared to be another in a series of actions, taken by European nations with some fanfare since the American raid on Libya last week, to convince the Reagan Administration that its allies were prepared to cooperate in efforts to isolate Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s Government. In Paris, the Defense Ministry said today that it would reinforce the antiaircraft missile defenses on its Mediterranean coast to guard against possible Libyan attacks. The French Government also announced that it would reduce the number of Libyan diplomats in the country and restrict their travel outside the cities where they are stationed. The Foreign Ministry did not say how many Libyans would be expelled or when they would have to leave.
In Madrid, the Government ordered the expulsion of three Libyan diplomats and eight Libyan teachers and students. A Foreign Ministry statement said the Libyan commercial attache in Madrid and two embassy administrators had been told to leave “for taking part in activities incompatible with their functions.” It said the eight other Libyans were being expelled “because of their relation to activities contrary to state security.” The statement did not elaborate. In the last two days, five other countries — West Germany, Denmark, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands — have announced plans to expel Libyan nationals.
In Washington, officials at the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service said the United States had no general policy barring entry of Libyan students. James P. Callahan, a spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, said the department considered each case individually. Under a State Department policy adopted several years ago, Libyans may not come to the United States to take courses related to aviation or nuclear science. Any Libyan 16 years old or older who seeks a visa to enter the United States is subject to special security screening, Mr. Callahan said. In the year ended September 30, the United States issued visas to 86 Libyan students and 43 of their dependents. The immigration service estimates that there are 1,700 Libyan students in the United States, most of whom entered before 1985.
Children in London carried signs saying, “Reagan Terrorizes Me.” Under portraits of the President, other placards exclaimed, “Mad Dog No. 2.” Peering into the throng of demonstrators, a speaker warned benignly against the dangers of “anti-Americanism.” The scene was in Hyde Park, at a demonstration last weekend against the American bombing of Libya from bases in Britain, and the speaker who found it necessary to utter the caution was Tony Benn, the former Labor Party Cabinet minister and perennial campaigner for a military policy that would detach Britain from the Atlantic alliance. On this occasion, Mr. Benn was not only supporting his party’s policy of removing all American nuclear missiles from Britain but also calling for the closing of all American bases.
The French Defense Ministry said today that it would reinforce the antiaircraft missile defenses on its Mediterranean coast to guard against possible Libyan attacks. The ministry said the new missiles were installed between the Italian border and the Pyrenees after the American attack on Libya 10 days ago and Libyan threats to retaliate against southern European targets. The weapons are Roland 1 and Roland 2 surface-to-air missiles, which are made jointly by France and West Germany. The radar-guided missiles are designed to protect military installations and army units on the ground against low-flying aircraft. France is believed to be concerned specifically with guarding against possible attacks on American naval vessels that are in Marseilles and Toulon for routine repairs. Agence France-Presse reported that extraordinary security precautions have been taken for United States Navy personnel in Marseilles.
A car bomb exploded outside a hospital in central Madrid today, killing five Civil Guards and wounding eight other people, the police said. Officials said the blast appeared to have been the work of E.T.A., the Basque separatist group. It was the worst guerrilla attack in Spain in two years, the authorities said. The police said the bomb was set off by remote control in the morning rush hour as Civil Guards, just relieved from sentry duty at the Italian Embassy nearby, drove by in the upper-class district of Salamanca.
Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d said today that a new agreement between the United States and its European allies to share information about international terrorists was a sign of “significantly greater cooperation” in the Atlantic alliance. The effort to share information on the identity and movements of terrorists came out of meetings this week in the Netherlands between Mr. Meese and his European counterparts.
The United States is disturbed by Greece’s unwillingness to carry out the European Community restrictions against Libya that Athens joined in unanimously adopting on Monday, Western diplomats said today. The differences are viewed by diplomats as the first major shadow cast over what was apparently a reconciliation between Greece and the United States, which was capped by a visit last month by Secretary of State George P. Shultz. The Libyan issue was discussed this evening by Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou and the American Ambassador, Robert V. Keeley, at a meeting held at the American’s request.
