Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 27, 1994                   TAG: 9408180033
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: BALTIMORE                                 LENGTH: Long

MANUEL AND HIS PUPILS ARE A BIG HIT EVEN WITHOUT CORK

``I guess you could say the only thing I've ever put a cork in is a bottle of wine,'' Manuel said with a smile in the dugout before Tuesday's day-night doubleheader at Camden Yards.

Baseball's investigation of Albert Belle's corked bat reached Manuel on a stormy, steamy day by the Chesapeake Bay. Kevin Hallinan, baseball's director of security, planned to visit with Manuel early Tuesday morning, then didn't keep the appointment.

Hallinan re-scheduled his meeting with the Roanoke County resident and Buena Vista baseball legend between games of the doubleheader as he continues to seek answers in a cheating incident that has fueled a Chicago-Cleveland rivalry.

If only the national pastime was as Columbo-ish about locating a commissioner or finding common ground between the strike-bound players and owners as it is in getting to the bottom of this bat racket.

The always-cordial Manuel isn't a suspect. He's 50, tall and doesn't climb through air ducts at Comiskey Park to remove evidence. Nor is he passing along Bob Vila carpentry tips to the Tribe.

``I think [Hallinan] wants to ask me about whether I think someone went through Albert's locker the day before the game [in question],'' Manuel said. ``Albert thinks someone went through his bats. That's my opinion, too.

``I can tell you two things for sure: I don't know when Albert used a corked bat, but it hasn't been all year long; and it's certain Albert Belle doesn't need a corked bat.''

Neither do the other Indians. For the first time since 1959, Cleveland has a legitimate pennant contender, and the reason is a kind of woodworking that's a product of Manuel labor. The Tribe leads the majors in hitting, with a .291 average.

After two seasons of Class AAA championship managing for the Indians, Manuel returned to the usually low-key major-league dugout job he held in 1988-89.

Except now he's fielding questions he'd never dreamed he'd hear, albeit about a very old subject.

``I've never corked a bat,'' said Manuel, who played parts of six seasons in the majors and batted .198. ``I never used a corked bat, but ever since I remember, people have been using them, or people have been saying they're being used.

``It's one of those things that when you do it and get caught, you get penalized, and then everyone goes on. People used to say Reggie Jackson used to drive nails into his bat to make it harder. Pitchers used sandpaper and petroleum jelly.''

``This thing with Albert just keeps going. It's a story. You'd think it would be over by now, but I guess it will keep going until they get to the bottom of it.''

Belle homered against the White Sox at Comiskey the night after the All-Star break. During a game the next night, Chicago manager Gene Lamont asked umpire Dave Phillips to confiscate Belle's bat and have it checked for cork.

Phillips had the bat taken to the umpires' dressing room, where someone stole it and replaced it with another bat. Phillips realized that and eventually the American League got back the confiscated bat - it thinks - from the Indians.

The bat was X-rayed and sawed open, and it had been corked. Belle was given a 10-day suspension, but will keep playing until his appeal is heard Friday in New York.

Manuel won't say he thinks someone from the White Sox tampered with Bell's bat supply. ``Someone did get into Albert's bats,'' said the Cleveland coach. Manuel does say he believes an Indians employee switched the bats in the umpires room, but he doesn't know that person's identity. Apparently, only Cleveland general manager John Hart does, and he supposedly hasn't told anyone except Hallinan.

``You have to see Albert every day to know the kind of care he takes with his bats,'' Manuel said. ``In his locker, he takes them and puts them in sanitary socks, and then stretches the socks.

``He ties a certain kind of knot in the top of the sock so the bats can hang from a hook, off the floor of his locker.

``The day after he hit the home run in Chicago, he came to the ballpark that afternoon and his bats were still in the socks, but the knots were different. It was a regular knot, not one with a loop in it. He told me, `I think someone has been fooling with my bats.'''

Could the White Sox have corked Belle's bat? Hallinan had questions, but Manuel didn't have any firm answers or a smoking drill.

Manuel won a Triple Crown in the Japanese Leagues in 1979, and he hit 192 homers in six Japan seasons. Japanese baseball did used compressed wood in bats some of those years, he said.

``No cork though,'' Manuel said. ``If you cork a bat, you have less wood. I needed all the wood I could get.''

And if someone wants to mess with the Indians' bats, that's one thing. Manuel just doesn't want anyone else messing with their strokes.

Write to Jack Bogaczyk at the Roanoke Times & World-News, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, 24010.