Senior Soviet officials asserted today that a “turning point” had been reached in the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident and that the plant no longer threatened a “catastrophe.” The officials did not explain what catastrophe had been avoided or what findings led to their conclusion. It was the first time in the more than two weeks since an explosion set Unit 4 at the Chernobyl plant ablaze and touched off an international furor that the Russians had used the term “catastrophe” and acknowledged the enormous dangers posed by the accident. In Washington, David Cohen, a spokesman for the interagency task force monitoring the Chernobyl situation, asked about the Soviet assertion that the reactor no longer posed a major threat, said, “That’s hard for anyone to confirm.” But he added, “We have no real reason to doubt that.” As for Soviet acknowledgment that the possibility of a catastrophe had existed, he said, “That’s entirely consistent with what the task force had been cautioning.” Until now the most that Soviet press accounts had said was that “the situation remains complex,” and the impression that the press and official communiques consistently fostered was that the reactor was under control and conditions were steadily improving. Western reports of potential dangers were described as “propaganda hysteria.”
Soviet officials have given piecemeal and often contradictory information over the last two weeks on the state of the reactor, ranging from assertions that the fire had been extinguished to reports that the graphite core was generating heat. “The situation at the Chernobyl atomic power station no longer poses a major threat,” Yevgeny P. Velikhov, vice president of the Academy of Sciences and a leading physicist, told the press agency Tass. “Today marked a turning point in the situation.” He added: “Theoretically, until today, there existed the possibility of a catastrophe since a large amount of fuel and reactor graphite remained in an overheated condition. Now that possibility is no more.” The television evening news showed a jubilant atmosphere at the emergency disaster headquarters at Chernobyl. Ivan S. Silayev, a Deputy Prime Minister and an official of the Government investigating commission, said: “Of course, this is a historic event. The danger is over.” Mr. Silayev showed an aerial photograph taken today of the power station that he said showed no smoke or “glowing spots.” He said these observations and a series of analyses and tests led to the conclusion that “the main danger was behind.” It was possible that infrared temperature readings from inside the reactor’s graphite core had dropped to levels that precluded a meltdown.
With the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Ukraine, the Soviet Union may have unintentionally created a vast field experiment that could shed light on some of the most disputed questions facing the nuclear industry in the United States. These questions are central to the emergency planning and safety changes undertaken after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, and even to the advisability of opening two multibillion-dollar reactors that are awaiting licenses. The unresolved issues on which the Chernobyl disaster might shed some light include the meteorological behavior of clouds of radioactive contaminants; the feasibility of the large-scale decontamination of equipment, property and people, and the levels of radiation at which various illnesses, both acute and long-term, can be expected. “Hiroshima was a major lab, and now this will be another one,” said Ellyn R. Weiss, general counsel of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit nuclear safety group. The accident, which according to some reports resembles the “worst case” scenarios developed by United States Government officials for reactors here, is suddenly a real-world example of the “what if” questions asked by skeptics and safety engineers in their planning.
Almost as many bone marrow transplantations were probably done last week as a result of the Soviet nuclear accident as would ordinarily be done in a month in a major transplant center in the United States. But the difficulties of doing such operations after a major accident are far greater than the problems encountered by experienced transplant teams in established medical programs. Radiation victims from the Chernobyl reactor accident in the Ukraine are likely to need treatment essentially all at once, experts note, and the amount of radiation each has received may not be known. The lack of knowledge of the dose and unavoidable delays in doing the transplants can greatly complicate treatment. Even under the best of circumstances, a bone marrow transplant is usually a life-and-death battle to save the patient. Often the issue is not decided for weeks, and the patient has to be given extraordinary protection from infection, bleeding and other problems during that time. The patient will be weak and subject to hemorrhage and to life-threatening infections from even the most minor germs.
