Braves' Justice Voted Nl's Top Rookie
ATLANTA - Dave Justice is among those wondering what he could've done in a full year for the Atlanta Braves. Then again, he's just glad he got to play at all.
Justice, who began the season in the minor leagues, didn't get a chance to start full-time until Dale Murphy was traded in early August. But once he broke into the lineup, he broke loose.
``If Dale had not been traded, I probably would still be platooning at first. I wouldn't be sitting here,'' Justice said yesterday after being selected National League rookie of the year in a near-unanimous vote.
Justice hit 28 home runs, most of them after Murphy went to Philadelphia and right field opened up. In 127 games and 439 at-bats, Justice batted .282 with 78 runs batted in.
Justice got 23 of 24 first-place votes for 118 points. Montreal second baseman Delino DeShields got the other first-place vote and 60 points.
Hal Morris, Cincinnati first baseman was third, followed by John Burkett, San Francisco pitcher; Mike Harkey, Chicago Cubs pitcher; Todd Zeile, St. Louis catcher, and two Montreal outfielders, Marquis Grissom and Larry Walker.
M's open ESPN coverage
-- ESPN will begin its Sunday night coverage of the 1991 major league season on April 14 with the Seattle Mariners at the American League champion Oakland A's.
ESPN will televise games on 25 consecutive Sunday nights.
Stadium measure fails
-- SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Voters rejected a tax-funded stadium for the San Francisco Giants, casting the baseball team's future in Northern California in doubt.
Owner Bob Lurie announced today that the Giants would stay in San Francisco in 1991 and that he would make a decision about 1992 early next year.
Voters in five Santa Clara County communities defeated the 1 percent utility tax to finance a 45,000-seat, $153 million ballpark that would have opened in 1994, replacing aging, windswept Candlestick Park.
Notes
-- Seattle's Ken Griffey, Jr. hit a two-run homer and Cecil Fielder hit a three-run shot at his former home park today as a touring team of major-league players defeated the host team of Japanese all-stars 10-5, the visitors' first victory in five games in the eight-game series. Fielder tied the score at 5 with his eighth-inning blast before a crowd of 32,000 at Koshien Stadium, where he played for the Hanshin Tigers in 1989.
-- New York Yankees outfielder Mel Hall, charged with illegally bringing cougar cubs into the state, has agreed to pay $2,000 to charity in exchange for having the misdemeanor charges dropped.