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Tuesday, April 12, 1994     Page:

They say the game can be cruel ave Cash scoffed at the suggestion that what
was probably the coldest baseball night in Lackawanna County Stadium would
keep him off the coaching lines
   
ThursdayOutside, television photographers bundled up as they waited for
some player to come out into the cold and consent to an interview.
    Everyone else tried to get near the heaters going full blast in corners of
the dugouts.
   
Tom Quinlan, the Red Barons third baseman who was born in St. Paul,
Minnesota, and spent the past three seasons playing in Syracuse, N.Y., laughed
when someone suggested he should be used to the cold.
   
“This is nothing,” he said.
   
But it was something, something that in the old days seemed to always
result in a baseball game being postponed “due to cold weather.”
   
But they don’t do that much anymore. They didn’t in Milwaukee the other day
when the wind-chill was below zero, and they didn’t do it in Chicago in a
similar situation.
   
And since there were no clouds in the sky on Thursday, they didn’t do it at
Lackawanna County Stadium for the Red Barons’ 1994 season opener against
Columbus.
   
And so, it was left for Cash to grab his baby oil to help guard him against
the elements, and for pitcher Mike Dunne to try to get himself ready to pitch
for the first time outside of Florida since 1992.
   
JUMP ME P LEASE
   
They say baseball is a cruel game. But the cliche was never more accurate
than it was on Thursday, when the 38-degree temperatures and 18-wind chill
made it as brutal as it was cruel.
   
And that was at the start of the game.
   
Hitters sat in the clubhouses before the game wondering what it would be
like to hit a ball off the wrong part of the bat and have the usual handful of
b-bs intensified by the numbing cold.
   
“If you don’t hit it right, you’re going to feel it for a few innings,”
Quinlan said.
   
Mike Quade, the Red Barons’ manager, ran off the field with Cash after
batting practice talking about the cold. Quade, who grew up in the Chicago
area, is used to the cold.
   
Last year he was the manager at Ottawa, where the Lynx already lead the
International League in postponements after the weather scratched their
scheduled game against Rochester on Thursday.
   
About the only salvation for the Red Barons as they bundled up for the cold
on Thursday was that so many of their players are used to wintry weather.
   
Quade and Ron Lockett are from Chicago, Quinlan is from Minnesota.
   
Tyler Green lives outside of Denver and Ricky Bottalico lives in
Connecticut.
   
And though he lives in Florida, pitcher Robert Gaddy was born in Iceland.
   
As Cash oiled himself down for the game, former Philadelphia Phillies
general manager and manager Paul Owens, now an assistant to team president
Bill Giles, said he couldn’t remember it ever being so cold at Lackawanna
County Stadium.
   
Owens attended college at St. Bonaventure in icy Olean, N.Y. and he spent
two years in Europe during World War II.
   
When “The Pope” tells you it’s about as cold as he can recall, that means
it’s cold
   
Not quite cold enough, mind you, to postpone the opener.
   
But certainly close enough.
   
Bill Savage is a Times Leader sports writer.