Secretary of State George P. Shultz said today that Congress was threatening to deeply impair the Administration’s foreign and counterterrorism policies by its recent budget cuts. He said he would have “to drop everything else” to lobby for restoration of the funds. His voice often raised in anger, he said the Administration had had to “squeeze” money to give the Philippines even an additional $150 million in aid. And he said he saw no way of finding more money for that country, or for Haiti, South Korea, Thailand and other needy nations, unless money on the verge of being cut from the budget was restored. Mr. Shultz also said the failure of the Senate in particular to back the program for enhanced security at American embassies could cause “another tragedy” at some mission overseas. He spoke as his Air Force plane headed back to Washington from a stopover in Hawaii at the end of a trip to the Far East. Mr. Shultz summoned reporters to the front of the aircraft to deliver an impassioned appeal for the foreign aid and State Department money that has been cut by the Senate and by the House Budget Committee. The House has to vote on the budget resolution, and it will then be reconciled by both the Senate and the House. Mr. Shultz pointed out that the Administration aid request for the 1987 fiscal year was for $22.6 billion, and that the Senate had voted $17.8 billion and the House committee $17 billion. The cuts were thus severe, he said, amounting to more than 20 percent.
Syria said today that it had ordered the expulsion of three British diplomats in retaliation for the ouster by Britain of three Syrian envoys on Saturday. The three members of the Syrian Embassy ordered ousted by Britain were involved in an investigation into terrorist activities in Britain. The move came after the Syrian Ambassador, Loutof Allah Haydar, refused to waive the envoys’ diplomatic immunity. Britain wanted to question the three in connection with an attempt to plant explosives on an Israeli jumbo jet at Heathrow Airport last month and other terrorist acts. In London today, a spokesman for the Foreign Office called the Syrian expulsion order “quite unjustified and regrettable,” but said Britain was not contemplating further measures. The Foreign Office added that although the agreement on terrorism reached at the Tokyo economic summit meeting last week had played no direct role in London’s decision, the move was representative of the harder line taken by the seven major industrialized nations at the Tokyo parley. “The summit agreement has nothing to do with the fact that these people were allegedly engaged in planning terrorist activities in Britain, and that is something we would not allow,” a spokesman said. “But the speed and determination with which the Government acted in this case does reflect a new mood.”
The police clashed with hundreds of demonstrators early today outside the east London printing plant of Rupert Murdoch, the newspaper publisher. The police said 46 people were arrested and nine injured. Scotland Yard said about 3,000 people, including dismissed employees and their supporters, began picketing the plant on Saturday. After several hours of quiet demonstrations, mounted policemen charged into a group of about 400 pickets at a street intersection as trucks carrying two weekly newspapers, The Sunday Times and News of the World, were leaving, reporters said. Demonstrators hurled rocks, bottles and smoke bombs at the police, reporters said. Earlier this year, Mr. Murdoch dismissed 5,500 employees and began printing at the high-technology plant that has been the site of weekend demonstrations since January 25.
At least eight protests, most of them student demonstrations broken up by the secret police, have been held in Kabul in support of the former Afghan Communist Party leader, Babrak Karmal, Western diplomats said today. They quoted witnesses from the Afghan capital as saying the latest rally was held Tuesday and that the police beat up and hauled away two busloads of high school girls who chanted: “Death to Najibullah! We want Karmal! Out with the Soviets! We want an Islamic Government!” The diplomats said the pro-Karmal protests began on April 30 and picked up on May 2, but Kabul seemed calmer later in the week. It was announced on May 4 that Mr. Karmal had resigned his party post for health reasons but kept the presidency. Mr. Najibullah was chosen as the new party chief.
The Jatiya Party of Bangladesh’s President H. M. Ershad has won 132 of 264 contests decided by last week’s parliamentary elections, officials said today after completing the vote count. The opposition Awami League came in second with 70 seats and smaller partners in the Awami-led eight-party alliance received 20 seats. A Muslim fundamentalist party got 10, the pro-Moscow Communist Party won five and independents won 27. The results were thrown out in 36 of the 300 districts. The balloting, which began Wednesday, was tainted by violence and charges of widespread vote fraud. The Election Commission temporarily halted the vote count on Thursday after the ruling party fell behind. The 36 voided elections will be contested again next week, a source said today.