A retired Israeli general, charged by the United States with conspiring to sell $2 billion in American-made weapons to Iran, was empowered by Israel to hold talks with foreigners on arms sales, a senior Israeli military official said today. But the official said the permit issued the retired officer, Brig. Gen. Abraham Bar-Am, was a standard “to whom it may concern letter” issued to scores of Israeli arms merchants. The official said the letter did not grant the right to negotiate weapons sales or to put agreements into effect -acts that required an additional permit signed by the Defense Minister.
Nine people were killed and 65 were wounded here today in fighting between Christian and Muslim forces in Beirut, the police reported. Most of the shells hit residential areas. The police said the 12-hour overnight battle, with howitzers, rockets and tank cannon, was the heaviest in five weeks along the line that divides the city into Christian and Muslim sectors. The fighting tapered off to sniper fire at daybreak. The battle began a few hours after the Lebanese Forces, the most powerful Christian militia, freed 33 Muslim hostages in a good-will gesture aimed at reviving peace negotiations.
An American communications officer at the United States Embassy in Yemen was shot from a passing car yesterday as he drove home from church in Sana, the capital, the State Department reported. In other attacks, the British manager of an American-owned subsidiary of Black & Decker, the tool maker, was shot and killed yesterday by a hooded gunman at his home near Lyons, France, and a bomb exploded early today in the building that houses the American Express office there, starting a fire and slightly wounding a passerby. Also yesterday, an explosion in Vienna shattered the office entrance of Saudi Arabia’s state-run airline. The police in Heidelberg, West Germany, meanwhile, reported that the unoccupied automobile of an American serviceman and a Canadian military van had been heavily damaged in separate arson attacks.
Afghan rebel commanders said today that their men were moving back into areas of southeastern Afghanistan that had been captured in a Soviet-Afghan offensive and that they were using prisoners to clear minefields. Leaders of several Moslem groups fighting the Communist Government said about 10,000 Soviet and Afghan troops had withdrawn after a three-weeklong drive in Paktia Province near the Pakistani border, in which Soviet commandos destroyed the main rebel base at Zhawar. Guerrilla commanders who returned from Paktia said their fighters were moving back into the base at Zhawar, using about 80 Afghan soldiers taken prisoner to clear mines laid by the Soviet commandos. They said two Afghan officers had been killed and five officers and men wounded while clearing the mines by hand.
The President began his trip to the Far East. He was optimistic as left Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, and brushed aside potential difficulties at the summit meeting of in Tokyo in such areas as trade and measures against terrorism. In Washington, the United States trade representative, Clayton K. Yeutter, said Mr. Reagan would ask the summit leaders to work toward ending barriers to farm trade. Protectionism in agriculture has not previously been a summit issue.
President Reagan’s meeting in Bali next week with the foreign ministers of non-Communist Southeast Asian countries is not likely to be the friendly encounter the White House has been predicting, according to officials in the region, who say feelings toward the United States are now frostier than at any time since the end of the Vietnam War. Mr. Reagan is scheduled to meet the foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines — after talks with President Suharto of Indonesia. In addition to raising problems between their association’s member nations and Washington, the ministers are to brief Mr. Reagan on a peace plan for Cambodia recently proposed by the guerrilla coalition fighting the Hanoi-backed Government in Phnom Penh. Economic issues are the immediate cause of the anti-American feeling. Farm legislation approved by Congress at the end of last year and a recently announced decision to put subsidized American rice on the world market, at prices undercutting those of traditional rice exporters, have infuriated some members of the association, known as ASEAN.
President Corazon C. Aquino has accepted an invitation from President Reagan to visit the United States, a spokesman said today. The announcement was confirmed in Los Angeles, where White House officials said President Reagan invited Mrs. Aquino during a telephone conversation Thursday night for a visit sometime in the fall. Mrs. Aquino’s spokesman, Rene Saguisag, said that during their three-minute conversation, which was the first direct contact Mr. Reagan has had with the new Philippine leader since she took office two months ago, Mr. Reagan invited her to visit Washington sometime after the American elections, and “she said she’d be delighted.” But the spokesman said such a visit could not be a top priority, given Mrs. Aquino’s heavy schedule in reorganizing her Government. “What she has really done is accepted in principle,” he said. “But at this time it is very low in her priorities because of the tremendous problems she faces here.”
