A. Runner

     Here are some notes from an interview with Arthur Baron, a biology major, who is a member of the Mallory College cross-country team that returned two days ago from finishing fourth at the NCAA Division III meet at Franklin Park in Boston. Baron finished 11th—considered a good finish—and this is the second time he has been in the top 25 in the annual meet. The newspaper has run a story on the meet. You are to do an interview. Here are your notes:

     Baron is 5' 11", weighs 150, has brown hair, wears glasses.
     Runs 20 miles a day—twice what most run—seven days a week in summer, lifts weights and swims as part of his training. In winter, runs at least 10 miles a day unless snowbound. Yesterday, the day after returning from Boston, he did seven miles of road work at a minus 20 degree temperature.
     Baron says his coach, Steve Helmer, tries to develop internal motivation among the runners:
     "It's unlike high school where everything has a rigid schedule. Steve is more oriented to the athlete than the program. You're given credit for being able to think.
     "At other schools, win-oriented coaches burn out their athletes. At some schools, the runners put in twice as much road work, but there is a point of diminishing returns.
     "We have no athletic scholarships here, and there is no physical education major. None of us who ran in Boston came here to be athletes. We're here for the academic program. The coach knows that the Big Ten and other big conferences attract athletes. But running, the coach says, 'is for intrinsic reasons, not money.'"
     Asked about the success of the team despite the small size of the school and its lack of scholarships, Baron says the team uses a tactic called "pack running." Instead of each running his race, the four stay together until the last mile. The effect on other teams is demoralizing, particularly when the four run in front, as they try to do.
     "I could possibly run faster times away from the pack on my own, but there is a mental strain to running in front all alone. Also, the feeling of running with your team can cause you to beat a better runner," Baron said.
     Baron is thinking of studying medicine. The other three are going into science-related fields, physics, chemistry and biology.
     A call to Helmer turns up the following information:
     "Cross-country runners are highly disciplined and demand top performance of themselves. If there is a problem, it is that they train to excess. They are very demanding.
     "Cross-country runners in this country tend to come from the middle and upper classes and are good students, whereas the sprinters often are from less affluent homes. The situation in Egypt, where I spent a year, is reversed. There the military officers are the sprinters; the laboring class provides the long-distance runners."

     Write 400 to 450 words.

B. Reds-Braves

     Here are the lineups and an inning-by-inning account of a baseball game between the Reds and the Braves. The Braves were ahead of the Reds by two games for the division leadership before the game. Lemon is a left-hander, Katz a right-hander. Katz, 7–4, has lost two games to the Braves this year. Lemon, 11–3, has never faced the Reds. It is midseason. There is no need to identify the teams any further or to place them in any league.
     This is an evening game played in the Reds' hometown, your town.