China said today that it would launch two American communications satellites, moving to fill gaps in the commercial space business left by three major American launch failures this year. The official China Daily said a Houston-based company, Teresat, and China’s Great Wall Industry Corporation, a division of the Ministry of Astronautics, had signed a memorandum of understanding to launch two satellites with China’s Long March-3 rocket by December of 1987.
American officials, normally circumspect about problems with Mexico, have begun issuing open denunciations of what they say is a huge increase in drug trafficking and related Government corruption. United States figures show that Mexican production of heroin and marijuana are rising dramatically, while Mexican dealers have also become major traffickers in cocaine, which has gained them more than $1 billion a year. Crop eradication has slowed, meanwhile, and American officials say they believe that even the governors of some Mexican states are now taking bribes from drug dealers. Mexican officials do not dispute the notion that the drug problem has grown worse. But in a meeting with members of the United States Congress this year, Sergio Garcia Ramirez, the Mexican Attorney General, said drug trafficking was on the increase worldwide. Many other countries are in the same position as Mexico, he said, adding that Mexico was fighting the problem as aggressively as it could.
Haitian Government officials searching for money believed embezzled by President Jean-Claude Duvalier before he fled the country say that they have traced the transfer out of Haiti of more than $300 million and that he may have hidden as much as $900 million in foreign banks. Minister of Justice Francois Latortue said most of the $300 million was sent to banks in Switzerland. Other officials said some of the money went to at least two banks in New York, the Chase Manhattan Bank and Citibank. A spokesman for Chase who asked not to be identified said, “We did an investigation and it is our understanding that there aren’t any accounts whatsoever” belonging to the Duvaliers deposited at Chase. The investigation was made last month, he said.
President Daniel Ortega Saavedra has indicated that Nicaragua is not ready to sign a Central American peace agreement that has been drawn up by the Contadora group. The draft agreement includes a provision that could limit the size of Central American armies and arsenals. Mr. Ortega told a group of factory workers in Managua Saturday that “not one rifle will leave Nicaragua in any negotiation.” ‘We are not going to disarm the revolution,’ he said. Nicaragua appears to be the only Central American nation reluctant to sign the draft agreement drawn up by the four countries that compose the Contadora group — Mexico, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela. The group has asked all Central American nations to be prepared to sign the agreement at a meeting scheduled for June 6. Diplomats from Central American and Contadora countries have scheduled weekend sessions in Panama between now and June 6 to put finishing touches on the agreement. Mr. Ortega said Saturday that Nicaragua would take part in next weekend’s session. “Nicaragua will take its reasonable and logical positions to the Panama meeting and will not make any commitment to disarm itself,” he said. “The defensive arms that the Nicaraguan people have cannot be the object of negotiation. We can speak of offensive arms, yes, but defensive weapons, the rifles and cannons in the hands of the people, are not negotiable.”
Capping three years of bitter discord, virtually all the military commanders fighting under Eden Pastora Gomez, the Nicaraguan rebel leader, have cut their ties with him and agreed to wage a joint campaign with American-backed rebels. The decision leaves Mr. Pastora as a commander without an army. His top six military lieutenants, who lead 1,000 to 2,000 rebel fighters, renounced his authority on Saturday and allied themselves with the American-backed United Nicaraguan Opposition rebel group, which includes the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, a guerrilla army based in Honduras. The move is likely to strengthen the hand of political leaders within the United Nicaraguan Opposition who are gathering in Miami this week for a showdown with more conservative rebel leaders in the group over who should control the war and the political program of the rebel movement. The apparent loss of his troops comes after a three-year period when Mr. Pastora, 49 years old, moved from one political or military mishap to another.