Drug traffickers with automatic rifles and dynamite killed five police officers and an assistant district attorney in an ambush on a police convoy in a Peruvian coca-growing region, officials said today. Five other police officers were wounded in the ambush, which took place at midday Thursday along a jungle road 270 miles northeast of Lima, Deputy Interior Minister Agustin Mantilla said. The police captured four men who took part in the ambush, he said, but an undetermined number of others escaped.
Mswati III is crowned King of Swaziland, succeeding his father Sobhuza II. In a day of ceremonies secret to all but a few advisers, an 18-year-old schoolboy was installed today as King Mswati III of Swaziland. After the secret rites, the new King made his first public appearance, clad in beads and animal skins, carrying a cowhide shield and wearing red and white feathers in his hair. He said nothing but smiled and waved shyly to the invited representatives of more than 30 nations.
A mob hacked a black policeman to death with machetes and knives today during riots in Soweto after the police turned back throngs of young blacks protesting the arrests of 15 students. The black policeman, a sergeant, was killed by a crowd that invaded his home at midday. His was the only death confirmed by the police in Soweto, the township outside Johannesburg that has been a focal point in 19 months of protest by blacks against apartheid. Another black policeman’s home was set ablaze and soldiers shot a black youth who stoned their vehicle, the police said. Elsewhere, the police said a black Anglican bishop, Sigisbert Ndwandwe, who had worked with anti-apartheid activists and whose home was firebombed Wednesday, had been detained under security laws.
NASA asserted today that two New York Times articles depicting waste and mismanagement in the space program were “inaccurate” in some respects and gave “a misleading impression” of the agency’s performance. The agency did not address the great majority of the specific allegations reported in the articles, which were based on more than 500 government audits and other government documents. But it said the audits were management tools being effectively used to uncover and correct deficiencies. It said the audits had enabled NASA to save almost $750 million over an eight-year period. Harry R. Finley, a top official of the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress that conducted many of the critical audits, said today that his agency’s findings were portrayed accurately in the articles. He also asserted that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had not been responsive to auditors’ suggestions for managerial improvements. The space agency’s first detailed response to the articles came as sentiment rose in Congress to watch the agency more closely to prevent the kind of management defects depicted in the official government audits.
The Reagan Administration is preparing legislation that would limit the authority of governors to keep their National Guard units from being sent abroad for training. Pentagon officials describe the proposed legislation as a response to the decision by a handful of governors not to allow guardsmen from their states to train in Central America. Although the governors’ actions have so far prevented only 49 guardsmen from training in Central America, the decisions come at a time when President Reagan is maintaining a military presence in Honduras as a warning to Nicaragua. At the same time, he is trying to win Congressional support for the Nicaraguan rebels.
President Reagan goes to the South Portico balcony to view the band on the South Grounds.
An electronic fence would be erected around the Capitol grounds in Washington under an elaborate plan being considered by Congressional leaders, a spokesman for Bob Dole, the Senate majority leader, said today. The security plan, which would cost nearly $14 million, would include the fence, hydraulic gates, removal of the parking lot behind the Capitol and additional security guards, said the spokesman, Walt Riker.
Michael K. Deaver represented a foreign client at a meeting with an official of the National Security Council five months after he left his job as deputy White House chief of staff, according to a report he filed with the Justice Department. A Government ethics official said the meeting was within the law, but Congressional critics of Mr. Deaver strongly disagreed. David Martin, director of the Office of Government Ethics, sent a letter to the Justice Department today asking it to investigate whether Mr. Deaver had violated conflict-of-interest laws. Mr. Martin declined to produce the letter or explain what had prompted it. On Thursday five Democratic Senators sent a letter similar to Mr. Martin’s to Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d, setting in motion a procedure that can lead to the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate Mr. Deaver’s activities. Under the law, the Attorney General must respond within 30 days and tell the senators whether he has asked a three-judge Federal court to appoint an independent counsel, or, if not, why not.
