Just Shows You Can’t Count on a Computer

In a recent edition of The Sporting News, Ron Shapiro, agent for Baltimore first baseman Eddie Murray, said he averaged out his client’s statistics for the first seven years and came up with a .290 batting average, 25 homers and 90 RBIs.

He said a computer showed that this seven-year average had been matched by only four men--Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio.

Here are some letters from the current edition of The Sporting News:

Joe Moomaw, Camp Hill, Pa.: “Either Shapiro didn’t look very hard, or he needs a new computer. How could he overlook Murray’s contemporary, Jim Rice?”

Robert C. Gilleo, Columbus, Ohio: “I guess the computer never heard of Mickey Mantle or Hank Greenberg.”

Bob Vallon, La Grange, Ill.: “How about Orlando Cepeda, Wally Berger, Ernie Banks, Johnny Mize, Chuck Klein, Frank Robinson and Hal Trosky?

“If partial seasons at the beginning of a career are not counted, how about Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott, Billy Williams, Richie Allen and Duke Snider?

“Or Babe Ruth, if you leave off his pitching career?”

Would you say a certain computer is in big trouble?

All the records Guy Lafleur set for the Montreal Canadiens figure to be broken, but he set one off the ice that could defy all challenges--if anyone is crazy enough to challenge it.

Lafleur, an admitted hell-raiser in his playing days, was in Montreal one night when he heard of a party in Quebec City, 150 miles away. He drove the distance in 55 minutes. He was driving a Ferrari, and he reached speeds of 177 m.p.h.

“I always liked speed,” he said.

Dept. of Incidental Information: Ed Pinckney of Villanova is one of seven children but the only boy. All six of his sisters are college graduates. His mother, after shepherding her daughters through college, enrolled herself and got her diploma.

Would-you-believe-it dept.: Brent Musburger was once a baseball umpire. Writes USA Today: “Musburger came from his parents’ ranch in Montana via a Minnesota military school to Northwestern University. Kicked out following his freshman year for owning a car against then-school rules, he spent a year as an umpire in the Midwest League before returning to Northwestern.”

The only other time Villanova made the NCAA final was in 1970-71. UCLA, led by Steve Patterson’s career-high 29 points, beat the Wildcats, 68-62.

The Bruins got their biggest scare in the West Regionals when Jerry Tarkanian’s Cal State Long Beach team, led by Ed Ratleff, took an 11-point lead in the second half. UCLA came back to win, 57-55.

UCLA’s road to the title was smoothed when Marquette, led by Jim Chones and Dean Meminger, and Pennsylvania, led by Corky Calhoun, both were knocked out in the regionals after going 26-0 in the regular season.

From retired Manager Earl Weaver, who has a home next to the seventh fairway at the Country Club of Miami: “Some days I don’t even put on a pair of street shoes. I sit around in the morning with my bedroom slippers on. When I get a game of golf up, I go out to the garage, get into the golf cart, slip on my spikes and drive out to the course. When I come back, I just drive the cart in the garage and put my slippers back on.”

Quotebook

Tampa Bay Bandits owner John Bassett, on why he’s opposed to the USFL’s planned shift to a fall season in 1986, competing against the NFL: “There’s no point rowing a boat that’s full of holes.”