Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 8, 1994 TAG: 9405080139
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Had it, the Salem Buccaneers might have gotten away with a shortened "official game" victory. Instead, they had to hang around for the regulation nine innings.
That was plenty of time for the Winston-Salem Spirits to come back from five runs down and put a 13-9 Carolina League whipping on the Municipal Field host on a soggy Saturday night.
Included in the wreckage were 18 Winston-Salem hits, among them six doubles and two home runs, one of those being No. 9 batter Paul Bako's first of the year.
The Spirits trailed 5-0 after one inning, tied it by the third, fell behind by a run in Salem's half, retied it in the fifth and took the lead for good with a five-run seventh.
"We gave them plenty of opportunities to hit it," Salem manager Trent Jewett said, "and they did."
Winston-Salem had but four hits the previous night, so you could say they snapped out of it.
"That was the offense that we pretty much showed in Durham," Winston-Salem manager Mark Berry said. "The aggressiveness was back. That just shows you the mental aspects of the game when you can come back from being four-hit the previous night."
The Spirits' Micah Franklin, who leads the league in home runs and RBI, was kept under control in one sense. He had only one RBI, a solo home run - his 17th - in the fifth. He was never out, though, reaching on three walks and two singles and scoring four runs.
"We got pitched tough last night, and we were very frustrated," he said. "All you can do is come back and keep doing what you were doing and hope something falls."
The guy gave Salem a fit.
"He's been giving a lot of people fits," Jewett said.
Franklin conceded, "I had a good night. I saw the ball well."
He wasn't the only one. Dee Jenkins went 4-for-6 with two doubles and two runs, and six Spirits had multiple hits.
"I didn't say a word to them after last night," Berry said. "They really showed me something after being 5-0 down."
Salem didn't exactly recede quietly into the mist. Reed Secrist and Danny Clyburn hit home runs, Clyburn's a laser beam low over the left center-field wall in the ninth.
Jay Cranford doubled twice, as did Jon Farrell, and the two of them were a composite 4-for-10 with three RBI and three runs scored.
\ BUCSHOTS: Salem owner Kelvin Bowles was given another offer to buy the team by a group represented by Roanoke businessman Dale Wilkinson. Wilkinson offered $1.8 million for a majority partnership with Bowles, Bowles said. "It was a joke," Bowles said. Recently, Bowles took an offer for $2.3 million from somebody else that he rejected. "It's going to take an awfully good offer now," he said. Wilkinson did not return telephone calls.
Keywords:
BASEBALL
by CNB