In an emotional statement read today by a Federal district judge, Svetlana Ogorodnikov asserted that Richard W. Miller was not guilty of spying and that her own guilty plea last year was a sham. Mr. Miller, a former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is being tried for the second time on charges of passing secret bureau documents to the Soviet Union through Mrs. Ogorodnikov, a Russian emigre. “Richard Miller is not a traitor of his country,” Mrs. Ogorodnikov said in the statement read by Judge David V. Kenyon. The statement was taken in an unusual session Thursday in the privacy of the judge’s chambers. “I am not Russian spy,” Mrs. Ogorodnikov said. “I was helping Government. This is true, your honor. We are not guilty in this crime.” Later today, Judge Kenyon angrily asserted that one of Mr. Miller’s lawyers, Stanley Greenberg, had committed “a deliberate attempt to obstruct justice” and “gross misconduct” by trying to influence the selection of a new lawyer for Mrs. Ogorodnikov. Judge Kenyon said he was considering citing Mr. Greenberg for contempt of court. The judge had said Mrs. Ogorodnikov might need a new lawyer to protect her interests.
A man was arrested in the slaying of a Missouri bank president’s wife and the wounding of the executive and another bank official, the police said. The police identified the man as Roy G. White, 40 years old, of Houston, Missouri. Lieutenant Ralph Biele of the Missouri Highway Patrol said the investigation was continuing but declined to say how many other suspects might be sought. The police said that Wanda Byler, the wife of James Byler, president of the Farmers State Bank of Texas County, was slain Thursday by a gunman who had demanded $100,000 from Mr. Byler. When he and Loretta Kay Jordan, the bank’s executive vice president, took about $20,000 to the Byler home, Mrs. Byler was shot a dozen times and the two bankers wounded. State troopers were searching for suspects in heavily wooded areas within 20 miles of Raymondville, a town of 280 people.
Boston’s commuter rail service was halted today when unionized machinists and electricians joined striking railroad maintenance workers on picket lines. The 25,000 commuters who use the rail service were forced to find alternative transportation. The United Transportation Union joined the eight-week strike of the maintenance workers’ union in a show of solidarity after the company that owns the Boston & Maine and Maine Central Railroads, Guilford Transportation Industries, threatened to replace the striking maintenance workers if they did not return to work by 5 PM today. The maintenance workers are protesting job cuts.
The Federal Aviation Administration may reduce by several million dollars the record $9.5 million fine it proposed to assess against Eastern Airlines for violations of aircraft safety rules, industry sources said today. The airline has contested nearly all 72,000 violations the agency cited last month in proposing the fine, and F.A.A. officials have conceded after talks with the airline that there may have been errors. “There could possibly be some things wrong, but we are still talking to them about this,” said Robert F. Buckhorn, an F.A.A. spokesman.
The police arrested 47 people protesting Yale University’s investments in companies doing business in South Africa, while 36 Georgetown University students in Washington who resisted attempts to dismantle a shanty on the campus were also arrested. It was the fifth time in 12 days that demonstrators at Yale have been arrested in protest of South Africa’s racial policies. Since April 4, 322 arrests have been made at Yale. The Georgetown students, ignoring warnings from the school’s adminstration, erected the shanty in front of a building they had been occupying since April 11 to dramatize the plight of South African blacks. Thirty students were charged with unlawful entry. Six others were arrested when they tried to stop police vehicles from leaving the campus.
Dusty and sore of foot, nearly 500 peace marchers plunged into the southern Utah desert near St. George today to continue their cross-country protest against nuclear armaments in the face of reports that their effort was dead. They are no longer Pro-Peace, the jaunty army of 1,200 that paraded out of Los Angeles on March 1, bound for Washington with a message of nuclear disarmament. That organization foundered, insolvent and leaderless, in the desert outside Barstow, California, two weeks later. But as The Great American Peace March for Nuclear Disarmament, the hardy remnant of Pro-Peace has revived the march, pared participants to a carefully screened 475, and taken up the banners with a new determination and even a little money in the bank.
Union workers received smaller wage increases in the contracts settled in the first quarter of 1986 than they did the last time their labor contracts were negotiated, the Labor Department reported today. The Government said that workers covered by the latest contracts received wage increases averaging eight-tenths of 1 percent in the first year of the contract and 1.6 percent annually over the life of the contract.
