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McMurtry learned maturity from rugby By GARRY FORBES Of The Examiner Ontario AttorneyGeneral Roy McMurtry told grou of more than 150 high sc ool rugby players that it was the game of rugby which helped him form more mature and grown up attitude about organized sports McMurtrv was guest speaker at Thursdays opening banquet of the first annual Ontario Federaion of Schools Athletic Association rugby champion ship which begins today at Banting Memorial High School in Alliston McMurtry who has become wetknown in the sports world for recommendations that per forming athletes be charged if engaging in criminal assaults said mental discipline sets rugby apart from other sports got in more than my share of scraps and developed many of the same attitudes which are in hockey and football today the mindless violence which comes as result of deliberate ly wanting to injure others McMurtry said It was only when started to play rugby that started to grow bit to mature little bit McMurtry who celebrated his 47th birthday Thursday played for the Toronto Old Boys rugby team in the early 615 Many of the teams the Old Boys met McMurtry said were made up of European players unaccustomed to the mindless vicousness which many Cana Central ready for title try Barrie Central Collegiate undefeated in 11 games this season is top seed in its divi sion of the 12team Ontario Federation of Schools Athletic Association rugby champion ship which begins today at Banting Memorial High School in Alliston The tournament which ends Saturday is the first OFSAA sponsored rugby championship Eastview Secondary School which was beaten 84 in closelyfought zone champion ship match against Central drew into the second division in which unbeaten Midland The Polo Grounds home shown in the record books Homers excite it parks right By ED HARPER Chay The homerun is one of the most exciting plays in baseball and one which can turn game around quickly Home runs played part in losses by the Toronto Blue Jays this year and will have significant effect on many more games before the season is over home run is the product of many variables not least of which is the ball park harmless fly ball in one park can become the gamewinning homerun in another The rules under which new ball parks are constructed were formulated in 1959 and set the minimum boundary along each of the foul lines at 325 feet and the minimum distance in centre field at 400 feet But many of the ball parks in use today were constructed before 1959 and the rule applying to them was laid down in 1925 when it was decided that the minimum distance from home plate to the nearest fence or stand in fair territory would be 250 feet park for the New York Me before falling victim to the wreckers hammer in 1954 was dream park for home run hitters Along the right foul line it was mere 258 feet and only 280 feet along the left foul line Teams playing here were able to lead the league in home runs for many years in succession Some players could be greater Some parks make it difficult for players to hit many home runs and if not for the parks they played in the records of some of baseballs great players could well be different than Willie Mays is one hitter who was handicapped by his home park He spent most of his career with the San Fran cisco Giants before being traded to the New York Mets in 1972 Candlestock Park and Shea Stadium where Mays played the majority of his games were known as two of the most difficult homerun parks in baseball If Mays had played elsewhere it is conceivable he could have been the alltime homerun leader After all he had lifetime record of 660 homers only 54 less than Babe Ruth and the right ball park could have made all the difference Joe DiMaggio is another hitter penalized because of his home park because his powerful righthanded swing was ill suited for Yankee Stadium Of couse the owners have tried Secondary School of Toronto is top seed Another undefeated club Torontos Monarch Park is seeded first in the fourth divi sion and Victoria Park of North York has been given top billing in the third division Central handed Victoria Park itsonly loss of the season more than month ago Others in Centrals division are Pickering and Wexford OakvilleTrafalgar is the third squad in Eastviews division Other teams are Regiopolis Notre Dame of Kingston Guelph Collegiate Vocational to improve their teams homerun output by moving the fences in or as was the case at Dodger Stadium they even moved home plate closer to the centrefield fence Clubs are no longer allowed to alter the size and shape of the playing field during the season so this prevents clubs us ing portable fences Homeruns werent important then In the early days of baseball home runs were not an im portant part of the strategy of the game for various reasons At that time the game was played in open fields or parks In order to hit home run batter had to slam the ball bet ween the outfielders and circle the bases quickly before the outfielder could throw him out at home plate In 1902 the home run title was won by player who hit only six In those days careful placing of hit was considered more impor tant The ball did not aid the hitters in those days its con struction made it dead and lifeless Ball construction im proved over the years but recent tests have shown that there is still lack of consistency in the construction of balls In 1974 when the cowhide ball was introduced home run production fell Hank Aron and teammates Darrell Evans and Dave Johnson set major league record in 1973 with 40 or more homemns each yet in 74 their home run production fell