St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 48

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH SP OMT SECTION FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1989 BERNIE I MIKLASZ i ytf" I COMMENTARY 1 f.LABtOV i i f.3 ft' 'I1 -r I 1 a Cardinals Are Taking Gas Not Oxygen A strange and unnatural occurrence happened Thursday afternoon in downtown St. Louis. The Cardinals became the Atlanta Braves. Busch Stadium became Atlanta Fulton County Stadium.

Thursday became the day of the living dead. This was supposed to be pennant-race baseball, fever-pitch baseball, but instead the Cardinals closed out a bleak, three-game series with the Pittsburgh Pirates by playing like the last-place Braves and losing 4-3 in front of a paid crowd of 1,519. Ted Turner would have felt right at home. Adding a bizarre touch to the proceedings, the game was played while a fire raged next door at the infamous Cupples Station warehouse complex. Who knows? St.

Louis may have lost a first-place baseball team and gained a new hockey arena all in one day. The way the Cardinals' bullpen blew another lead Thursday, it's a good thing that Whitey Herzog didn't send the boys over to help extinguish the' Cupples blaze. Meanwhile, the season is burning, and you could smell it at Busch. Six 1 days ago, the Cardinals were in Chicago, a half-game out of first place and their mojo rising. Now they need I "1 I it mm llii i A rare view at Busch Stadium: 1 ,51 9 paid customers among a crowd Of 3,534 for the Cardinals' makeup game Thursday against the Pirates.

sursDSirDaiDs IKloti Wim Lw Smallest Busch Crowd Sees Birds Fall 512 Out til 4- imwi i The Pirates' Andy Van Slyke fourth inning, eluding the tag Team Pet. GB Chicago 83 63 .568 Thursday: Open date Games left: 7 home, 9 away Next: Today at Pittsburgh Cardinals 77 68 .531 5Vi Thursday: Lost to Pitts. 4-3 Games left: 8 home, 9 away Next: Today at Philadelphia (2) New York 76 69 .524 5V2 Thursday: Open date Games left: 6 home, 11 away Next: Today at Montreal Montreal 76 70 .521 7 Thursday: Open date Games left: 9 home, 7 away Next: Today vs. New York a. ''t It '-A C(iX i ''L 'i jj ill a 1- i i -T'T i -ii i Smallest paying crowds at Busch Stadium.

Sept. 14, 1989 1,519 Pirates 4 Cards 3 The Cards lose their fifth in a row and fall 512 games behind the Cubs. Sept. 27, 1972 3,380 Cards 4 Expos 0 Al Santorini strikes out 12 in getting the shutout. Cards (72-79) are 23 games behind Pirates.

Sept. 21, 1978 3,912 Cardinals 6 Mets 2 John Urrea goes seven innings for the win. Cards (66-88) are 18V2 games behind Phillies. Sept. 26, 1977 4,397 Expos 9 Cardinals 5 Rawly Eastwick allows four ninth-inning runs.

Cards (80-75) drop to I6V2 games behind Phillies. Sept. 30, 1978 4,505 Cardinals 6 Expos 1 Ted Simmons homers and singles and John Denny gets the win. Cards (69-92) are 21 games behind Phillies. TEWKSBURY 'SATISFIED' with first start Page 5D ASTROS' SCOTT beats Dodgers for 20th victory Page 4D a burning Cupples Station warehouse lingered over the fans, who were confined to the lower deck and barred from the right-field bleachers.

"It was like a graveyard with lights," Cardinals manager Whitey See CROWD, Page 5 "I do like things in order," he explained. "If I'm looking for some-' thing, I like to know exactly where to go to get it." Especially if "it" is a running back trying to sneak through a hole. Atwater's determined playing style earned him a cute nickname shortly after joining the Broncos as their No. 1 pick in the last National Football League draft. Noting the contrast between Atwater's scholarly demeanor and his vicious play, secondary coach Charlie Waters See ATWATER, Page 2 By Dan O'Neill Of the Post-Dispatch Staff The Cardinals reached a low point Thursday in attendance at Busch Stadium.

And they may have reached a low point in their crumbling season. With just 1,519 spectators paying to see a retake of Wednesday night's game called by rain, the reeling Red-birds lost 4-3 to fifth-place Pittsburgh. The defeat dropped the Cardinals 5'2 games behind the idle Chicago Cubs in the National League Eastern Division race. The Cardinals are tied with the New York Mets in second place as they prepare for today's doubleheader in Philadelphia. The Cubs have 16 games to play.

If they win half their games, the Cardinals will have to win 14 of their 17 remaining games to tie. "I don't know if this is a low point," relief pitcher Ken Dayley said. "But we definitely are not sitting in a good situation. It's hard to say when the nail is in the coffin, but there isn't much daylight getting in right now." The addition of more than 2,000 fans carrying vouchers from Wednesday's washout, brought total attendance in the ballpark to 3,534. The Cardinals are averaging nearly 38,000 fans a game this season.

Perhaps the disparity was for the best. 1 "Luckily with the way we played, there weren't 30,000 people in the See CARDS, Page 5 x- AP Wayne CrosslinPost-Dispatch tied the score at 1-1 after Jeff to third. McGee's Again was removed from the game after fielding Bobby Bonilla's fly in the sixth inning. Although McGee remains resolute, he also confessed that he has been unable to summon all his speed and aggressiveness and that he has been hindered by the hamstring injury he suffered Sept. 3.

