League

BALTIMORE - The 15th day of September will always have special meaning for Kyle Drabek. A year ago Wednesday, Drabek was standing near home plate at Citizens Bank Park accepting the Paul Owens Award as the top pitching prospect in the Phillies' minor-league system. Fast forward to last night, and there stood the 22-year-old Drabek on the mound at Camden Yards making his big-league debut. "The only thing I told him was don't change anything and that it's still the same game," said Doug Drabek, Kyle's father and the 1990 National League Cy Young Award winner with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

It was only a Tuesday night junior-college game in rickety old Terry Park, miles from the center of the spring-training universe. Ordinarily, it would not have been the first place on earth you would have expected to find 18 major-league scouts. And two major-league scouting directors. And one major-league manager, the Twins' Tom Kelly. And even a former major-league pitcher, Doug Bird, who dropped by to see what all the commotion was about. But let us remember for the 1,000th time that this is no ordinary spring training.

Bob Rodgers, 78, great-grandfather of seven, homered, tripled, and made an unassisted double play at first base yesterday as the Royals smoked the Bobcats, 12-1, on opening day of Philadelphia's Over-70 Senior Softball League. The first pitch was scheduled for 10:30 a.m., but 50 men - divided among four teams - were at the John Perzel Community Center in Mayfair by 9:30, shagging flies and making jokes. "On the day of the game," quipped Art Dustman, 83, in left field, "the manager looks in the obituary column.

They played mostly in leather shoulder pads and helmets without face masks. Their motivation was not money but community pride, coupled perhaps with a desire to recapture a youth cut short by war. And for a time after World War II, the semi-pro football league they played in, the Big Six, was more popular along the Montgomery-Bucks County border than the Eagles were. "You have to remember that back in those days, there was no television, but people were still very interested in football," said Charlie Romanoski, 79, of Souderton.

The new manager of the Pittsfield (Mass.) Mets won't have any trouble relating to his players next season. In fact, people might think the manager is a player. Howie Freiling, the Northeast High graduate who played four years of minor league baseball, will manage Pittsfield's New York-Penn League Class A entry. Freiling, 26, coached the past two seasons in the New York Mets' system: in Pittsfield last summer, and in Columbia, S.C., the year before. The lefthanded-hitting first baseman finished his playing career with Triple A Tidewater.

The average major-league salary on opening day was $1,120,254 and the Toronto Blue Jays again had baseball's highest payroll, according to a survey by The Associated Press. The average salary was up 3.3 percent from $1,084,408 last year. Without the expansion Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins, the average would have been $1,168,792, an increase of 7.8 percent. Last year, the average increased 21 percent from the start of the 1991 season, after a 54 percent increase the previous year.

Ben Davis, the former Malvern Prep star whose pro baseball career spanned 16 years in the major and minor leagues, and 60 feet, 6 inches of turf and dirt, has retired. The strong-armed catcher was drafted by the San Diego Padres with the second overall pick in 1995, and he played with three major-league teams from 1998 to 2004, batting .237 in 486 games. He was with eight minor-league clubs after that. Davis' hitting woes continued in the minors, and he converted into a pitcher after Baltimore cut him in 2008.

Strike one! Mom and Dad bad-mouth Little League coach. Strike two! League bans Mom and Dad from ball fields. Strike three! Nine-year-old son doesn't invite coach's boy to birthday party. He's out! Out of the all-star game later this month and out of the league. Little Leaguer Robert Heller, son of Lynn and Robin Heller of Bristol Township, was told that he could not play on the Croydon Athletic Association's All-Star Team because, as he put it, "I didn't invite my coach's son and Ed Wheat's [the league's vice president]

Every summer, hundreds of youngsters between the ages of 10 and 18 learn more than tennis skills in the Southern Chester County Junior Tennis League. They learn what competition and camaraderie are all about. "This league gives kids an opportunity to compete against players outside their community and at their own level," said Downingtown Junior Tennis' chair, Becky Desmond, who spearheaded Downingtown's admittance into the league in 1984. "It's social, yet competitive. " To ensure fair and balanced matches among the individuals on its 11 teams, players are broken down by age and ability.

The Gloucester Township Midget Football League has offered some concessions to its Blenheim neighbors who say the league's practices and games make their lives unpleasant from August through early December. "We all agree that we want to work out the little mechanics surrounding this," said George Crisafulli, the league's attorney. The league retained Crisafulli after a group of 14 Blenheim families got a lawyer, George W. Matteo Jr., to seek relief, from Superior Court if necessary, from the noise, traffic, bright lights and unruly fans they say disrupt their lives during the season.