ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 11, 1996 TAG: 9609130093
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Jack Bogaczyk
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
The midweek buffet:
Finally, the reincarnated Washington Senators are going to play in baseball's postseason - if the Texas Rangers don't blow a huge lead in the American League West Division.
It's not just that Johnny Oates, a Virginia gentleman and Virginia Tech Hall of Famer unjustly canned by Baltimore owner Peter Angelos in an earlier managerial life, deserves to guide the Rangers to a first postseason in their 25th Texas season. You have to understand the franchise's roots.
Texas was an AL expansion team given to Washington in 1961 after Clark Griffith moved the original ``Nats'' to Minnesota. Four years later, the Twins were in the World Series, the first time the franchise appeared in the fall classic since the Senators met the New York Giants in 1933. The second Senators moved to Texas in '72.
The Rangers' streak of postseason futility could have ended two years ago, when they were winning the West despite being 10 games under .500 in August. Then, the players' strike ended that season.
If Texas reaches the divisional playoffs, it will leave Milwaukee with the longest absence from the postseason in the AL, since 1982.
Montreal, leading the National League East in 1994 when the strike struck, is trying to end a longer postseason absence by taking the NL wild card. The Expos haven't been in the playoffs since the 1981 split-season. A title for Texas would leave the NL expansion Florida Marlins, in their third season, alone among the 28 clubs without a postseason appearance in the past 16 seasons.
BEEN THERE: So, just who is this Chris Keldorf, the 6-foot-5 quarterback who has pushed North Carolina toward the Top 10 in the college football polls? He's a transfer from Palomar Junior College, a California (Manhattan) beach boy, and only the second JUCO transfer UNC coach Mack Brown has signed.
When likely starter Oscar Davenport suffered a knee injury, the Tar Heels needed someone to replace Mike Thomas. After a few phone calls, the UNC coaches knew about Keldorf. However, the quarterback already knew about UNC, where he enrolled in January.
Seems he had attended coach Dean Smith's basketball camp before his junior year. Will Keldorf be a post-bowl, walk-on swingman, too?
GUSSIED UP: Anointed as Washington's starting quarterback, Gus Frerotte proved Sunday against the Chicago Bears what he can do if given time to throw by a rebuilt offensive line.
Frerotte is a very accurate passer - and after two weeks, he is joined by Steve Young of San Francisco, Brett Favre of Green Bay and Kansas City's Steve Bono as the only NFL starting quarterbacks who haven't thrown an interception.
NEW NAME: When the Commonwealth Cup, the new trophy to be presented annually to the Virginia Tech-Virginia football winner, was proposed and under consideration, it had a different name on the trophy face with the visages of the eight U.S. presidents born in the commonwealth.
It was the ``Presidents Cup.'' However, before the two schools announced the rivalry trophy, the name was changed. Good idea. The Presidents Cup is the name of the PGA-sponsored international team golf competition being played in the state this week, for the second time, at Lake Manassas.
A PGA spokesman, asked about the football trophy, said he didn't know if the schools realized the golf tournament already owned the name, but, ``I would imagine we would have done what was necessary to protect our interests.'' PGA commissioner Tim Finchem is a UVa graduate, too.
HOME AGAIN: The Homestead's Cascades course again will be the site of the nine-hole Merrill Lynch Senior PGA Tour Shoot-Out, on Oct.1, and J.C. Snead has been extended an invitation. The Hot Springs resident is expected to compete, as he did last year.
Defending champion Dave Stockton will be back, along with Hale Irwin, Jim Colbert, Isao Aoki and Bob Murphy. Four more Senior tourists will fill out the field.
THE FIFTH: Finishing fifth in the ACC or Big East football races may not sound like much of an accomplishment, but it could get someone a bowl bid.
A clause in the Sun Bowl contract for the Pacific-10 Conference's No.5 selection states that if an ACC or Big East team has a better overall record than a similar club from the Pac-10, that ACC or Big East club could be chosen to face Big Ten No.5.
Yeah, that really would sell a lot more tickets in El Paso.
LENGTH: Medium: 81 linesby CNB