A South African policeman killed three black youths in Soweto and a bus driver was burned to death in overnight violence, the authorities said today. A police spokesman, Capt. C. J. Marais, said a policeman in Soweto, the largest segregated black township near Johannesburg, opened fire on a crowd of about 60 blacks stoning a Government automobile Saturday night, killing three black youths. In Guguletu township near Cape Town, a black bus driver died of burns after a gang of blacks attacked the vehicle and set it on fire, Captain Marais said. Meanwhile, policemen and soldiers continued to search houses and set up roadblocks today in Alexandra township near Johannesburg. No incidents of violence were reported there.
The Senate tax revision bill provides a more delicate balance between winning and losing for middle-income taxpayers than the tax bill passed by the House last December, according to an analysis of individual samples. Under either bill, a majority of taxpayers are projected to receive a tax cut, while a minority will either see their tax bills little changed or increased. The Senate plan would provide on average a smaller tax cut for individuals, chiefly because it curtails many more tax benefits than the House version.
The President and First Lady return to the White House from their trip to Camp David.
The President and First Lady enjoy dinner with Mr. Ted Graber, decorator, William Haines Company, Beverly Hills, California.
Emergency negotiations between Amtrak engineers and the national rail line averted, at least temporarily, a strike threatened for midnight tonight that would have crippled passenger service in the Northeast and perhaps elsewhere. “We anticipate normal operations tomorrow,” said Clifford Black, a spokesman for Amtrak, which operates a passenger railroad in the Northeast and contracts with other roads to haul its passenger trains in the rest of the country. But William Hausleiter, the general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, said the threatened strike had only been postponed. “The strike is not canceled,” he said. “Its date of effectuation is pending.” He said the railroad and union officials will meet here on Tuesday to discuss “a whole program” of proposed changes in working conditions for engineers.
The number of Federal inmates whose paroles were revoked because they committed new crimes doubled between 1979 and 1985, the Bureau of Justice Statistics said today. The bureau, a Justice Department agency, also said in a report that inmates released from Federal prisons from 1980 through 1984 served little more than half the average sentence received, about 32 months. The study said 49 percent of Federal offenders convicted between July 1, 1984, and June 30, 1985, were sentenced to prison and 38 percent were given probation. The longer an offender’s sentence, the smaller proportion of that sentence was served, the study said. Criminals sentenced to 1 to 5 years in prison served less than 1.5 years, about 63 percent of their sentences. Offenders sentenced to 15 to 20 years served an average 5.75 years, or 38 percent of their sentence. Fewer Federal inmates ended their parole supervision successfully than did those sentenced to probation, the study said.
Anatoly B. Shcharansky thanked hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers yesterday for raising the “voice of freedom” year after year in behalf of Soviet Jews who are imprisoned, persecuted or denied the right to emigrate. Mr. Shcharansky, the human-rights activist who was freed from a Soviet prison in February, delivered his message at the annual Solidarity Sunday for Soviet Jewry, a rally at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in Manhattan. The last nine years, his wife, Avital, had spoken for him at the rallies while he languished in labor camps and jails. “My K.G.B. interrogators, my prison guards, they tried to convince me that I was alone, powerless in their hands,” Mr. Shcharansky told the crowd, some of whom had marched to the plaza near the United Nations along a parade route that began at Fifth Avenue and 64th Street. The police estimated the audience at 300,000.
Back in Baton Rouge this weekend after his trial, mistrial, retrial and ultimately acquittal, Governor Edwin W. Edwards, aiming toward the television cameras, had a few carefully chosen words for his constituency. Mr. Edwards, framed by the yellow ribbons fluttering on the huge white columns of the Governor’s mansion, said Saturday that the task now facing the state was going to be “a lot tougher than the trial, because the truth was all we needed in the trial. How to grapple with the state’s fiscal problems is another matter.” Moments after his acquittal Saturday in New Orleans, Mr. Edwards, a 58-year-old Democrat in his third term, was back working the crowds that invariably follow him. He looked dapper and relaxed after his two trials and the investigation that preceded them, 19 months in all. It was an ordeal that kept him occupied when leadership was sorely needed and eroded his popularity even among his most fanatical supporters.