Kickbacks in the awarding of subcontracts by big military contractors are widespread and institutionalized and present far more of a problem than generally believed, according to investigators for Congress and law enforcement agencies. Crackdowns on kickback rings have resulted in dozens of convictions in the last few years and investigators say the misconduct is part of a pattern of which they have only scratched the surface. Subcontracting, the purchase by a prime military contractor of supplies or services from other companies, is said to account for $50 billion a year in military spending. Kickbacks take various forms, investigators say. Sometimes a buyer for a prime contractor seeks cash or gifts from a supplier or bidder for awarding a subcontract. Sometimes it is the bidder who offers a gift. And sometimes several bidders get together with a buyer to scheme about how they can all become rich.
About 35,000 Washington State employees welcomed something extra in their paychecks today: the first tangible rewards of the state’s $482 million program to foster pay equity. The payments today reflected the out-of-court settlement of a lawsuit that asserted that people in jobs traditionally dominated by women were paid less than people in comparable jobs dominated by men. The average raise was $78 a month, or 5 percent, for those in the lower-paid jobs. Simultaneous breakfasts in Olympia, Seattle and Spokane began a day of celebration of the program, which lasts through 1992. State Representative Jennifer Belcher, chairman of the Legislature’s panel on pay equity, said: “We made it! Today, we changed the world. We have the entire world talking about how women are to be paid.”
As a round of primaries approaches next month, Democratic Party officials in Pennsylvania and other states are stepping up their efforts to alert voters to candidates on the Democratic ballot who support the political extremist Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. Dismayed by the statewide victories of two LaRouche supporters last month in the Democratic primary in Illinois, Democratic leaders say they are trying to identify candidates affiliated with Mr. LaRouche, which some say is a difficult task, and to assure that Democratic voters are aware of the group’s philosophy. “Really, it’s a test of the party,” said Edward Mezvinsky, chairman of the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania, where a primary will be held May 20. Mr. Mezvinsky announced Thursday that he was asking his county chairmen to begin compiling a list of all LaRouche-affiliated candidates in their areas and to treat the issue as “a priority.” He also challenged the LaRouche organization to release a full list of its candidates in Pennsylvania.
A panel of six leading scientists recommended today that the Environmental Protection Agency allow the Monsanto Company to conduct field tests on the first living gene-altered microbial pesticide next month in St. Charles, Mo. Monsanto’s pesticide, the third genetically engineered organism to reach the final stages of Federal regulatory review, is made from common bacteria that live in the roots of corn plants. It is designed to kill soil-dwelling corn pests that cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage each year. Although the agency is not bound to follow the recommendation, it has rarely opposed a decision made by one of its scientific advisory groups. Dr. John Moore, the agency’s Assistant Administrator for Pesticides and Toxic Substances, is expected to make the final decision May 12.
As the vanguard of guests were arriving this afternoon for the wedding of Maria Shriver to Arnold Schwarzenegger on Saturday, the police in Hyannis, Massachusetts were moving into position to guard against intruders and to separate the celebrities from the scores of reporters gathering. Miss Shriver, the daughter of Sargent and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, is co-anchor of the “CBS Morning News” television program. She and Mr. Schwarzenegger, the actor and bodybuilder, are to be married before about 500 guests at 11 A.M. in St. Francis Xavier Church, the Kennedy family’s parish in Hyannis.
Major League Baseball:
Jesse Barfield’s pop-fly double off Baltimore second baseman Alan Wiggins’ glove drove in Tony Fernandez in the 10th inning, giving the Toronto Blue Jays a 2–1 victory over the host Baltimore Orioles. Fernandez opened the inning with a single off reliever Don Aase, 1–2, and advanced to second on a groundout. After Willie Upshaw walked, Rich Bordi relieved Aase. George Bell struck out before Barfield blooped with his game-winning double. Mark Eichorn, 2–0, who relieved starter Doyle Alexander at the beginning of the eighth inning, got the victory.
