The New York Times, by Dave Anderson

By Dave Anderson

For exceptional athletes, the game is relatively easy. For that very reason, their adjustment to life after sports is not always so. Jim Tyrer was an exceptional athlete, a 6-foot-4-inch, 270-pound offensive tackle, an all-pro pillar of the Kansas City Chiefs for more than a decade, one of the best in the world at what he did - protecting his quarterback, convoying his running backs.

''If you could pick a prototype out of a Sears Roebuck catalogue,'' says Hank Stram, his longtime coach at Kansas City, ''Jim Tyrer would be it.''

When his football career ended, Jim Tyrer remained a solid citizen, a willing worker. But, for one reason or another, four business ventures failed. He fell into debt. ''Hundreds of thousands of dollars,'' a friend says now. And the same pride that enhanced him as an athlete entrapped him as a businessman.

''How's the job, Jim?'' somebody would ask. ''It's fine,'' he would say. ''It could be better, but it's fine.'' And then he would change the subject.

Out of football since 1974, Jim Tyrer had settled in Kansas City's South Side with his wife, Martha, and their four children. He regularly attended the Chief games. At their 17-16 loss to the Seattle Seahawks Sunday, he sat with 10-year-old Jason, his youngest child. In hindsight now, a friend who saw him there says, ''Instead of watching the game, Jim seemed to be staring at it.'' When it ended, Betty Swanson, a secretary for the Chiefs' coaches, noticed him.

''How's it going, Jim?'' she said. ''Fine,'' he said, smiling. ''Fine.'' But sometime that night, 41-year-old Jim Tyrer apparently decided that he could not cope with failure. According to the Kansas City police, Jim Tyrer shot and killed his wife with a pistol, then shot himself. Their bodies, the police said, were found in the upstairs bedroom of their two-story ranch house.

Brad Tyrer, their 17-year-old son, told detectives that he had heard three shots and that, fearful that a stranger had entered the house and was shooting members of the family, he had hidden beneath his bed for about an hour before entering his parents' bedroom shortly before 6 in the morning and then phoning the police. Two other children had remained asleep.

At the memorial service for the Tyrers in Kansas City yesterday, the tragedy haunted those who knew them. One of Jim Tyrer's longtime friends remembered him searching for a job in 1975 after having finished his career with the Washington Redskins the previous season. The friend suggested then that the Chiefs needed another scout to assess college talent. At his peak, Jim Tyrer had been earning about $80,000 a year with the Chiefs; the scouting job paid about $25,000. ''I can't start there,'' he grumbled.

An all-American at Ohio State, he was graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology. He was not a dummy, not a tramp. But, as so many athletes sadly and suddenly discover, what they are worth in sports seldom relates to what they are worth in the real world. And, after two decades of being hailed for their athletic prowess, some cannot understand that. Or they cannot accept it.

Subconsciously or not, Jim Tyrer also had peer pressure. Many of his Chief teammates were succeeding out of football - Len Dawson as a television analyst, Ed Podolak in real estate, Jerry May in construction, Jim Lynch in insurance, Fred Arbanas in advertising and politics, Mike Garrett in a San Diego department store, Dave Hill in automobiles.

But here was Jim Tyrer, inducted into the Chiefs Hall of Fame in 1976, suffering in shame. Not that he did not try to succeed. Even before the Chiefs won Super Bowl IV, he represented some of his teammates in marketing commercial products in the Kansas City area. But not all the players were loyal to him.

''If they got a good deal from somebody else, they'd go around Jim,'' a friend recalls. ''But then they'd complain to him when he didn't come up with something for them.''

After spurning the Chiefs' scouting job, Jim Tyrer peddled N.F.L. insignia items as a manufacturer's representative in small towns all over Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Oklahoma. But after three years he got tired of the traveling, especially the long drives.

''The money's not bad,'' he said then, ''but I'm working too hard for the money I'm getting. And the traveling is killing me.'' About a year ago he invested in a tire business. But, with a mild winter in Kansas City, not enough people purchased snow tires. In recent months he had been working for the Amway Corporation, which recruits people to sell products.

''Not long ago,'' a friend says, ''Jim and Martha informed their children of their financial problems.'' Some years ago the Tyrers had sold their big house and moved into a smaller house to assure their children's education at the best schools - the University of Missouri for Tina, Rockhurst High School for Brad, and Barstow Academy for Stephanie and Jason. That was typical of Jim Tyrer, never the type to give up.

Driving by a neighbor's house once, he stopped, got out and loosened his tie to help him saw a big limb off a tree. While the neighbor sawed, Jim Tyrer held a rope that had been tossed over a higher limb and tied to the tree, in order for the sawed limb to be let down gently. But when the sawed-off limb dropped, it yanked the rope up, thereby yanking Jim Tyrer about six feet into the air.

''Jim just wouldn't let go,'' his neighbor says. But sometime Monday morning, Jim Tyrer let go.

