Riverfront Stadium

A day after she canceled scoreboard coverage of out-of-town games at Riverfront Stadium, Reds owners Marge Schott opened her wallet yesterday and agreed to restore the $350-a-month service. Her largesse came after a bank offered to pay the bill. Doctors said it could be months before Minnesota outfielder Kirby Puckett fully regains vision in his right eye. Puckett is on the disabled list because of blurred central vision due to a partial blockage of the blood vessels in his right eye. His doctor said the problem was a form of glaucoma and not caused by being hit in the face by a pitch.

The Cincinnati Reds and officials in Hamilton County, Ohio, have agreed to build a riverfront ballpark downtown, one that could open in 2003. The cost of the stadium, with an agreed-upon 30-year lease, has been capped at $235 million. Cinergy Field, which opened as Riverfront Stadium in 1970, will be demolished to make way for the new park. Cubs catcher Sandy Martinez dropped his appeal of a two-game suspension from the National League for his part in a brawl with the Braves on May 25. Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro and Indians righthander Bartolo Colon were named the American League's player and pitcher of the month for June.

Mike Brown, president and part owner of the Cincinnati Bengals, will meet with a Baltimore official this week to hear an offer designed to lure his team to Baltimore, a newspaper reported yesterday. Maryland Stadium Authority Chairman John Moag Jr., charged with bringing NFL football back to Baltimore, is to represent that city in the meeting with Brown, the Cincinnati Post reported. Moag, who has met with Brown before, declined to talk about the meeting. But asked if he could deny that a session with Brown is planned for this week, Moag said, "No, I cannot deny that.

The Cleveland Indians are preparing to sell more than 100,000 additional tickets for the 1996 season, the club said yesterday. The Indians, who announced months ago they were sold out for the season, said they would sell an additional 750 auxiliary bleacher and standing-room-only tickets for each of the 82 home dates, including the March 30 exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Details on how the extra tickets will be made available to the public are to be released today.

Bengals cornerback Sheldon White, a free-agent acquisition from the Detroit Lions, matched his 1992 season total for interceptions with two in the first 20 minutes of last night's Eagles-Bengals game. A native of nearby Dayton, he put on a show on each one. On his first, he high-stepped into the end zone, then completed his 99-yard return by flopping onto his back. After his second, which he grabbed as the ball bounced out of the hands of the Eagles' Heath Sherman, he tossed the ball into the stands.

First came the anger. The news had just been delivered to the Phillies clubhouse that Lenny Dykstra broke his right collarbone in the second inning when he slammed into the plywood centerfield wall at Riverfront Stadium after hauling down Chris Sabo's drive into the gap. In the visiting manager's tiny cinder-block office, Jim Fregosi seethed. "It just ticks me off that this is the only bleeping ballpark in the major bleeping leagues without padding on the outfield walls," he said, his voice echoing off the unpadded office walls.

The Cincinnati Reds have a lease requiring them to play in Riverfront Stadium until 2007. But owner Marge Schott is scouting alternate locations in northern Kentucky as she tries to gain leverage with city negotiators who want her approval for stadium renovations. Developer Jerry Carroll has had a casual talk with Schott about prospects for a stadium on land he owns near Turfway Park race track, Carroll told the Cincinnati Post. Carroll said that Schott never expressed definite plans to move the team, and her preference would be to keep the Reds in Cincinnati.

Reds owner Marge Schott is about $3 million behind in payments to Cincinnati for home-game revenues, the city manager said yesterday. John Shirey told the City Council that Schott is withholding the money until she gets a new lease for Riverfront Stadium. Schott also wants a new baseball-only stadium downtown. Shirey told the council that Schott had not paid the city its share of revenues from admissions, concessions and program sales since August 1994. A team spokesman said that Schott would have no comment.

When Eric Davis's bat made contact yesterday afternoon in Cincinnati, San Francisco reliever Jeff Robinson didn't bother to follow the flight of the ball. "You know that sound," Robinson said simply, drearily. Years from now, people who were there, and even some people who weren't, will recall that sound, that flight, that place where it hit. It hit the concrete facing of the upper deck in leftfield at Riverfront Stadium. How far is it? Estimates begin at 500 feet. What did it do?

Of the 36 homers Tim Wallach hit in 1980 while playing for the Denver Bears, never once did he hit one to rightfield at Mile High Stadium. But he has now. Wallach jumped on a high fastball from Colorado righthander Greg Harris and drilled a three-run, opposite-field homer in the fifth inning, sparking the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers to a 9-2 victory over the Rockies last night. It was the Dodgers' seventh straight win and, coupled with San Francisco's 3-2 loss to Houston, moved Los Angeles a game ahead of the Giants in the National League West.

