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SPORTS:[Gianfranco Gorgoni/Contact Photo]Ali Awaits ThirdComing%u2019 vs SpinksBY MIKE KATZDeer Lake, Pa. %u2014 The kid has a message from Muhammed Ali. %u201cThe way to beat Leon Spinks,%u201d the kid said, %u201c was to talk fast for 30 days before the fight.%u201d %u201c Aiiah talked to Jesus and Jesus talked to me. which is why I drove down from Toronto to tell you,%u201d the kid explained.%u201cDid you ever train anybody?%u201d Ali wanted to know. %u201cDid you ever fight anybody?%u201dMuhammed Ali does not take advice%u2014from doctors, from trainers or from people who hear voices. If he did, maybe he wouldn't be trying to win the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship for the record third time September 15 in New Orleans; maybe he would be fired instead of risking his 36 year old body against the 25 year old fighter.Ali. though, is intent on what he calls his %u201cThird Coming,%u201d his resurrection from %u2019former champion. He talks very confidently of meeting Spinks; and his former sparring partner, Larry Holmes, who holds the World Boxing Council version of the title.Who is to say he can%u2019t do it? Certainly not Ferdie Pacheco, who fears for Ali%u2019s physical being. Certainly not Angelo Dundee, his long time trainer, who hasn%u2019t even been up the hill to Ali%u2019s pine cabin retreat.\without a boss,%u201d says Ali. %u201cAnd when it comes to boxing I am the realest expert in the world.%u201d So when Ali decides one morning not to train, or when he decides to drive to Philadelphia or to a movie, the men around him just shake their heads. Ali, they say, knows better than they do.%u201cI remember once when he met Jam es Braddock,%u201d said Gene Kilroy, one of the 16 curses on Ali%u2019s $5,200-a-week payroll here. %u201cHe asked him, %u2018How did you know how far to run? %u2019 and Braddock told him, %u2018My body told me.%u2019%u201c %u2018Me, too.%u2019 said Ali. %u2018I know my body better than anyone else.%u2019 %u201dThe body, even without fasting,uKiiohc 99K nnnnrtc a s o f v p stp rriavonlv 16 and a half more than when Ali and Spinks first met on February 15, after a light workout in the crowded and unbearably hot gymnasium. More than 200 youngsters from a mission in theSouth Bronx, disappointed last winter when Spinks didn%u2019t show up as scheduled for their annual dinner, were bussed to the Ali camp. Ali, who had shot pool in Pottsville in the morning, had not planned on working out yesterday, but he had forgotten the children were coming.The full-length mirrors in the gym were fogged over with the humidity; the temperature must have been over 100 degrees. Perspiration poured off the spectators, always let in for free at the camp of the People%u2019s Champion. Ali, wearing a rubberized girdle around his pudgy midsection, worked three rounds on the heavy bag, and three rounds jumping rope. He figured he knocked off three pounds in a very short time. He plans to enter the Superdome at about 219.%u201cSometimes I think Ali%u2019s idea of being in shape is just to have his weight down,%u201d says Tom Kendille, the publicist from Top Rank, Inc., promoters of the fight.But there is little else to train at this stage of Ali%u2019s career. The reflexes that made him %u201cThe Greatest%u201d are now part of boxing history. The right hand, which Pacheco had to fill with pain-killer before every fight, was hardly used against the heavy bag%u2014and when it was free, with a 3-quarters open fist, it was not hard enough to scare a Leon Spinks.Kilroy says Ah has sparred more than 200 rounds already for this fight; for the February bout, which Ali claims he could not take seriously, went four weeks without boxing a round in training. There is no doubt that this time he will be in as good a shape as his age permits.Ali also says he has learned something about Spinks from watching a video cassette of their first fight over and over. %u201cI can see he can be hit,%u201d Ali says. %u201cI can see he can be knocked out.%u201dHe ridiculed Spink%u2019s training methods%u2014%u201c Hiding limousines, chasing girls and shaking his behind in public,%u201d%u2014and though he admitted he was %u201csuffering,%u201d herf>tnrnt%u00bbH tn u m rli tn H a v Anri n n fphe is not fasting.%u201cYou want to know what kind of guy Ali really is?%u201d said Kilroy. %u201cHe put up that kook from Toronto in one of the cabins as a guest for a couple of days.%u201dBeck,CosmosOTKicks!Franz Beckenbauer, thought by many to be the greatest soccer player of the seventies, scored the winning goal during a shootout at Giants Stadium last night as the Cosmos stayed alive in N.A.S.L. playoffs with a 4-0, 2-1 double victory over the Minnesota Kicks.The win avenged the Cosmos 9-2 drubbing at the hands of the Kicks in Minnesota Monday, the worst defeat in the team%u2019s history. The Cosmos, lethargic and sloppy during that game, were an aggressive and hungry bunch last night, driven by a crowd of more than60,000 who thundered approval of their every offensive thrust.Giorgio Chinaglia, toe league%u2019s scoring champion, and Dennis Tueart each scored twice in the regulation victory, with Tueart adding two assists and Bogey Bogicevic assisting on three goals. The teams then played a pair of 15 minute sudden-death periods, but neither team scored. Under tghe league%u2019s rules, the series was then to be decided by a five-man shootout. The Kicks%u2019 