"Those balls in the gap, I just don't have the overdrive to go after them right now," McGee said. "I'm back to See McGEE, Page 5 Rookie Gets A Chance To Impress Blues By Dave Luecking Of the Post-Dispatch Staff It may not seem like much, but Michel Mongeau reached a milestone in his professional hockey career Tuesday when he participated in the fourth day of training camp with the Blues. He'll reach another milestone tonight, when the Blues open their exhibition season with a game against the Winnipeg Jets in Saskatoon, See BLUES, Page 5 AN EARLY look at how Blues are developing in camp Page 9D oxygen after losing five consecutive games and scoring only nine runs in the last.52 innings. Tuesday night, disgusted Cardi- nals broadcaster Mike Shannon summed it up best while watching the Cardinals stand around against the Pirates. "The Cardinals look like ii rummies out there," Shannon said l'i 5 over the airwaves of KMOX.

Broad-' caster bites brewery. It's getting rough out there, i Now that the zombies have cleared out, at least some noise will be made this weekend at Busch, when the Roll-' ing Stones perform Sunday night. By jl then the Cardinals still may be feel-f, i ing the effects of their 19th nervous breakdown. If I'm Herzog, I'm thinking that 2 maybe I should consider slipping my fy 1 hitters some steroids for the four 'li games in Philadelphia and the two in 'I I Montreal. I'm only kidding, of course, but what else could be done? Vita-" mins and Wheaties won't bulk up the lineup in time.

This team suddenly has no muscle, no strength. i Does it still have a heart? The Car- dinals always have had plenty of that. I In the 25 days after losing four out of I five In New York, they chopped six games off a 6'2-game deficit. When they got it that close, it i looked the like Cardinals' race. They had the experience of surviving pre- vious pennant chases.

Their bullpen may have been shot, and the pitching III rotation may have had too many re- treads, but meaningful Septembers in this decade have belonged to the Car- I dinals. The character Cardinals. If they're in it late, they usually prevail. Remember '85 and '87? Maybe the sheer struggle of trying to make up so much ground took too i I much out of them. The Cardinals' regulars seem awfully tired, and days 1 off are hard to find with so much at stake.

The three losses to the Pirates, a follow-up to those two giveaway days in Chicago, have plunged the Cardi-nals to an emotional low. Herzog clearly is worried. The road is call-ing, and he must take his quiet bats and a starting pitching tandem of Scott Terry and Ken Hill into this eve- ning's doubleheader in Philadelphia. "I don't know if I've ever had a club go this flat," Herzog said. The only logical conclusion to make is this: The Cardinals left their bats, gloves and vascular organs at Wrigley Field last weekend.

"I know this isn't the same team that played the first game in Chica-, go," second baseman Jose Oquendo said. "The guys are trying, but some-" thing is missing." JI Let's go back to Saturday, 24 hours after the Cardinals had rallied for an i 11-8 victory over the Cubs. The Cardi-! nals were four outs away from mak- ing it two in a row and taking over first place. "The way we lost Friday, it was probably the biggest game of the season for us," Cubs outfielder Dwight Smith said. Leading 2-1 in the eighth, the Car-j dinals couldn't put the Cubs away and Most 3-2 in 10 innings.

The Tom Brun- j-ansky adventure in right field, his irtle stall with the ball that allowed Smith to scoot to second and into posi-l tion for the tying run, looks like the turning point of the season, Shortstop Ozzie Smith claims it's unfair to isolate a single moment, one flawed play, to explain this Septem- ber swoon. "It's just a bad time," Smith said. "Everyone is looking for a reason. Stop looking. When you don't i'C pitch and don't hit, you don't win.

And we haven't done anything in the last five games." Actually, the starting pitching con-lll tinues to be sufficient, despite Joe Magrane's curious slump. The quality I innings keep coming from unlikely arms; emergency starter Bob Tewks-bury, buried at Louisville all season pitched well enough Thursday to win. But the season kept burning. St. Louis became Atlanta for a day.

The Cardinals now are 5'2 games ii out with 17 to play, but no obituary will be written here. Cardinals arejvriting it Tiny Crowd Makes Busch A 'Graveyard With Lights' By Vahe Gregorian Of the Post-Dispatch Staff Cavernous Busch Stadium took on an eerie intimacy Thursday afternoon. In a game announced only late Wednesday in the aftermath of the five-inning, 0-0 tie with the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Cardinals drew the smallest crowd in the 24 seasons they have inhabited Busch Stadium. Paid attendance was 1,519. At the start of the game, lost by the Cardinals 4-3, the taste of smoke from Van Slyke's run King's grounder scores in the by Todd Zeile.

Pop Goes Hamstring By Vahe Gregorian Of the Post-Dispatch Staff Willie McGee is past exasperation, beyond and out of tears, running low on patience and just about out of hope for salvaging his gloomy season. McGee, who twice this season has been on the disabled list and has played in just 55 games, suffered an injury for the fifth time this season in Thursday's 4-3 loss to Pittsburgh. McGee aggravated his left hamstring stealing a base in the fifth inning and TKHTT Jacober Wilkerson MEDIA Musical Chairs Bill Wilkerson is in and Ron Jacober is out on the Missouri football broadcast team. 3 REGULARS Sports Shorts 2 Fishing Report 6 For The Record 8 Eye Openes 9 A Big UVi Rookie Atwater Impresses Broncos By Jeff Gordon Of the Post-Dispatch Staff Denver Broncos free safety Steve Atwater is ambitious, aggressive, focused and business-like guy. While Falcons rookie "Neon" Deion Sanders bathes himself with gold jewelry in public, Atwater impressed his employers by appearing at his first news conference in the Mile High City dressed in a coat and tie.

Atwater, a former standout at Luthern North High School and Arkansas, looked ready to report to work at IBM..