CINCINNATI - The Phillies are trying to become the first club to win three consecutive National League pennants since the mid-1940s. With such a daunting challenge, you'd think the club would be a little tight. You'd think wrong. Ryan Madson walked into a Halloween store a few days ago and purchased a mask. It's not a scary mask, but one with a bunch of wrinkles, sort of like you might see of a caricature of Ronald Reagan. "It's Miguel Cairo," joked Chad Durbin. Baseball players being extreme creatures of habit, Madson takes it everywhere he goes.

If you visit the memorial to the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, you'll step past a giant anchor raised from the sunken battleship. It stands taller than two men and weighs more than an elephant, strong and steadfast even in loss - and it was cast in the city of Chester. If you own a vintage 1950s Ford, there's a chance it was built in Chester, at a sprawling assembly plant that once employed a young salesman by the name of Lee Iacocca. If you listen to the sermons of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or the rock-and-roll of Bill Haley, you can hear echoes of Chester.

If you visit the memorial to the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, you'll step past a giant anchor raised from the sunken battleship. It stands taller than two men and weighs more than an elephant, strong and steadfast even in loss - and it was cast in the city of Chester. If you own a vintage 1950s Ford, there's a chance it was built in Chester, at a sprawling assembly plant that once employed a young salesman by the name of Lee Iacocca. If you listen to the sermons of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or the rock-and-roll of Bill Haley, you can hear echoes of Chester.

At first glance, he barely resembles the skinny, young kid who rushed out to first base to congratulate his father on Sept. 11, 1985, at Riverfront Stadium while flashbulbs popped and an adoring crowd roared its approval and everything seemed possible for Pete Rose and his boy. Look again, though, and the square face framing wide-open brown eyes gives away the family connection. The mannerisms when he steps into the batter's box are strikingly familiar. And that wisecracking air is almost identical to a dad who always seemed in his element in front of a television camera, microphone or open notebook.

It's not Philadelphia and it's not the Eagles or the Phillies. But a riverfront stadium is a possibility in Norristown. A consulting firm has pitched the idea that the borough be home to a minor-league baseball team. The proposal was part of the latest borough revitalization plan - announced at a meeting earlier this month. The plan has drawn mixed reviews from area residents and officials. But the consensus last week was that if a stadium were built, it would attract a crowd.

The Cincinnati Reds and officials in Hamilton County, Ohio, have agreed to build a riverfront ballpark downtown, one that could open in 2003. The cost of the stadium, with an agreed-upon 30-year lease, has been capped at $235 million. Cinergy Field, which opened as Riverfront Stadium in 1970, will be demolished to make way for the new park. Cubs catcher Sandy Martinez dropped his appeal of a two-game suspension from the National League for his part in a brawl with the Braves on May 25. Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro and Indians righthander Bartolo Colon were named the American League's player and pitcher of the month for June.

A day after she canceled scoreboard coverage of out-of-town games at Riverfront Stadium, Reds owners Marge Schott opened her wallet yesterday and agreed to restore the $350-a-month service. Her largesse came after a bank offered to pay the bill. Doctors said it could be months before Minnesota outfielder Kirby Puckett fully regains vision in his right eye. Puckett is on the disabled list because of blurred central vision due to a partial blockage of the blood vessels in his right eye. His doctor said the problem was a form of glaucoma and not caused by being hit in the face by a pitch.

The Cleveland Indians are preparing to sell more than 100,000 additional tickets for the 1996 season, the club said yesterday. The Indians, who announced months ago they were sold out for the season, said they would sell an additional 750 auxiliary bleacher and standing-room-only tickets for each of the 82 home dates, including the March 30 exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Details on how the extra tickets will be made available to the public are to be released today.

Reds owner Marge Schott is about $3 million behind in payments to Cincinnati for home-game revenues, the city manager said yesterday. John Shirey told the City Council that Schott is withholding the money until she gets a new lease for Riverfront Stadium. Schott also wants a new baseball-only stadium downtown. Shirey told the council that Schott had not paid the city its share of revenues from admissions, concessions and program sales since August 1994. A team spokesman said that Schott would have no comment.

ERROR, BARTELL: It has come to our attention that there is another former Phillie who deserves Hall of Fame consideration. Dick Bartell, who died last Friday at 85, stacks up favorably with the 15 shortstops now in the Hall. "Rowdy Richard" batted .300 six times in his 18-year career (1927 to '43, '46), .284 lifetime. Bartell, a Phillie from 1931 to '34, is best remembered around Chicago for the feud he had with one of the town's sports writers, Ed Burns. In his 1988 biography, Bartell told the story: "Dizzy Dean, Woody English and I were walking up the path to the ballpark.