Chico Hamilton scored first, and the first fourCosmos celebrate first goal: [from left] Dennis Tueart,Giorgio Chinaglia and Bogey Bogicevic embracing afterChinaglia scored last night [Jim Cummins Photo]Cosmos failed to score. But with the Cosmos season apparently about to end, Carlos Alberto, the brilliant defenseman, lobbed a shot over the head of Lettieci of Minnesota to tie the shootout. The outcome was then left to the Kicks%u2019 Alan Merrick and Beckenbauer. Jack Brand, the Cosmos goalie,who played almost-perfect goal all night, stopped Merrick%u2019s shot, setting the stage for Beckenbauer%u2019s winner.The Cosmos will play the winner of last night%u2019s Portland-Vancouver game in playoff conference finals. %u2014G.H.Guidry Keeps Yanks In Race;Mets Burnt By Homer In 9thBY GARY HOENIGAnother immaculate performance by Ron Guidry has again buoyed Yankee hopes that the race in the American League is still not over. It seems that every time Guidry pitches, the Yankees climb right back into the race.Tuesday%u2019s victory over the Oakland Athletics, 6-0, was the Yankees%u2019 eighth in their last ten games, and erased bad memories of that bizarre series in Baltimore, which at one point had the Yankees nine games out of first and on the verge of extinction. But two straight Yankee wins and Red Sox losses have renewed the players%u2019 feeling that, with a concerted effort, they can still close the seven-game gap.Guidry is, of course, one of the principle reasons that the Yankees can still call this a pennant race. Earlier this season, while the Red Sox were tearing up the league and the Yanks could do no better than play slightly better than .500 ball, Guidry was winning every time he pitched. More than any other pitcher in baseball this season, he has been the stopper, the guy you can count on every time his number comes up in the pitching rotation. He has now won 27 of his last 30 decisions, since August 10, 1977.Guidry%u2019s brilliance is all the more significant now that the Yankees%u2019 early-season pitching problems seem to have been resolved. Catfish Hunter, who pitched last night, is his old seif again, still getting out after out, still giving up those gopher balls. Hunter followed two consecutive shutouts with a rain-shortened, 2-1 win over the Orioles Friday. Dick Ticftow has been capable of seven strong innings every time out, and Ed Figueroa has been effective whenhe has been able to pitch. Rich Gossage has been unhittable in his last few outings.The Yankee bats decided the game for Guidry early, scoring four in the third. Jackson%u2019s two-run home run provided the remaining margin. Guidry yielded only four hits and struck out nine in winning his 17th, against two losses. The shutout was his second in a row and sixth overall, and his eleventh complete game.Tough One for KoosieEven when Jerry Koosman pitches well, he can%u2019t seem to win. And for Koosman, 3-13 on the year and well on his way to his second straight season of losing 20 games, it was small consolation that he was not the losing pitcher; as the Mets bowed to the San Diego Padres at Shea yesterday, 2-1.Once again, it was the bullpen that failed, a familiar story that was told yesterday by Skip Lockwood. Lockwood replaced Koosman in the ninth, with one out, Dave Winfield on second base, and the Mets ieading, 1-0. After retiring pinch hitter Jerry Turner on a foul fly to right, Lockwood, who had saved Craig Swan%u2019s win Tuesday night, threw a gopher ball to Derrel Thomas. Thomas, no threat to Hank Aaron, recorded his second home run of the season on a huge drive to right. John D'Acquisto, the third Padre pitcher, retired the Mets in order in the ninth to get the win.For Koosman, it was one of his best outings of the year. Displaying a variety of pitches, Koosman and Bob Owchinko, the Padres excellent young pitcher, yielded little until the fourth, when the Mets scored on an Eliot Maddox single, a hit-and-run groundout, and a Willie Montanex single. When Maddox and Foli got one-out hits in the sixth, P adres%u2019 manager Roger Craig, once a 20-game loser for the Mets himself, replaced Owchinko with Mark Lee. Lee threw one pitch to John Stearns, who bounced an easy double-play grounder to Hernando Gonzalez to end the inning. The Mets did not get another base runner for the rest of the game.In other games:NATIONAL LEAGUE: Los Angeles 5, Philadelphia 2; Montreal 1, San Francisco 0; Atlanta 9, Chicago 0; Houston 4, St. Louis 2; Pittsburgh 13, Cincinnati 2AMERICAN LEAGUE: Minnesota 5, Kansas City 1 (first game); Milwaukee 8, Toronto 1 (first game); Detroit 2, Cleveland 1; Chicago 6, Texas 2.G.H.-AlsoThe Jets acquired defensive tackle Andre Anderson from the Los Angeles Rams, for a draft choice to be determined by Anderson%u2019s performance as a Jet. Anderson replaced fullback Bodie Donnell on the Jet%u2019s roster; Donnell was cut. Donnell was the Jets%u2019 fourth round draft choice, and was expected to give Clark Gaines a battle for the starting fullback job. Fullback Jim Earley, an eighthround choice, won that job instead.Doctors report that Darryl Stingley, the wide receiver for the New England Patriots who offered a paralyzing injury during a game with Oakland Saturday, now has feeling in all parts of his body, they also say Mingley can move ms left arm. While encouraged by these developments, the doctors are still not able to say whether Stingley will fully recover from the injury.Thursday, August 17, 1978

