Columnist Dean Juipe: Look for a softball reversal

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, May 12, 1998 | 10:36 a.m.

They finished with a losing record for the first time in 10 years, winning only 21 of 51 games. They also played in virtual seclusion, their games reduced to one or two paragraphs in the city's daily newspapers.

All in all, it appeared to be an uneventful season for the UNLV softball team. The Rebels were quiet and only marginally competitive.

Yet here was head coach Shan McDonald talking only a little about failure and a lot about a promising future.

"Actually, I'm real pleased," she said Monday, two days after wrapping up the 1998 season with a doubleheader sweep at New Mexico. "We were just too young this season and we gave up too many runs. If you look at our win-loss record it's not a positive, but in terms of teamwork and development I couldn't ask for much more."

UNLV loses only two players to graduation and McDonald said she has a terrific incoming group of recruits.

"We'll have three new pitchers and we're getting two awesome hitters," she said. "We had nine freshmen or sophomores this season, so next year we should be much improved."

If only she could say the same about a proposed softball stadium on campus. Her update hadn't changed a bit from a year ago: "We have the plans but not the money."

McDonald's team wasn't the only UNLV squad to see its season end over the weekend. But while she may have been prepared for missing the WAC playoffs the baseball team was not. Two months ago the Rebels were nationally ranked and looking upwardly mobile. But their pitching collapsed and they lost 16 of their final 26 games to finish a disappointing 13-17 in the WAC and 31-24 overall. ... Think Mike Nannini has ever heard of Johnny VanderMeer? If he has, the Green Valley senior is quite a baseball fan because VanderMeer's heyday was 60 years ago. Yet there's a connection between the two: Nannini has thrown consecutive no-hitters for the nationally ranked Gators, while VanderMeer is the only pitcher in major-league history to have thrown consecutive no-hitters. He did it in 1938 for the Cincinnati Reds, defeating the Boston Bees June 11 and the Brooklyn Dodgers June 15. (The latter game was the first one ever played at night at Ebbets Field.) VanderMeer, who was 119-121 in his career, went four innings into his following game before surrendering a hit. ... As a young man in 1929, Robert Cotter attended a baseball game at Philadelphia's Baker Bowl and became the person responsible for the now accepted custom of fans keeping foul balls or home runs hit into the seats. Cotter refused to return a foul ball that was hit into the stands and the home team, the Phillies, had him arrested. A sympathetic judge released him and said he was "acting on a natural impulse" in wanting to keep the ball. Cotter, now 87, was recognized at a Phillies' game last week.

Forget Las Vegas as a potential landing spot for the Oakland Athletics. "We need a site that makes sense," team co-owner Steve Schott said last week, discounting Southern Nevada as a possible future home for his financially struggling team. He prefers to relocate in San Jose. ... Another team dying to move, the Minnesota Twins, were rebuffed when voters in two North Carolina counties voted last week against building a stadium and attempting to lure the Twins. The taxpayers turned it down, 67 to 33 percent. ... Left-handed pitching is always in high demand throughout baseball but this season lefties are starting 25 percent fewer games in the major leagues than they were a year ago. At the present pace, southpaws will start fewer games than at any time since 1959. ... Only .0015 percent of the world's population is Swedish yet three of the top four current money leaders on the LPGA Tour -- Liselotte Neumann, Helen Alfredsson and Annika Sorenstam -- were born in Sweden. ... Sorry to see that Zolan Tanner passed away at age 72 last week. He was a friendly man who spent a good deal of his life as a fishing guide at Lake Mead. ... Former Las Vegas Stars owner Larry Koentopp is doing well after unexpectedly undergoing heart-bypass surgery. He and his son, Kevin, keep their hand in sports with a four-horse stable in California. "It's more of a hobby than a business," he said. "I really like it and so does my dad. One thing about horses, if they win they don't ask you to rewrite their contracts."

Quietly, the chancellor's office has told UNLV it must delete a clause in its standard coach's contract that prevents the coach from bad-mouthing the university. ... Two studios, Paramount and Warner Bros., are preparing movies on the life of former heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. ... Buffalo Sabres goalie Dominik Hasek has had an asteroid named after him. "Dominik," as it was identified by astronomers in Hasek's native Czech Republic, was recently discovered between Mars and Jupiter. ... None of the players who finished in the top 10 in scoring in the NHL this season are still playing. Their teams either didn't make the playoffs or have already been eliminated. ... If a baseball game is forfeited it goes into the books as a 9-0 score. In football, a forfeit would be scored 1-0. ... Former football star Deacon Jones raised $100,000 toward his scholarship program during a Saturday benefit dinner at The Orleans. ESPN will televise on a yet-to-be-determined date. ... Former UNLV assistant coach Bruce Heppler is in the limelight a bit these days as head golf coach at Georgia Tech. He has the nation's best-known amateur, Matt Kuchar, who delighted Masters fans by finishing at even par and never losing his smile and happy-go-lucky appearance. "Golf is golf. Matt has the skills but a lot of people who have had skills haven't made it," Heppler said of Kuchar's pro chances, although the kid looked good again over the weekend as he parlayed an invitation to compete in the PGA Tour's BellSouth Classic into a four-under-par finish. He'll make it.