by more than 50 per cent The percentage of home runs hit per game has been decreasing in recent years due to the longer season and the crosscountry travel Night games and the newer and bigger fields are also factors So is improved pitching Hank Aron erased Babe Ruths record in 1974 after 39 years its good bet that Hank Arons will last good deal longer kowski Institute Anderson Park of Toronto and North Yorks York Mills Secondary School Only eight of FOSAAs 12 associations entered the tour nament Some high school associations do not include rugby programs and two which wre earlier expected to attend dropped out The Ottawa Valley associa tion representative were unable to attend due to travel ex penses and the Southern 0n tario association felt it could not send competitive team Central is the Georgian Bay Secondary Schools Athletic Association representative and Eastview gained entrance as official host school by finishing runnerup to Central in the GBSSA final Eastview double teams in junior rugby tourney Jack LeSage doesnt know how his Eastview Secondary School junior rugger team will fare in Saturdays York Univer sity Invitational tournament but he is sure that the team will be the best that the Georgian Bay Secondary School Athletic Association can offer The Eastview club will be made up of combinaton of players from the firstyear and secondyear junior clubs This was the first year Eastview entered two junior teams and to LeSages delight the clubs finished 12 in the association final The main idea behind fielding two team was to give every player an opportunity to play which they did said the junior coach But it wasnt supposed to happen the way it did Other teams felt they could at least knock our firstyear club away It seems our boys just didnt read the script In the GBSSA final the secondyear team beat the firstyear team 40 Now LeSage has the problem choosing an allstar squad for the York Invitational We anticipate some pro blems because some of the players wont be familiar with each other But we can only take one team so well take the best of both he said dont know at all what the other teams will be like down there but do know one thing for sure well be competitive Cherry says foes want him BOSTON AP Don Cherry says he misses Boston already but the nostalgia may decline when he starts getting paycheques from his rich new Colorado Rockies contract The former Bruins coach who signed with Colorado in Denver on Wednesday returned to Boston 24 hours later and predicted the enemies he made as benchgeneral of leading National Hockey League team will be waiting for him to fail with the Rockies few coaches and few teams are waiting to get even with me Cherry said at Lo gan Airport news conference He added miss that Boston accent already Nevertheless the jovial Cherry greeted reporters by slapping Colorado Rgckies team stickers on the si es of waiting television cameras and passed out handful of others to anyone who asked for them Cherry said he had tempt ing offer from another team just two hours before he agreed to the Colorado contract multiyear pact worth $150000 season The Bruins released Cherry from the last two months of his contract last week as the coach and the front office were unable to agree on Cherrys philosophy of siding with players and buck ing management Scrappers protest suspension HAMILTON CP Mem bers of Hamilton Scrappers say their team got the short end of the bat when it was suspended by the Ontario Fastball League for the 1979 season The team was suspended this week for refusing to pay $500 fine imposed by the league after it ruled the teams general manager Ray Mulholland had tampered with former Burlington Pjimos pitcher Bill Drennan before league play started this year Drennan was with Oshawa Tonys in 1978 At an exhibition game Wednesday Drennan called the suspension silly Second baseman Rick Bu described the suspension as railroad job just the league executives playing politics Pete Giacinti also second baseman said the players have voted to remain together as team des ite the suspension Mulhol and said the team will play exhibition games and com pete in tournaments League president Pat ODay has said that players in the league sign twoyoar contracts and that Burlington lent Dren nans rights to Oshawa for one year with the idea he would come back to Burlington to fail FEELS SAD still feel very sad he said In Colorado when was saying we was thinking of the Bruins dont think they Bruins management thought was serious about leaving Cherry apparently being serious insisted that his family chose the city of Denver over several other NHL cities that made overtures even though the Rockies had the worst record in the league Cherry said he thought he would be paid even if the fran chise folded and asserted that despite the rich new contract nearly triple his $60000 Bruins pact figure that have earned about $7000 year av eraging out all the years Ive been in hockey and the money Ive made Cherry will wrap up personal business in Boston and at his North Andover home before heading to Colorado When asked for his thoughts about moving from one of the best NHL teams the Adams Di vision champion Bruins to the worst Cherry said Well just turn it upside down up little he Roy McMurtry Ontario AttorneyGeneral says he got into his share of scraps before taking up rugby He says he learned maturity in sport from the game PHILADELPHIA AP Bernie Parent once made statement that has come back to haunt him goaltender can play as long as his eyes are good Parent told reporter asking about the lifeline of Na tional Hockey League goaltender Parent retired Thursday at the age of 34 