The espionage trial of Richard W. Miller reached a peak last week when the prosecutors and defense clashed over the motives of a Russian emigre who testified that Mr. Miller was innocent. Mr. Miller, the first agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ever charged with espionage, is accused of conspiring with the emigre, Svetlana Ogorodnikov, and her husband, Nikolay, to pass classified documents to the K.G.B., the Soviet intelligence agency, for a promised $65,000 in cash and gold. Mr. Miller’s first trial last year ended when a jury that was heavily for conviction declared itself deadlocked At times in the two and a half months of the second trial spectators have remarked that the proceedings were like a soap opera, with testimony about an affair between Mr. Miller and Mrs. Ogorodnikov and about Mr. Miller’s foibles as an overweight and eccentric F.B.I. agent. Adding to that was testimony by Mrs. Ogorodnikov that another bureau agent, John Hunt, now retired, was also her lover and had taken her to have an abortion.
The Customs Service plans to begin charging $5 per person for inspecting the luggage of travelers entering the United States by plane or ship, the agency announced today. The fees, authorized in legislation passed by Congress last year and signed by President Reagan last month, will be collected starting July 7. There will be no fees for passengers from Canada, Mexico, Caribbean countries or United States territories unless they come aboard their own planes or boats, the announcement said. Fees will not be charged for commercial transactions.
A regional office of the Federal Aviation Administration, under scrutiny for its handling of a major airline safety inspection, has come under separate investigation for financial misdealings and “allegations of a criminal nature,” internal reports show. The office, the aviation agency’s Western-Pacific Region headquarters in Los Angeles, was cited in reports over two years by the inspector general of the Department of Transportation, according to officials and documents. The office, one of the agency’s largest, has about 5,000 employees and monitors aviation safety in California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii. #2 Officials Have Left Agency One report said funds needed for regulatory operations had been channeled to a multimillion-dollar human relations program for which contracts were divided to avoid procurement rules and contractors were hired who were close to top regional management officials.
University of New Mexico disputes between its president and its regents have led the president, Tom J. Farer, to announce he will leave. The disputes are partly over who runs the university. But they also grow out of the century-old tensions between the state’s old Hispanic society pushing against the dominance of the Anglo-Saxon culture. Farer, complaining that its Regents treat him like a butler who might steal the family silver, has announced he will leave by the end of the year. The Board of Regents is hardly trying to stop him; three of the five members are aligned against him. The decision of Farer, to quit grows partly out of his view that the board majority has engaged in “petty malice and day-to-day pecking at the heels of the administration.” The leader of the majority, former Governor Jerry Apodaca, the board’s president, says the Regents are only trying to represent the taxpayers’ point of view on operation of the university.
Students are to be back in school Monday in Warren, Rhode Island, for the first time since April 21 after teachers ratified new contract, ending a 3-week strike over pay issues. Under the agreement, teachers will receive four pay raises totaling 10 percent over the two-year term of the contract. The district’s 1,400 students will attend classes until July 9 to make up lost days.
A federal judge’s decision to hold the country’s two foremost Roman Catholic Church groups in contempt of court dramatizes a continuing controversy over the rights of religious groups to get involved in politics. At its narrowest, the contempt citation Thursday grew out of the refusal of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the United States Catholic Conference to turn over some subpoenaed documents to a Federal judge in New York. In that court case, a group called Abortion Rights Mobilization is demanding that the Internal Revenue Service revoke the tax-exempt status of the conferences, saying they have organized a political campaign to support and defeat individual political candidates on the basis of their positions on abortion. The Internal Revenue Code, while allowing some political activity by organizations that are exempted from taxation, prohibits campaigning for candidates.