Play by Play

1st inning
     Braves: Bumiller walks on five pitches. Vorobil hits a 3–1 count to center-field wall; Gougeon makes putout. Weiner hits first pitch to center field for single. Bumiller goes to third. Wallis hits into double play, Eddings-Kelso-Cruz.
     Reds: Eddings grounds out, Lemon to Sherman. Manoff looks at third strike. Douge flies out to Wallis.
     2nd inning
Braves: Hand takes first when Kelso bobbles grounder. Sherman strikes out. Day singles to center, Hand going to third. Weir pops to Cruz. Lemon swings at and misses three pitches.
Reds: Cruz grounds out, Weir to Sherman. Marwell flies out to Weiner. Gougeon grounds out, Hand-Sherman.
     3rd inning
     Braves: Bumiller flies to Manoff. Vorobil singles to center. On one-one count to Weiner, Vorobil out trying to steal second. Weiner pops to Cruz.
Reds: Kelso fouls out to Day. Barrett hits 3–0 pitch to center-field wall for double. Katz grounds out, Sherman unassisted, Barrett taking third. Eddings flies to Weiner.
     4th inning
     Braves: Wallis grounds to deep short and is safe on close play. Reds Manager Frank Bordewich argues to no avail. Hand bunts Wallis to second, Douge throwing Hand out at first. Sherman grounds out, Kelso to Cruz. Wallis takes third. Day strikes out on four pitches.
     Reds: Manoff hits first pitch into left-field stands for a home run, his 15th of the season, his 76th RBI. Douge grounds out, Vorobil to Sherman. Cruz pops to Hand. Marwell flies out to Wallis.
     5th inning
     Braves: Weir singles on ground over second. Lemon sacrifice bunts Weir to second, Cruz to Kelso covering first. Bumiller tops pitch that dribbles toward third, and everyone is safe, Weir on third, Bumiller on first. Vorobil hits first pitch to deep center, Gougeon making catch. Throw to plate too late to catch Weir. Weiner grounds out, Eddings to Cruz.
     Reds: Gougeon hit on ankle by pitch, takes first. Kelso, trying to bunt, pops to pitcher who doubles Gougeon off first. Barrett flies to Weiner.
     6th inning
     Braves: Wallis walks and steals second on 2–1 pitch to Hand, who then pops to Eddings. Sherman grounds out Kelso to Cruz. Day hits grounder past first, Barrett throwing Wallis out at plate on close call that Wallis protests vehemently. He is warned by plate umpire.
     Reds: Katz grounds to Sherman unassisted. Eddings flies out to Hand in foul territory. Manoff grounds out Weir to Sherman.
     7th inning
     Braves: Weir grounds out Eddings to Cruz. Lemon strikes out. Bumiller singles to left. Vorobil forces Bumiller, Eddings to Kelso.
     Reds: Douge walks on five pitches. Cruz singles to left, Douge going to second. Marwell hits into double play, Vorobil-Weir-Sherman, Douge taking third. Gougeon pops into center, the ball dropping in front of Bumiller, Douge scoring on the single. Kelso forces Gougeon, Weir stepping on second unassisted.
     8th inning
     Braves: Weiner flies to Barrett. Wallis doubles down first-base line. Hand grounds out Douge to Cruz, Wallis remaining on second. Count goes to 3–0 on Sherman, and Marwell goes out to talk to Katz. Calls trainer who examines Katz's hand. Blister is developing. But Katz says he is OK. (He has not pitched a complete game this year.) Sherman walks. Day grounds to third, Douge stepping on bag, forcing Wallis.
     Reds: Barrett flies out to Bumiller. Katz looks at three strikes, never lifting bat off shoulder, apparently unwilling to put stress on pitching finger with blister. Eddings flies out to Weiner.
     9th inning
     Braves: Weir hits 3–2 pitch into center for a single. Rudy Ahearn pinch hits for Lemon; infield expects him to bunt. Ahearn swings at first pitch and it narrowly misses being fair past first. Infield drops back. Ahearn then bunts toward third and beats throw to first. Reds manager goes out for mound conference, leaves Katz in. Bumiller hits line drive to Kelso, who makes sideways leaping catch. Runners stay put. Vorobil hits into game-ending double play around the horn, Douge throwing to Kelso for the out at second and on to first.
     The game took two hours and four minutes, and the attendance was 16,069 paid.

     Write an online story immediately following the game. Then write one for next morning's newspaper. Devise a box score.

C. Loser

     You cover the local team, the Red Sox, and it has just lost 2–0 to the Twins in an afternoon game. The winning pitcher was Randy Jones, the loser Bob Pierce. The Sox got six hits, the Twins 10 off Pierce. The winning runs were scored in the fourth on a base on balls to Marty Balzer and successive doubles by Gene Mica and Tom Kemper.
     You interview Ted Schmidt, the Sox leading hitter, after the game, who went nothing for four and struck out twice.
     "I can't recall striking out twice in a game in my life in this league," he says. "But I did." He kicks his locker. "If I were a pitcher I'd be embarrassed to go to the mound with the kind of stuff Jones has. A nothing pitcher. Nothing."
     You then talk to the Sox manager, Danny Appel, and you ask him about Jones. "A helluva pitcher. He's won 12 games and the season's one-third old. A lot of the guys say he's a nothing pitcher, but what you need to stay alive in this league is control and pinpoint pitching. The guys who have a lot of stuff but can't get it over the plate bomb out fast.
     "Just between us, Schmidt had a bad day and was bitching. Heck, I'd give anyone on my team for Jones. The guy's worth a sure pennant to any contending team."
     Jones is now 12–2 and Pierce is 6–5. The leading team in the league, the Athletics, lost a game in the standings to the Twins by losing 5–3 to the Rangers and the Twins now trail the Athletics by two games.
     Write a game story with a feature lead for a morning newspaper.