because of an eye injury Last Feb 17 in game against New York Rangers teammate Jimmy Watson accidentally poked his stick through the eyehole of Parents mask and damaged the goalies right eye Im only 34 and wanted to play at least five more years said desolate Parent But they tell me cant Dr Edward Viner Philadelphia Flyers team physician said that blow to the head or eye can cause serious damage to Parents eye and recommended the player retire Parent wore dark tinted Parent retires due to injury BERNIE PARENT remembers winning glasses that hid his injured eye at Thursdav news con ference Keith Allen general manager of the Flyers made the announcement in room just yards from the ice where Parent became one of the NHLS alltime great goaltenders Connors Evert win other top seeds fall PARIS Reuter Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert of the United States easily advanced to the third round of the French Open tennis championships Thursday but three other seeded players fell by the way side in the worlds premier claycourt event The secondseeded Connors seeking his first French title dispatched Ramesh Krishnaii of India 61 61 64 while the topseeded Evert beat com patriot Laura Dupont 63 63 Eleventhseeded JoseLuis Clerc of Argentina was upset by Gilles Moretton of France 64 02 63 while nthseeded Mima Jausovec of Yugoslavia and 13thseeded Rosie Casals of the US were eliminated in Just little further Three participants In girls sprint event show good form as they head for the wire in Thursdays Forest Hills Public School track and field day at Eastview Secondary School Examiner Photo by David Fuller womens singles Jausovec the 1977 French champion was ousted by Ivanna Madruga of Argentina 64 64 while Casals fell to Hana Strachanova of Czechoslovakia 61 64 Fourthseeded Vitas Geru laitis of the US was among four other seeds to gain the third round of the mens tourna ment Gerulaitis defeated Brad Rowe of the US 64 61 62 Another American sixth seeded Harold Solomon breezed past Pascal Portes of France 62 61 61 Jose Higueras of Spain beat Mike Cahill of the US 46 76 75 and Tim Gullikson ousted fellow American Jeff Borowiak 63 67 7667 62 dian athletes were used to When someone would take poke the guys on the other team would just look at you like you were kindergarten child the AttorneyGeneial said adding that Canadian rugby players eventually adopted the Europeans more gentlemanly style of play The problem with most con tact sports McMurtry said is not simply their violence but how the participants react to the violence Any sport including rugger which is played at high speeds and has bodily contact is violent In some sports more than Others however the violence is glorified The conti nuing acceptance of excessive violence visciousness and brutality simply because it takes place among athletes is in my view simply wrong McMurtry said the declining numbers of participants in hockey point to the fact that many prents of young players and players themselves dont want to get mixed up in the ex cessive violence which has characterized the sport He added that he didnt think his public campaign against violence in sports hs con tributed directly to the ap parent decline in interest but it has increased awareness and public consciousness about the issue McMurtry said he is op timistic that attitudes will change and that in the same way the Europeans affected the way Canadians play rugby Europeans are having an in fluence on the way other games especially hockey are being played Dyks tra first Dykstra Brothers Electric moved into firstplace tie in the Barrie and District Soccer League with 32 win over Harper Tire Wednesday In other games Midland In dusmin blanked Robertas 20 Italian Sportsman battled to 22 tie with the American Hotel and Baxter Flames dumped Midland Leitz 20 Mark Gariepy scored two goals and Steve Gariepy added single to pace Dykstra to its win boosting the club into tie for the league lead with the Sportsmen Trevor Wilsom and Lee Ellison scored for Harper Rick Rinaldi and Easy Pat terson scored for the Sport smen and Larry Hook and Keith White replied for the American Chris OHara and Denis Moreau notched the Midland Indusmin goals giving winless Robertos their fifth con secutive loss of the season Canada upsets US in voHeybaH CALGARY CP Many eyebrows may have been raised when Ken Maeda coach of the Canadian mens volleyball team predicted several months ago that his team would finish in the medals at recent tour nament in Cuba But such skeptics were si lenced Canada upset the favored United States team 32 and went on to win silver medal in the zone competition that doubles as the trials for the PanAmerican Games think we can get into the medals at the PanAm Games too Maeda said before the Calgarybased team left Wednesday for an exhibition tour of China and Japan Canada has always been rated about 15th in the world Now were ready to get into the top 10 or eight Beating the US gave us some spirit Team member Rich MacDo nald said even the players were skeptical of Maedas con fidence before the Cuban competition GAVE CONFIDENCE dont think the team really quite believed we could beat the US but when we did it was the highlight of the trip Its given us lot of confidence Before its win in Cuba Can ada had lost five straight exhi bition matches to the Ameri cans in Miami The games however allowed the Canadians to adjust to the warmer climate Maeda head of Pakistans national team for almost two years before arriving in Canada about year ago said he hoped the threeweek 12 match tour of the Far East would sharpen his team for the PanAm Games in Puerto Rico beginning July Mark