Word: neill
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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That probably won't happen. O'Neill, a lifetime .268 hitter, will glide earthward and be hitting an imposing but not epochal .310 or so in October. But this spring, baseball has been bustin' out all over. Home runs have increased 26% over last year; runs batted in are up 11%. And a cluster of young stars threatens to smash offensive records set when George Burns was still in Little League. Seattle's Ken Griffey Jr. is on a pace to hit 65-plus homers. So is Frank Thomas, the Chicago White Sox's baby-faced behemoth. Thomas scored...
...Paul O'Neill had an off week at the ballpark. In just eight games, the New York Yankee outfielder's batting average dropped 43 points -- all the way down to .429 after Saturday's game. Well, it's a hard life but a hopeful one: if O'Neill soldiers on and maintains his .429 until the season's end, he will prove himself the most proficient batter of the 20th century...
SOME GUYS ARE JUST LUCKY. "Sometimes luck can be as important as talent in this game," says O'Neill, referring to a rule that also governs the game of life. "A hitter has to realize that. Last week I was hitting the ball hard, and it was falling in. Last night I hit the ball hard, and they caught it." Wee Willie Keeler's dictum, enunciated nearly a century ago, still applies: Hit 'em where they ain't. And how does a ballplayer do that? With a great deal of skill and a little luck...
...maybe hitting a baseball, even this season, is still a thing of beauty and a damn hard way to make a living. Soon the helium averages will drop, and good platesmen will stumble into month-long slumps. By October, O'Neill predicts, "the stats will be close to where they were last year." For now, though, we'll cheer the boys of spring. Will the sacred records fall? No one knows. But in June, everything is possible...
...believer in the Tip O'Neill mottothat all politics is local," Rowe said. "It's abroadening responsibility in government relationsfor me. It's not simply federal relations, it'slocal, state and federal. That's a great appeal tome...