Page B2-The Chronicle. Thursday, July 19, 1
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Baseball
There's no k
By SAM DAVIS
Chronicle Sports Editor
When the '84 Carolina League baseball
season began, several question marks shrouded
the future of Winston-Salem Spirits first
baseman Sam Horn.
After missing 80 games last year as the
result of a wrist injury, could the promising
20-year-old mentally and physically bounce
back?
Would he develop into a budding star in the
Boston Red Sox organization, or would he
become another of the team's top draft picks
to slowly fade into the past?
Thus far this summer, Horn has put the injury
behind him and lived up to the expectations
the Red Sox had when they drafted him
in the first round in 1982. He currently leads
the Spirits in home runs with 16 and runs batted
in with 62. He also sported the team's
highest batting average at press time (.310 as
of Tuesday, July 17).
Within the last month, Horn has become
me spirits' Dig play man -- the player everyone
looks to when the team needs a lift offensively.
fttmwi he delivers.?-?
sibility as a task, but Horn relishes it.
"I like to be the man at the plate when
there's two strikes, two outs and the bases are
loaded," says the soft-spoken Horn. "When
Black College Sports
Movie fame
By BARRY COOPER
Syndicated Columnist
Normally in this space we talk about ma
that concern amateur athletes, more specific
those athletes who play for small
predominantly black colleges.
i uuay, uuwcvci , wc win IIIclKC clll CXLCpilun
this is a story that deserves telling. It is abo
man who is 62 years old now and can't hear as
as he used to. But that is understandable. Ra
than pick out voices, Wendell Scott, a b
pioneer on the white stock car racing circuit, r
often has used his ears to detect the purrs of fi
tuned engines.
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ntry on concert stages, another pl{
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leather sphere is a sight to behold
>nger a cloud o
you respond to situations such as that, you'll
be in a position to make it to the major
leagues quicker. 1 like to be under pressure
because it makes you play up to your potential."
Although HoYn has his sights on the big
leagues, he hasn't set a timetable for getting
there. "I'm taking it as it comes," he says of
his long-range plans. "I'm going out every
day to do what I can to help the team. If I continue
to do as well as I have so far this season,
I'll move up next season."
But he adds, "I don't know where that will
be."
"I'm taking it as it comes. I'm going
out every day to do what I can for the
team. "
While some players set statistical goals for
the season, Horn says he doesn't concern
himself so much with personal accomplishments.
He simply plays ball.
"God has blessed me with the physical tools
i^ploy frajtbail," my* Hfw fr-2, 2KVpwiFwhcr.?
'* Pp1ay~ f of God'fiecause I'vebeemgivcliTniT""
ability to run, throw and hit a baseball. If
more people looked to God for inspiration,
they would be able to do more in life."
Horn signed with the Red Sox immediately
did very little ft
He still listens to the roar of motors fr<
to 11 p.m., six days a week in Scott's <
tiny place in Danville, Va.
tters His two sons, Frankie and Wendell Jr.
ally, as he fiddles on race cars and ekes out a
i : ? -*? ? ' ...
auu ing luneups ana on cnanges ror neignoc
It was not supposed to be this way,
, for Scott was supposed to be a rich man nov
ut a supposed to be invited to stock car race
well as an honorary starter, or shell out a few
ither dollars to buy himself a private suite j
lack dianapolis 500.
nost Maybe he would even entertain offers
nely work announcing job.
At least, those are the kinds of th
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?ys to showed during the U.S. 0
/ever, team in Greensboro (pho
as he
ver his future
following his graduation from high school in
his hometown of San Diego, Calif. Though he
had already received a scholarship from the
University of Southern California, he chose to
try his hand immediately at pro baseball
rather than compete on the collegiate level.
"I was all set to become a Trojan, but I said
if I was drafted on the first round, I would go
ahead and sign regardless of the team that
drafted me," says Horn. "The way I looked
at it, if I went to college, I'd still have to start
out in the same place I would if I signed right
out of high school.
"Also," adds Horn, "by signing a contract
with the pros, I was able to give my family and
myself some of the things we were never able
to have. My family didn't have very much, so
the bonus for signing looked really good."
Horn comes from a religious, closely-knit
family of five (besides his parents, he has two
sisters) and he applies his religious upbringing
to hi$ everyday life.
"Religion carries me over the tough times,"
he says. "I'm very thankful for the opportunities
I've had and the accomplishments I've
MMffc".*'?' ? ? * *
And, if all goes according to plan, he'll join
Carl Yastrzemski, Cecil Cooper and Dwight
Evans as major league standouts who stopped
over in Winston-Salem en route to stardom
)r stock car ra
Dm 7 a.m. entered Scott's head a few years ;
Garage, a slick movie producers swooped in
'*L ?I 11 J * rr
wun uuuar signs uancing ott men
, help out "They told me, 'Mr. Scott, yon
living do- a wealthy man."'he says.
>rs. It did not turn out thav w?
. Wendell "Greased Lightning," was film*
v. He was starred Richard Pryor as Wendell
s to serve Grier as his wife, Mary,
thousand Though it reportedly grossed
at the In- million and was one of the most f
oriented films ever, not many c
for a net- trickled down to Scott.
"I got ripped off," he says bitt
lings that going to tell you how much mone>
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to by Joe Daniels).
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Horn: Pressure makes him play up to his potential (photo
by James Parker).
y
cing's Wendell Scott
ago, when some ripped off."
from California Just before the filming began, the producers
r tongues. shoved Scott a check for a few hundred dollars
* ^ i i * iii* . . -
i arc going 10 oc ana ioia mm to rake it or leave it. Then he was
paid $125 a day for driving in the movie, "more if
ty. The movie, 1 had to spin the car or something."
?d in 1976 and If those movie producers indeed swindled
Scott and Pam Wendell Scott, then they were but a few in a cast
of many. Throughout his colorful career -- which
more than $16 included everything from making midnight moon)rofitable
black- shine runs in Northern Virginia to racing against
>f those dollars the likes of Richard Petty at Daytona ? Scott was
tugged and pulled at by those who know more
erly. "1 am not about money than he.
/1 got, but I got Please see page 34