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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Sports
Wednesday, August 11, 1999
Eagles football ticket sales start
PECOS, Aug. 11, 1999 -- Season tickets for the Pecos Eagles' 1999 home
football games are on sale now through Aug. 20 for 1998 season ticket holders.
Those wanting to reclaim their seats from last year can do so at the
Pecos-Barstow-Toyah ISD Business Office, 1302 S. Park St., weekdays from
8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets for this year's four home games are $20 a piece.
Anyone wanting to buy season tickets who did not do so last year can
purchase their seats starting on Aug. 23 at the school business office.
Home games for Pecos this season are Sept. 24 against Crane, Oct. 1
against Kermit (homecoming), Oct. 15 against El Paso Mountain View and
Oct. 29 against Canutillo. The Eagles have one less home game than usual
this season because their season opener, on Sept. 2 against Denver City,
will be a neutral site contest at Odessa's Ratliff Stadium.
Rangers snap loss streak in 12th, 4-3
ARLINGTON, Texas, Aug. 11, 1999 (AP) — The Texas Rangers are turning their
attention back to their primary goal.
With the Oakland Athletics getting closer in the AL West, Texas got
back to the business of trying to win the division with Tuesday night's
4-3, 12-inning victory over the Detroit Tigers.
Texas lost three of four games to Toronto and saw its lead in the AL
West fall to 6 1/2 games over the A's, who beat the New York Yankees 6-1
Tuesday.
Rangers reliever Tim Crabtree said the team is again focused on winning
the division, saying it's too early to worry about securing home-field
advantage in the playoffs with the league's best record.
"We need to get our minds back on taking care of business and taking
the division," Crabtree said. "I think our focus got away from winning
the division a little bit, thinking of home-field advantage and all."
Royce Clayton's game-winning single in the 12th won the game for the
Rangers, but Texas' bullpen was the bigger story.
The Rangers got hitless relief from three pitchers — Crabtree, Jeff
Zimmerman and Danny Patterson — in the final 5 1-3 innings.
On Monday night, the Rangers gave up 25 hits in a 19-4 defeat to the
Toronto Blue Jays.
"As a staff, we knew we weren't getting the job done," said Crabtree,
who threw 2 1-3 innings of perfect relief. "We needed to bear down and
get a well-pitched game, and that's what we did."
Nelson Cruz (2-4) walked Roberto Kelly leading off the 12th. Kelly was
sacrificed to second by Luis Alicia and scored on Clayton's liner to center,
sliding home just ahead of Gabe Kapler's throw. It was the Rangers' first
hit since the sixth.
"I just fought off an inside pitch and hit it up the middle," Clayton
said after the Rangers won for the 14th time on their final at-bat. "You're
up there battling, fighting for your life.
Ryder Cup golfers' pay stirs controversy
MEDINAH, Ill., Aug. 11, 1999 (AP) — Tom Lehman was practicing 5-footers
on the practice green in front of the clubhouse at the Medinah Country
Club, all the while keeping a wary eye on a few reporters hanging around
just outside the ropes.
A few minutes earlier, Lehman had emerged from a closed-door meeting
with likely members of next month's Ryder Cup team and PGA officials aimed
at diffusing a growing controversy over paying players to represent their
country.
Much as he would have liked, Lehman knew the questions wouldn't be about
his chances to win the PGA Championship that begins Thursday in this Chicago
suburb.
The talk Tuesday wasn't about numbers, such as the 7,401-yard length
of Medinah or how many under par it might take to win the final major of
the year. It was about numbers like the $23 million profit the PGA reportedly
will make from the Ryder Cup, and the $5,000 stipend players receive to
compete in it.
It was enough to give Lehman a harried look as he stroked putt after
putt to try and get ready for a week that could secure him a spot on the
Ryder Cup team.
"All these issues will be resolved in the future. Now is not the time,"
Lehman said. "The idea of boycotting the Ryder Cup is, was and always will
be ... ridiculous."
If the PGA Championship had enough image problems as the perennial stepchild
of the four major tournaments, it didn't get any better as tournament preparations
were overshadowed by the issue of paying Ryder Cup players.
PGA officials did their best to put the spotlight back on the tournament
by holding an hour-long meeting with players at which they agreed to discuss
ways of paying money to charities favored by the individual players on
the team.
It seemed to work as the 16 top players on the Ryder Cup points list
emerged from the meeting with a unified front, using phrases such as "non-issue"
and "we're all on the same page" to proclaim their happiness with the current
setup.
"We all agreed on everything," Jeff Maggert said after the meeting that
included team captain Ben Crenshaw, PGA Tre looking at how the Ryder Cup
can be supportive of growth of the game and charities."
The midafternoon meeting put a hole in the practice schedules of the
top players, with Tiger Woods hurrying off to play Medinah after it broke
up.
Lehman, 11th on the Ryder Cup points list that accounts for 10 of the
12 team members, said he just wanted to get the issue behind him and play
well enough to secure a spot on the team this week.
"Everybody is on the same page," Lehman insisted. "The players are focused
on playing."
David Duval helped spark the controversy with remarks of a possible
boycott that he said were misconstrued.
"I never said I wanted to be paid," Duval said. "I said I think that
we should have money go back to our local communities. Some words were
put on my mouth that probably shouldn't have been."
Even Greg Norman, who can't play in the Ryder Cup because he is Australian,
was asked and offered his opinion on the issue.
"Sometimes you play for the flag," Norman said.
Though the players put on a united front after the meeting, Woods said
just a few hours earlier that he thought players should be paid. "I think
we should be able to keep the money and do whatever we see fit," Woods
said. "For me personally, I would donate all of it to charity. With all
the money that's being made, I think that we should have a say in where
it goes." While the Ryder Cup controversy was the center of attention Tuesday,
it was also a day for many in the field to get their first looks at Medinah,
which will play more than 200 yards longer than it did when Hale Irwin
won the U.S. Open here in 1990. The course generally met with positive
comments from players relieved not to find the tiny fairways and knee-high
rough that plagued the British Open last month. "I don't think we'll ever
see fairways that narrow as long as we live," Davis Love III said of the
Carnoustie layout. "This one is just a big, long, hard golf course." The
field of 150 includes defending champion Vijay Singh — who won his first
major in this tournament last year at Sahalla Country Club near Seattle
— and 25 club pros who were far removed from the Ryder Cup talk. Scotland's
Paul Lawrie also qualified for his first tournament in America with his
win in the British Open, while France's Jean Van de Velde got an invitation
despite his spectacular 18th hole collapse at Carnoustie. "Hopefully, it's
not going to be too humid," Lawrie said. "But I've been in the sauna and
stuff last week trying to prepare myself for the heat."
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
Division of Buckner News Alliance, Inc.
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 915-445-5475, FAX 915-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net
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Copyright 1999 by Pecos Enterprise
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