Hubie Brooks and Tim Wallach hit successive home runs leading off the 11th inning today to lead Montreal to a 4–2 win over the Cubs in Chicago. Chicago’s loss ended a three-game winning streak. Brooks led off with his third homer, and two pitches later Wallach hit his second homer. Both blows came off Matt Keough (0–1) and made a winner of the reliever Jeff Reardon (2–1). Reardon came on in the 10th inning after Bob Dernier had broken an 0-for-18 slump with a single off George Riley and Thad Bosley had walked. Reardon got Shawon Dunston to fly out and struck out Gary Matthews, who was pinch-hitting, and Ryne Sandberg to end the threat.
Harold Baines broke a 7–7 tie with his second homer of the game, a two-run shot in the eighth inning tonight, giving the Chicago White Sox a 9–7 victory over the Detroit Tigers. Baines connected off Randy O’Neal (0–1) after a walk to Wayne Tolleson. The victory was only Chicago’s fifth in 15 games this season. The White Sox opened the scoring in the second on a leadoff double by Carlton Fisk and a single by Bryan Little. They increased the lead to 2–0 on Baines’s homer to right in the third. The Tigers took a 5–2 lead in the fifth on a run-scoring double by Pat Sheridan, a wild pitch by Richard Dotson, and a bases-clearing double by Darnell Coles.
The Astros beat the Reds, 3–1. Nolan Ryan may have pitched better, but he can’t remember pitching any harder for a complete-game victory. “That’s probably as much as I’ve struggled for an entire game since I can remember,” Ryan said after he scattered five hits to lead the Houston Astros. Ryan, 3–2, left seven Reds stranded, including the bases loaded in the second inning and runners on second and third in the sixth. Ryan, the all-time major league strikeout leader with 4,112, finished the evening with seven. “He pitched himself in and out of trouble, then he settled down,” Houston manager Hal Lanier said.
The Kansas City Royals shut out the Boston Red Sox, 6–0. Charlie Leibrandt pitched a five-hitter and got home-run support from George Brett and Darryl Motley to lead the Royals. Leibrandt (3–0) held the Red Sox hitless until Rich Gedman’s opposite-field double leading off the sixth. The 29-year-old left-hander had one strikeout and three walks as the Royals snapped a three-game losing streak. Brett drove in a run off Dennis Boyd (1–1) with a sacrifice fly in the first and hit a two-run, two-out homer in the third. Brett’s homer was his fourth.
Joe Johnson fired a four-hitter and Claudell Washington and Dale Murphy hit home runs to lead the Braves to a 4–1 triumph over the reeling Dodgers at Chavez Ravine. Johnson, a 24-year-old right-hander in his first full season with the Braves, struck out a career-high nine batters and retired 19 of the last 24 batters. He lost his bid for his first major league shutout when Greg Brock hit his third homer of the season with one out in the sixth inning. The Dodgers’ only other scoring bid came in the third when Steve Sax grounded a single through the middle with two out and went to third on Johnson’s errant pickoff throw. But Brock grounded out to third after Johnson, 3–0, loaded the bases with a pair of walks.
Roy Smalley belted a two-run homer and Bert Blyleven scattered eight hits — one of them Reggie Jackson’s 535th career homer — to lead the Minnesota Twins to a 7–4 victory over the visiting California Angels. Smalley gave the Twins a 4–3 lead in the sixth with his third home run of the season. Smalley homered after Kent Hrbek drew a walk from Jim Slaton, 2–1.
The wild and wacky world of knuckleball pitchers produced 14 walks, five unearned runs, four passed balls, three wild pitches and two errors at Yankee Stadium tonight. And that was in the first six innings. Sanity was restored after that, and the Yankees went on to gain their sixth consecutive victory, a 10–3 decision over the Cleveland Indians. Joe Niekro and Tom Candiotti, two of the four knuckleball pitchers in the major leagues, faced each other without incident in Cleveland last week, but this time they unleashed all the bizarre tricks that can occur when knuckleballers stand on the mound.
