BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS : U.S. Baseball Team Swift in Its Execution, 10-0

BARCELONA —  They call it beisbol .

It’s like baseball but slower.

U.S. games were averaging 3 hours 31 minutes--enough time for a world-class runner to finish one marathon and run half of another--before Saturday night when the Americans KOd the Dominican Republic, 10-0.

The United States is 5-1. A victory over Japan (4-2) today would mean the No. 2 seeding in the medal round and keep the U.S. team away from the 6-0 Los Cubanos --or as the local paper, El Periodico calls them, “the other Dream Team”--until the gold-medal final.

Saturday’s game was over in a crisp 2 hours 27 minutes.

Of course, it was only 6 1/2 innings old when Jeff Hammonds drove in Chris Wimmer from third base on a shallow sacrifice fly to center field, thereby invoking the Olympics’ merciful 10-run rule.

“We’ve been getting home anywhere from 1:30 to 2 o’clock (in the morning),” Manager Ron Fraser said. “What time is it? Quarter to 12? The guys won’t know what to do when they get home.”

The classic was the four-hour U.S.-Cuba game, which ended at 1 a.m., which happens to be the time that Barcelona shuts down its subway system, thus stranding a stadium full of fans at the end of the line.

Olympic baseball did not make a ton of new fans that night.

“We knew, coming in, the style the Latin teams play,” said Phil Nevin, the third baseman from Cal State Fullerton.

“We just had to get used to it and adjust to it. It seems normal to me now. When we get back to the States and start playing 2 1/2-hour games, I won’t know what to do.

“It’s just a thing where they’re not fast running off and on the field. The pitcher walks around the mound all the time.

“The Dominicans aren’t that bad. The Cubans are the bad team. . . . They do it intentionally. We started noticing it after that first game. We scored five runs and they started slowing down the pace of the game, sitting back, waiting for the big home run. And then they got that grand slam from (Antonio) Pacheco.”

The Dominicans came in Saturday a modest 1-4. The Dominican Republic has placed dozens of players in the major leagues, including a bunch from one town, San Pedro de Macoris, home of Pedro Guerrero, Alfredo Griffin, Joaquin Andujar, Tony Fernandez and more.

The problem for amateur baseball there is Yankee imperialism. The major leagues sign all of the best players in their mid-teens.

The Dominicans took the field behind Felix Nova, a soft-throwing right-hander with an 0-2 record and an 18.00 earned-run average to show for his two previous Olympic starts.

The Americans started hacking at him early. Nova stranded four runners in scoring position in the first four innings but finally succumbed.

Meanwhile, U.S. left-hander Jeff Alkire cruised. He threw strikes, and the Dominicans, who came in batting .228, showed why.

Intent on avoiding Cuba until the end and making sure his team wins at least a silver medal, Fraser has B.J. Wallace, another talented left-hander, going against Japan today.

U.S. players talk about the gold but wouldn’t go home unhappy with the silver.

“B.J. Wallace will start, and then we’ll see,” Fraser said. “It’s a big game for us to have. We decided we can’t wait for anybody to do something for us. We’re going to do it ourselves. We’ll see what the pitching situation is after that.”

Baseball Notes

In other games Saturday, Cuba beat Puerto Rico, 9-4, and Taiwan beat Japan, 2-0, on Kuo Lee Chien-fu’s three-hitter to keep the playoff seedings up for grabs. Taiwan (5-1) will play Cuba in its final round-robin game today. . . . U.S. outfielder Calvin Murray, drafted seventh overall by the San Francisco Giants, came in batting .333 and went three for five, with three runs batted in and four stolen bases. “That’s the kind of day they expect me to have, at least every two weeks,” he said. . . . How dominant has Cuba been? It leads all teams in batting at .408 and in ERA at 1.29.