An easing in the rumbling beneath Mount St. Helens and a change in seismic readings gave geologists new indications today that a dome-building eruption of the volcano was under way. The University of Washington geophysics department reported that quake activity beneath the peak, still hidden by clouds, has dropped from high to moderate levels, according to Steven Brantley, a spokesman for the United States Geological Survey. “This type of signal commonly appears once magma has reached the surface of the dome,” he said.
Alain Prost of France sped away from the pole position today to win his third consecutive Monaco Grand Prix and take the lead in the Formula I auto racing world championship standing. Prost, the current world champion, finished 25 seconds ahead of Keke Rosberg of Finland in a one-two sweep for the McLaren team. Brazil’s Ayrton Senna in a Lotus was third, Britain’s Nigel Mansell in a Williams came in fourth and the two French Ligier drivers, Rene Arnoux and Jacques Laffite, were fifth and sixth, respectively.
After 13 days, which included six exhausting games and 47 minutes 57 seconds of emotional, physical and brilliantly contested basketball, it was all up to the man who had been in that kind of situation so many times before. With just three seconds remaining in the seventh and deciding game of the playoff series between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Philadelphia 76ers, Julius Erving, ball in hand, could decide whose season would continue and whose would end. A sellout crowd of 11,052 anxious fans and a national television audience watched and waited. But Erving, often the hero, missed a wide-open jump shot from 15 feet away. The errant shot allowed the Bucks to gain an exciting 113-112 victory that moved them into the Eastern Conference final against the Boston Celtics. That series begins Tuesday at Boston Garden.
Major League Baseball:
Ron Roenicke’s two-out single in the ninth inning drove in Von Hayes from second base as the Philadelphia Phillies eked out a 2–1 win over the Atlanta Braves. Hayes led off the inning with a double against the reliever Craig McMurtry (1–2). Darren Daulton then walked, and McMurtry retired the next two batters before Roenicke singled to right. The victory went to Steve Bedrosian (2–1), who entered the game in the eighth inning. Bedrosian, traded to Philadelphia in the offseason, got one victory and one save in the three-game series. The Braves had tied the game against Bedrosian in the eighth. With one out, Andres Thomas walked, went to third on Dale Murphy’s single and scored on Bob Horner’s sacrifice fly. Philadelphia had broken a scoreless tie in the top of the eighth. McMurtry, who had taken over for the starter David Palmer, got the first two outs before walking Greg Gross. Juan Samuel then sent a drive off the third baseman Ken Oberkfell’s glove into the left-field corner for a run-scoring double. Steve Carlton started for the Phillies and pitched five scoreless innings before leaving the game with lower back spasms. Carlton, who has won only one of six decisions this seasons, gave up three hits and struck out five while walking two.
Rick Dempsey hits a 5th-inning grand slam, off Charlie Leibrandt, to provide all of Baltimore’s scoring as they beat the Royals, 4–3. The defeat was the fifth in six games for Kansas City (12–16). Dempsey, who had only seven hits in 37 previous times at bat, connected for his fourth homer of the season, and his second career slam, after the Orioles loaded the bases with none out on a double by Juan Beniquez, a single by Mike Young, and a walk to Floyd Rayford. The drive into the left-field bleachers came on a 1–0 pitch from Charlie Leibrandt (4–1,) who had allowed one hit through the first four innings and five over all in the game. Storm Davis (3–1) who stranded five runners in scoring position during his six-inning stint, notched the victory with relief help from Brad Havens and Don Aase.
The Angels downed the Brewers, 5–1. Reggie Jackson hit his 536th career home run, tying Mickey Mantle for sixth place on the career list, to highlight the California victory. Jackson’s bases-empty homer with one out in the fifth, his sixth of the season, was his first since April 25 and gave the Angels a 4–1 lead. Jackson moved into a tie with Mantle, 37 behind No. 5 Harmon Killebrew. Jim Slaton (4–1) went the first six innings to become California’s first four-game winner with the help of Doug Corbett.