Moose Haas became the first four-game winner in the major leagues Friday night, giving up one run in five innings as the Oakland A’s beat the Seattle Mariners 11–2. Haas, 4–0, left the game after five innings because of stiffness in his right elbow. The 30-year-old right-hander, off to the best start of his career, struck out six and allowed four hits, including Alvin Davis’ home run in the third inning. Oakland scored four runs in the first inning, helped by Matt Young’s wildness. Young, 2–2, walked the first three A’s batters and Carney Lansford’s forceout produced the first run. Steve Henderson then hit a two-run double and Donnie Hill followed with an RBI single that knocked out Young.Davis homered for the fourth straight game, his fifth home run this season, in the third, but Jose Canseco’s run-scoring single in the fifth off Seattle reliever Bill Swift made it 5–1. Steve Ontiveros relieved Haas in the sixth and gave up an RBI double to Jim Presley in the inning. The A’s scored three times in their half of the sixth. Hill singled home one run, another scored on Alfredo Griffin’s forceout and an error by shortstop Spike Owen allowed the third run to score. Tony Phillips, Canseco and Dusty Baker added RBI singles in the eighth.
Luis Aguayo, Milt Thompson and Mike Schmidt drove in two runs each as the Phillies routed the Pittsburgh starter, Rick Reuschel, for five runs in the first three innings, winning 6–3. Kevin Gross, 0–2 with a 7.04 earned-run average entering the game, allowed six hits and held the Pirates to one run before being relieved by Steve Bedrosian in the eighth inning.
One out after Graig Nettles ties the score with a solo home run in the bottom of the 12th inning, Padres reliever Craig Lefferts belts his first Major League home run to beat the Giants, 9–8. The Giants had taken an 8–7 lead in the top of the 12th, but Nettles led off the bottom of the 12th with his first homer of the season to tie the game, and then Lefferts (2–0) won it. Reliever Greg Minton (1–1) surrendered the homers and took the loss.
The Mets kept blazing along tonight on their early-season rampage, and everything worked: Dwight Gooden mastered the St. Louis Cardinals on five singles, Ray Knight hit two home runs and the Mets subdued their rivals by 9–0 and won for the seventh straight time. It was also the fifth straight loss for the Cardinals, who have managed only 12 singles and nothing else in the first two nights of the four-game battle for first place, which the Mets now lead by two and a half games. And the Cardinals were utterly tamed by Gooden, who needed only 96 pitches to get 27 outs and who pitched to only 30 batters to do it. “They won it last year, and they’re out to get us,” Gooden said later in his impassive way. “We never blew them out, though, until tonight.”
The Brewers crushed the Rangers, 11–1. Milwaukee’s Teddy Higuera shackled Texas on five hits and Paul Molitor drove in four runs with three doubles and a single, powering the Brewers. The Brewers, who had lost eight of their last 10 games, snapped a three-game losing streak as Higuera improved his record to 21. Higuera struck out nine and did not walk a batter.
Toronto Blue Jays 2, Baltimore Orioles 1
Montreal Expos 4, Chicago Cubs 2
Chicago White Sox 9, Detroit Tigers 7
Cincinnati Reds 1, Houston Astros 3
Boston Red Sox 0, Kansas City Royals 6
Atlanta Braves 4, Los Angeles Dodgers 1
California Angels 4, Minnesota Twins 7
Cleveland Indians 3, New York Yankees 10
Seattle Mariners 2, Oakland Athletics 11
Philadelphia Phillies 6, Pittsburgh Pirates 3
San Francisco Giants 8, San Diego Padres 9
New York Mets 9, St. Louis Cardinals 0
Milwaukee Brewers 11, Texas Rangers 1
Stock prices gained a little ground yesterday in a dull session. Investors were too worried about the weak dollar to buy more stocks, yet too mindful of the market’s recent strength to sell. Bernard Spilko, managing director of Julius Baer Securities, said Wall Street continued to look at the dollar as a source of potential problems. “They’re concerned the Japanese won’t be as aggressive” purchasers when the Treasury does its next refunding, he added. Analysts said this would hurt the bond market, which, in turn, could weaken the performance of stocks.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1835.57 (+3.85)
Born:
Gwen Jorgensen, American triathlete (Olympic gold medal, 2016), in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Alexei Emelin, Russian National Team and NHL defenseman (Olympics, 2014; Montreal Canadiens, Nashville Predators), in Togliatti, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union.
Daniel Sharman, English actor (“Teen Wolf”), in Hackney, London, England, United Kingdom.
History Diaries 