European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 11, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday May 11, 1988 the stars and stripes Page 23 comme rotary Ozz a Slick in Field and coffees you Check the Guy coming through the door and you immediately feel like a Slob. I mean no a hair out of place. Heard carefully trimmed face so clean ii sparkles. Pants crease you could Cut bread with. Hanky just pecking out of the breast pocket. Gray double breasted suit understated but expensive. Sorts of course Maich. The tic is tasteful. This Guy is either on his Way to a Duel or a Ball game. It s either the Secretary of stale or Ozzie Smith. 0"ic Smith is the kind of Guy who would change his suit to go Down and gel the Mait. You re sure he wears pressed pyjamas to bed and would t think of going to Brush his Teeth without first putting on a Robe and slippers. The shoes Are Bench made his shirts arc the finest egyptian ration. He looks like a highly successful Bond Market broker. When you meet with Ozzie Smith you first want to hide your feel under the sofa. You Hove to resist the urge 10 say my other shoes my Good ones Are at the  sch sch. This in t my Best suit you hurry to explain. The lapels weren t right you wish you had t worn your Orange socks. What Ozzie Smith is All about is Pride. Ozzie wants to look his Best play his Best be his Besl. Ozric always looks As if he has just showered. He would answer the door at 2 in the morning in a Tiu Cdo. F he hotel caught fire Pizzic would t jump till he had on the right shirt and lie he s either in an infield or a Haberdashery. Of Xii always dresses As if he s having dinner at the while House. Most ballplayers idea of High style is a Semi clean pair of Reebok and a shirt with Epa lets. Ozzie looks As if he just came off the cover of gentlemen s quarterly. Which he did by the Way. La carries Over into his career. Ozzie not Only wants to be the Best he wants his learn to be the Best. Everything around him. The whole wardrobe. Ozzie is the Best ballplayer in the game today. He is the Best shortstop in the Gumc Ever. He is the Only Guy in the history of the game to be Worth 12 million with a .222 Balling average. You Sec Ozzie gets his hits with a Glove. There is no telling How Many base hits got trapped in the webbing of his Glove the year he racked up the assist record of 611. The Ihrck Bau hit disappeared into the Glove of Willie Mays. The infield hit disappeared into the Glove of Ozzie Smith. If the Ball stayed in the Park Willie got it. If it stayed on the ground on k got it Zzz to has a new Book out. Wizard which sur prised a lot of people. Because in it Ozzie attacks various elements of the grand old game in order he finds fault with umpiring. The Media. Popular Ouie Smtth Ihms the Hook at Jack Clark. A former teammate. His manager. The new York mils. The san Diego padres. The san Francisco giants. The Mitra Doc in Minneapolis. Those parts of the baseball world that fail to give the St. Louis cardinals their due. The Bias against he padres and the mets is understandable. The padres traded Ozzie after the owner publicly offered him a Job As her Gardener if baseball was t enough of a career to him. And the mils beat Zizic s team. Ozzie seethes Over defeats. Some ballplayers do not care what Hap pens to the team if they get i ctr 2 for 4. Ozzie lakes ii personally if the cardinals arc not held in univer Sal Awe. It is a theme that runs through his Book when the Media jibes at the cardinals As a team of pie thieves and and Road runners who heist a pen Nant every two years with foot Speed and not much else Ozzie sees this As somehow racist. Ever since i be been in St. Louis this club has had to apologize for winning Ozzie writes. Other clubs Don t apologize for winning. U finally occurred to me that it had to be much deeper than just win Ning or losing. Every article said ii was a Cardinal like hit or a typical Cardinal Victory finally it hit me what made us different it was because we had so Many Black players and still won. Black Guys using their legs. That s Why people Call it typical Cardinal baseball " Well Ozzie is. Of Couise caught leaning on this one. Black players use their bats too. Three of the four top Home run hitters of All time Are Black the san Francisco giants of Mays. Orlando cup cd and Willie Mccovey did t care if you d never run. They spent All their Careen trolling. Ozzie would like the 80s cardinals to be rated with the 27 Yankees. Afler All they arc his team when they talk of the great Cardinal learns of this decade they will be thought of As the Smith Cardi nals just As the new Yore learns of the Jos were inc Ruth Yankees. Zizic will Brook no trifling with the Smith Cardi nals. When Jack Clark decided