Bob Dernier drove in two runs and stole home and Davey Lopes hit a homer to lead Chicago to a 9–5 victory over the San Diego Padres. Steve Trout (2–0) lasted only five innings but helped his cause with a two-run single in a four-run second inning. Dernier, getting his first hit in a week, doubled home two in the seventh before stealing home. Mark Thurmond (2–2) was the loser. Lee Smith got the final out for his fourth save.
The White Sox edged the Indians, 5–4. Tim Hulett beat out a high bouncer to the mound to score the pinch-runner Julio Cruz from third base in the eighth inning, snapping a tie and giving Chicago a sweep of the three-game series. Hulett’s hit bounced high in front of the plate, and the reliever Ernie Camacho’s throw to first was late. The White Sox had trailed by 4–3 entering the eighth inning, but Harold Baines walked to start the inning and Jerry Hairston singled him to second, finishing the Cleveland starter Tom Candiotti (2–3). Camacho retired the first two hitters he faced, but Bobby Bonilla then hit a run-scoring single to tie the game and send Cruz from first to third. Hulett followed with the winning hit.
Dan Petry pitched Detroit’s first complete game of the season with a four-hitter and got home run support from Lance Parrish and Pat Sheridan in the second inning as Detroit snapped a four-game losing streak, beating the Twins, 4–1. After giving up a leadoff single to Randy Bush in the second, Petry (3–2) went five innings without giving up a hit before Steve Lombardozzi broke his shutout with a home run in the seventh.
Tim Raines delivered a run-scoring single and ended the game by throwing out Steve Sax at the plate today as the Montreal Expos extended their winning streak to eight games with a 4–3 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. With the Dodgers trailing by a run, Sax singled with one out in the ninth and stole second with two outs. Bill Madlock then singled sharply to left field, and Raines charged the ball and unleashed a perfect, one-hop throw to the catcher Mike Fitzgerald that nailed the sliding Sax. The winner Joe Hesketh (1–3) allowed five hits and struck out nine in six innings for his first victory since August 13. Jeff Reardon went the final two and two-thirds innings and hung on for his fourth save. Bob Welch (3–2) took the loss.
The Mets came to the end of their seven-game winning streak yesterday when they lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 3–2, before 44,236 wondering fans at Shea Stadium, and guess who the losing pitcher was? Dwight Gooden, of all people. In his briefest and least rewarding appearance since last August 15, the 21-year-old prodigy pitched five uncommonly difficult innings and was tagged for eight hits and three runs and his first defeat of the season. And the most damage was inflicted by 45-year-old Pete Rose, the playing manager of the Reds, who enacted a tense little drama against Gooden with the bases loaded, two down and a count of three balls and two strikes in a scoreless game. It was a rare moment of baseball theater, and it peaked when Rose lined a fastball that skipped off the top of Tim Teufel’s glove into right-center field, and all three runners scored. After that, the Mets scored single runs in the fifth and sixth innings and threatened to score in three other innings, but they never recovered from the confrontation between the old master and the young master.
Rich Gedman went 4 for 4 and Dennis (Oil Can) Boyd and two relievers combined on a seven-hitter today as the Boston Red Sox survived four Oakland home runs to beat the A’s, 6–5. The victory enabled the Red Sox to move into first place in the American League East. In winning their fifth straight game, the Red Sox handed the A’s pitcher Moose Haas his first loss of the year. Haas (6–1) brought a 1.65 earned run average into the game, but gave up 10 hits and six runs to the Red Sox in eight and two-thirds innings. Boyd (3–3) scattered four hits over seven innings before needing relief help from Bob Stanley and Joe Sambito.