Kolodziej has been with the national team since last June He said that although the emotional victory over the US will put pressure on the Cana dians to win again it will also put pressure on the opposition Were in as good shape as any team in the world The other teams now know we can play and its sure to put some pressure back on them The national team returns from the Orient on June 23 be fore heading to Toronto where most of the Canadian teams will assemble before the Pan Am Games the examiner Friday June 1979 ggorting not Resignation by design By DAVID FULLER Of The Examiner Theres more than one way to skin cat they say and Howard Forbes probably agrees this week after leaving the Barrie Colts Forbes announced his resignation Wednesday although the team had not announced who the coach would be yet next season and in domg so it appears he played right into the hands of his detractors on the Colts executive Upon being informed that meeting between himself and the coaching committee of the troubled Junior hockey club had been postponed for second time For told president Harry Hadden Id just as soon call it quits That his decision said Hadden immediately when asked at happened Im disappointed but its Howies decision Indeed Forbes was the one who made the decisionHe said the same day he quit make my own decisions nobody makes them for me Despite 171 vote by the executive in favor of retaining Forbes as coach hes gone The one dissenting vote belong ed to Doug Jermey chairman of the clubs coaching com mittee Forbes said wont be back wont be back unless Harry Hadden and Doug Jermey are gone Forbes said Known for his at time volatile disposition Forbes reacted predictably to the postponement of the meeting If anyone else is waiting in the wings to take his job Forbes has cleared the way nicely leaving anyone remotely associated with plot to remove him free of responsibility for his departure Other disagreements with club officials helped Forbes his way He did not get along with Carol Jermey the teams rookie manager last year and even this year he was saying the Colts should be looking for players now and he should be involved in the building of new team Hadden never one to let on if theres any problems with the club said he saw no reason why coach should be chosen before August Has Harold Ballard announced who his coach is he asked No but Colorado Rockies have and the job of coaching the Rockies looks lot more like coaching the Colts these days then it does the Toronto Maple Leafs Anxious to get on withjob Forbes was anxious to get on with the job of building hockey club job he felt had been left too late last year But Hadden says coachs job is to coach the hockey club Forbes worked through the team selection committee last season but he made it plain he wanted great deal to sayabout who the team signed and who was cut Obviously Hadden disagreed since he said he expected the coach to remain off the scene until training camp opened next fall Its also no secret that Hadden and Carol Jeremy were not pleased with Forbes colorful comments to the media last season either Leading candidate for the Don Cherry soundalike award of the year Forbes said he had been told by the executive to be less vocal to the press They tried to get me not to say too much sure he says But thats habit have Im sure community team like the Colts deserves recognition was just trying to put peo ple in the arena Forbes has made sure there will be one less Colt fan in the arena next season himself Stretch Susanne Zinn grade seven student at St Josephs and member of the schools gymnastic team goes through floor exercise routine dur ing school resentation Thursday The 30 member gym ub performed for fellow students and parents Examiner Photo sports calendar FRIDAY Hugh 930 am Elimination games begin Unwrio Federation of Schools Athletic Association Rugby championships Ban ting Memorial High School Alliston Fastball 7pm RcdHeardsvs AlconaIlyers 2430 pm Radio Shack vs Wall Real Estate Painswick diamond Innistil Men Fastball League Slow Pitch 7pm Oilers vs Superior Propane mo pm White Partridge Farm vs Howards Heroes Vespra Park Barrie and District Slow Pitch League SATURDAY Hugger 10 am Ontario Federation of Schools Athletic Association semimats Banting Memorial High School Alliston Consola tion championship scheduled to begin at pm championship final scheduled for 230 Eastview Secondary Schools junior team travels to the York Invitational Rug ger Tournament Continues through Sun day Softball mm The Dr Pepper Juvenile Girls Invitiaiional softball tournament can tinues through today through Sunday at Queens and Mac Morrison parks Last starting time 915 pm Championship and consolation games Sunday at Queens Park Lacrosse 1mm am The Harrie Minor Lacrosse Associations annual exhibition tourna ment begins at the outdoor box on Little Ave Bantams begin at 30 at Eastview arena tykes novices and peewecs play at the outdoor box Bantam finals 1230 other Showdowns begin a194iia Soccer pm Barrie City vs Nottawsaga Premier DiVision Barrie Canadian vs Collingwood First Dmsion Newmarket and District Soccer League games Not tawasaga Inn Allistoni and ollmgwood Harness Racing 745 pm Regular 10 race card at Bar rie Raceway Essa Rd AuwHacing pm Barrie Speedways WreckO Rama plus regular racmg Barrie Speed way 81h Lie Oro and Hwy 11 Sailing 1030 am Short course races for the Col beef Colvin and C68 divi sion Barrie Yacht Club Medium course racessetfor130p in Slow Hall 130 pm United Clubs vs Hill Union Hillcrest and vs ANAF Angus Angus 441 Silver Fox vs Hill Social St Pauls ANAF Barrie VI Kolmar Steele St Veterans Slow Ball League games