not to try to play in the world series with his bad ankle Smith was unconvinced. I think Jack should have taken a shot to kill the pain of his ankle so he could play ii would have been a big morale Booster for the club to have him in there even if he was i 100 percent and it also would have thrown off the opposing club to know he was playing. Ii might have made the difference be tween one of us getting a Good pitch to hit with Jack uniting on deck or not getting a Good pitch to  like i say Ozzie does not suffer defeat gladly. He wishes the manager had not gone around saying. "1don t know what we re doing  on the eve of Llic Minnesota world series writes Ozzie "1 know what we were doing there we deserved to be  you speak ill of the cardinals at your peril around Ozzie. Hit Case again the umpiring is not the copses they came up Wirt on the bases in the last two Cardinal world series. Ozzie thinks they shrank the strike zone on him when he became a j2 million ballplayer. Maybe so but the statistics Don t Bear him Oul. Ozzie Smith strikes out less than any great ballplayer in history about once a month when he s on his Slick. That s hard to do with hostile umpiring. But the Point of Ozzie is not this minor Par Anoia. Ozzie would like respect for his Way to play baseball. Ozzie is a Bona fide .300 hitter and he balled in 75 runs last year with no Home rum. But if he got credited with an rib for every run he pre vented from being butted in he would break Hack Wilson s one year record. I Hope i will be remembered As a Guy who changed the game of baseball a Iii lie bit says Ozzie. I d Tike to be remembered us a player who helped show people the importance of defense and helped defensive players earn some of the recognition and Money usually reserved for offensive  while he s Al it he d like a Little More respect for that funny Little team of his that goes about gelling into the world series every other year. Youmans exposing sorry numbers Ftp photo  Pitcher hued Youmans hanging on Aloo Montreal api there Are a number of reasons Why Floyd Youman Smill is on the Montreal expos pitching staff and none of them has to do with his performance. Youmans has been As big a disappoint ment for the expos this season As he Wasla Styearl when he was 9-8 with a 4.64 Era. He is 0-3. His came run average is 5.24 and he has averaged less than six innings per Stan. Youmans could find himself in the bullpen during the Envoi 12-Gamc Road trip that started monday night in Allan la in fact if it weren t for injuries to key pitchers in the expos organization you mans might be on his Way to Indianapolis i hair class aaa of Lilile. One thing working in you Mars favor is thai expos manager Buck Rodgers has always irid to stick with pitchers As Longas he can. Last season he kept starting bobs Bra who wound up losing 13 games and is in the minors. This season he brought Back Well travelled relieve Randy St. Claire but finally gave up on him late in april Rodgers is displaying the same Type of patience with Youmans. One reason May be be injury situation and another i obviously the potential of Youmans. But Rodgers also is trying to be sympathetic to the pressure on the Pitcher. Youmans is coming Back from alcohol rehabilitation in the off season and people Are looking for him to be bad the manager said. Rodger is becoming increasingly exasperated especially with the Pitcher s attitude. In his last Start sunday Youmans was rocked for four runs in the sixth inning the last one coming when he walked opposing Pitcher Bob Knupper with the bases loaded Youmans probably would have been yanked by Rodgers but the Pitcher saved the manager the trouble by getting ejected and storming Oft the Field. After the game Rodgen said he was Loo mad to talk about Youmans pitching. Then he added he figures he s had enough and he can t wait to gel out. Our bullpen has worked a Tot this week and in docs Bolher me tint he would take himself  Youmans response to the incident was a shrug."1 got tossed Why should 1 Wail around he said. A recurring problem Wilh Youman seems to be his weight. Lost year at about 219 pounds his excess caused him to go on the disabled list three limes Wilh an injured Bitch. Youmans reported to raining Camp this year and appeared lighter. Youmans and the club claimed he was where he should be Al 200 pounds. But when Rodgers said sunday thai Youmans again ran Oul of Gas he was asked about the Pitcher s weight. Rodgers said Youmans weighed 207 pounds Al his weigh in a couple of Days earlier. Bui the manager was Al a loss a explain the discrepancy Between the cur rent weight and the Spring weight. He indicated Youmans May be run Ning out of chances. It s a situation where a Young Man has to assume  for his  Rodgers said