After Mark Bailey and Dickie Thon hit 9th inning homers to tie the Pirates at 3 apiece, Pittsburgh’s Bill Almon ends it in the 12th with an inside-the-park homer to give the Bucs a 4–3 win over Houston. Almon hit a shot into the right-field corner off the reliever Charles Kerfeld (3–1) that rebounded off the wall and eluded Terry Puhl, who slipped chasing the ball. Almon scored for his fifth homer of the season. DeLeon (1–0) blanked the Astros on one hit over three and two-thirds innings in his first appearance since being called up last week from the Pirates’ farm club in Hawaii. DeLeon was 2–19 for Pittsburgh last season. With the Pirates leading, 3–1, Bailey and Thon led off the ninth inning with consecutive homers off the reliever Jim Winn to send the game into extra innings. Bailey’s shot into the right-field seats, his second of the season, came on Winn’s first pitch and Thon followed by hitting a 1–1 pitch over the left-field wall.
Jimmy Key and Mark Eichhorn combined on a six-hitter and Damaso Garcia drove in three runs to help Toronto squeak past the Seattle Mariners, 4–3. Key (1–3) who entered the game with a 13.05 earned run average, walked just two batters and struck out four. His longest previous outing of the season had been five and one-third innings and opposition batters were batting .367 against him before today.
The Cardinals edged the Giants, 4–3. Willie McGee scored from third base when the center fielder Dan Gladden collided with the left fielder Candy Maldonado on Tito Landrum’s sacrifice fly in the eighth inning, giving St. Louis the victory. With one out in the eighth, McGee singled and took third on a single by Clint Hurdle, chasing the starter Mike Krukow (4–3), and bringing on Mark Davis. Landrum, batting for Andy Van Slyke, lifted a short fly ball to left-center that Gladden caught as he fell to the ground in the collision. The reliever Todd Worrell (3–2) got the victory.
The Yankees seemed to agree that it was just one of those days. So they collectively shrugged it off, packed their bags and quietly left town. The remnants of the afternoon were a pair of losses: 6–3 and 9–1 to the Texas Rangers, who are nobody’s doormat any longer. The Yankees committed four errors in the first game that accounted for three unearned runs; in the second, they were crushed by a seven-run fourth inning that gave the Rangers their first-ever doubleheader sweep over New York after nine tries. The defeats put an emphatic end to the Yankees’ road winning streak of eight games. Worse, New York slipped one game behind Boston, a 6–5 victor over Oakland, in the American League East. It marks the first time since April 10, the third day of the season, that the Yankees have been this far out of the division lead. The Yankees, who complete their road trip with two games at Minnesota, had few highlights: Dale Berra drove in three runs in the first game and Mike Easler hit a homer in the second. But the Yankees were outhit by the Rangers, 22–14, and finished the day with five errors, one passed ball (by Butch Wynegar) and one balk (by Bob Tewksbury).
Philadelphia Phillies 2, Atlanta Braves 1
Kansas City Royals 3, Baltimore Orioles 4
Milwaukee Brewers 1, California Angels 5
San Diego Padres 5, Chicago Cubs 9
Chicago White Sox 5, Cleveland Indians 4
Detroit Tigers 4, Minnesota Twins 1
Los Angeles Dodgers 3, Montreal Expos 4
Cincinnati Reds 3, New York Mets 2
Boston Red Sox 6, Oakland Athletics 5
Houston Astros 3, Pittsburgh Pirates 4
Toronto Blue Jays 4, Seattle Mariners 3
San Francisco Giants 3, St. Louis Cardinals 4
New York Yankees 3, Texas Rangers 6
New York Yankees 1, Texas Rangers 9
Born:
Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen, Dutch real-time strategy gamer and professional esports player (2× World Cyber Games champion), in Nieuwegein, Netherlands.
Jamon Meredith, NFL guard and tackle (Buffalo Bills, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Indianapolis Colts, Tennessee Titans), in Simpsonville, South Carolina.
Jordan Smotherman, NHL left wing (Atlanta Thrashers), in Corvallis, Oregon.
Died:
Fritz Pollard, 92, early African American NFL star and coach.
Henry P. McIlhenny, 75, American philanthropist and art collector, regarded as “first gentleman of Philadelphia”.
History Diaries 