Heavy Harps and Pan Am Heroes

By Tom Callahan

Counting the woeful Colts, Indianapolis seems to have grabbed up most of the amateur athletics in the country and, for the past two weeks, has gone international as the tenth host of the quadrennial Pan American Games. Sort of a hemispheric Olympics, though with moderate attendance and meager television ratings, the Pan Am Games provide a warm-up for both pole vaulters and political commentators, as well as an opportunity to avoid the crowds and defect early. So far, ten Dominicans have absconded to New York City.

A dead shot from the Chilean shooting team (and intelligence community) has been denied a visa for being too deadly, and the elegant Cuban baseball players have had to duck leaflets, airplane streamers and a brigade of fat bench jockeys in BAY OF PIGS T shirts. Worse than that, Cuba's team lost to the Americans, 6-4. By the gold-medal count, Cuba (51) and the U.S. (104) are already assured of second and first place, though the outcome of last week's most poignant ideological clash was ambiguous.

In a lovely incongruity, weight lifters took over the symphony hall, and to a harpist's rendition of The Harmonious Blacksmith, Cuban-born Roberto ("Tony") Urrutia tried his hand as an American. The three-time world champion, who defected seven years ago on the end of a bedsheet in Mexico City, finished third in the middleweight class to two former countrymen. Fidel Castro sent them his congratulations: "You taught an exemplary lesson to the traitor." Urrutia declared he was glad to be free, "like a bird," but the / medal ceremony was bittersweet. "When I hear the national anthem," he said wistfully, "of course I feel like a Cuban." By the time the last weight was lowered, that anthem had lifted the hall 25 times.

Four years ago in Venezuela, just the rumor of revolutionary new steroid tests sent U.S. musclemen stampeding back to the airport. But, as expressed by Ohio Hammer Thrower Jud Logan, the mood has calmed. "I like to be tested," he said, after a Pan Am record throw of 253 ft. 5 in. "I like things fair." From the tiny Utah archer Denise Parker, 13, who won a gold medal, to the statuesque Costa Rican swimmer Silvia Poll, 16, teenage girls were the fairest of them all. The daughter of a German businessman who made his way to Costa Rica through Nicaragua, Poll is the biggest (6 ft. 3 in.), blondest and best freestyler in all of Central America. She won a fistful of her country's inaugural medals, including three golds, and wasn't finished yet.

Suriname won its first gold medal ever at the pool. Anthony Nesty's record swim in the 100-meter butterfly brought out a bright national banner with the wonderful slogan A DIRT WAGON CARRIES DIRT, BUT IT DOES NOT CARRY SHAME. There were old names too. Saving her heptathlon for the coming world championships in Rome, the regal Jackie Joyner-Kersee focused on the long jump and equaled East German Heike Drechsler's 24-ft. 5 1/2-in. world mark. With Carl Lewis standing by for his own turn at the long jump and Greg Louganis still perched on his diving pedestal, thoughts of 1984 were unavoidable.

Before the Los Angeles Olympics, Lewis had expressly set out to become a U.S. celebrity on the order of Rock Star Michael Jackson, and in an ironic way he made it. While he won four gold medals, Lewis won few hearts, and the 29- ft. 2 1/2-in. long jump of Bob Beamon has stayed beyond him. "To me, winning and losing was never a big deal," he says now. "I enjoy competing; I enjoy training. I've had a lot of good memories in sport. If nothing more was to happen, I don't think I could complain."

Lewis, 26, is a singer of sorts, Louganis, 27, a dancer debuting in Indianapolis in October. Forgetting their parts in the epic beach movie Dirty Laundry, both aspire to be actors. "When the bus pulled up to the village the other day," Louganis said, "and I heard someone mention, 'Five to a room, ten to a bathroom,' I thought: 'Why am I still doing this?' " But the answer came to him even before he became the first three-time Pan Am champion of the three-meter springboard. "I still have goals, tremendous goals." At the diving nationals in April, Louganis tasted second place for the first time in a while. "But second place isn't losing," he said. "If I learn something from a competition, I can be second to last and still come out a winner."

Though the hosts were doing too much of the winning, sweet sentiments of this kind abounded. One-Woman Basketball Team Hortencia Marcari of Brazil was an object of general delight, and, venturing into the stands once to protect their flag, the Cuban boxers brought an awesome presence to the final week. It seemed everyone's Pan Am hero though, Anglo and Latin, was a lefthanded baseball pitcher born with one finger on his right hand. The University of Michigan's Jim Abbott, 19, carried the flag and led the U.S. team in the opening ceremonies at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where roller skaters would later go streaming like the Unsers. "I've never run across a feeling on a baseball field quite like that," said Abbott, who then took the mound against Nicaragua. "When you're out there, and the national anthem's playing, and you're holding your hat to your heart, it feels great."

The first batter tried to bunt him, as the first batters often do. Abbott is a genius at transferring his glove back and forth, but seeing is hardly believing. He smartly fielded first the bunt and later the question about it. "The way I look at it, if a hitter is weak on the inside, that's where I'm going to pitch him. If they think I can't field, I don't blame them for trying to bunt." In a five-inning stint, Abbott allowed the Nicaraguans just three hits, and they were beaten 18-0. Those who had come to see a war game left the park in a peaceful mood.