By Dave Anderson

As early as the first round, his age began to show. Muhammad Ali moved away from a left jab, but when he tried to throw a right hand at Larry Holmes, he missed awkwardly. And he never used to miss. By the fourth round, he was bleeding slightly from the left nostril. And he never used to bleed. In the fifth round, a shrill female voice interrupted the saddened silence that hung in the black desert night at the temporary arena in the Caesars Palace parking lot.

''Come on, Ali, fight,'' that lonely voice beseeched him. But last night Muhammad Ali could not fight. He could not dance. He could not even punch. For several months he had promised a miracle in what had been billed as ''The Last Hurrah.'' It should have been titled ''Death of a Salesman.'' When the fight finally ended after the 10th round with Muhammad Ali plopped on the blue stool in his corner, a hush fell over the sellout crowd of 24,000 in the bleacherlike arena. All around the arena, people stood still the way they do at the funeral of someone who had died unexpectedly.

In the confusion, Ali's longtime trainer, Angelo Dundee, reported that he had stopped the fight. But at ringside, others said Ali's long-time manager, Herbert Muhammad, had ordered the surrender from his first-row seat. Throughout the eighth, ninth and last rounds, Muhammad Ali suddenly had appeared to be 48 years old instead of 38. In the eighth, Holmes had pummeled him with at least a dozen punches, and, in his desperation to retaliate, Ali missed a right hand.

At that point Larry Holmes had earned all eight rounds on the scorecards of many newsmen at ringside. ''If this were match play in golf,'' somebody said, ''Holmes would have won by now, 8 and 7.''

In the ninth round, Ali covered up on the ropes for most of the round, then was doubled up by a Holmes combination. And out of the night, a weak chant began, ''Ali ... Ali ... Ali,'' as if his idolators were hoping to inspire him one more time. But walking back to his corner after the bell, Ali appeared to be cut under the right eye.

When the bell rang for the 10th round, Ali's legs were gone. He moved out wearily. ''Open up, champ,'' his longtime cheerleader, Drew (Bundini) Brown yelled hoarsely. ''Open up, champ. Test the gas tank.''

But there was no gas in the tank anymore. Not at 38, not after a two-year layoff. Suddenly, the 10th round ended with Holmes battering Ali in Ali's corner. At the bell, Ali seemed to slide down on his stool. Behind him, Pat Patterson, his bodyguard, turned to Herbert Muhammad, who had spent most of the fight staring in embarrassment at the asphalt floor below his feet.

''What do you want done?'' Patterson asked. Herbert Muhammad signaled that he wanted the fight stopped, and Pat Patterson hurried up to the corner. Moments later it was over. ''Why did you stop it?'' Herbert Muhammad was asked. ''Because he's getting defenseless,'' the manager said. During the ninth round, Herbert Muhammad had been heard to mutter: ''Keep your hands up, Ali.'' But at 38, after a two-year layoff, Muhammad Ali could not keep his hands up anymore, just as Joe Louis could not at 37 when Rocky Marciano knocked him out and ended his career. And last night, hauntingly, Joe Louis sat in his wheelchair behind Ali's corner. Devastated by heart trouble and a stroke, Joe Louis can't even get his hands up out of his lap anymore.

Once it was apparent that the fight was over, dozens of people rushed into the ring and surrounded Ali, virtually ignoring Holmes. In the confusion, Larry Holmes had remained unbeaten. Larry Holmes had recorded his eighth consecutive knockout as the World Boxing Council champion, breaking the heavyweight record of seven that Joe Louis had set four decades ago.

But this was not the night Larry Holmes emerged as an accepted champion, it was the night Muhammad Ali departed as the popular champion.

Usually a fight crowd files out quickly. But not this time. Most of the people just stood there, as if in shock. Some wept. Some blubbered. But at least Muhammad Ali had not had to endure the shame of being helped up from the canvas, as Joe Louis had the night Marciano demolished him. At least Muhammad Ali was sitting on his stool. And at least he would walk out of the ring under his own power.

''Where's he going?'' his adviser, Gene Kilroy, was asked. ''To the press area for the interview,'' Kilroy said. But as it turned out, Ali did not go to the press area. Instead he went up to his third-floor suite in Caesars Palace to rest. There would be no inquisition until the morning. But the sadness of the moment could not alter the planned post-fight theatrics. Fireworks burst in the black sky. Martial music blared over the public-address system. But the people weren't fooled.

''They should have stopped it five rounds earlier,'' a man said. ''They shouldn't,'' a woman answered, ''have let it start.''

By Dave Anderson

Near the door of George Steinbrenner's office in Yankee Stadium yesterday, there were two trays of bite-sized roast beef, turkey and ham sandwiches, each with a toothpick in it. As soon as 14 invited newsmen entered his office for the execution of Dick Howser as manager and the transfer of Gene Michael from general manager to dugout manager, Steinbrenner, the Yankees' principal owner looked around. ''Anybody want any sandwiches?'' he asked. ''We've got a lot of sandwiches here.'' Gene Michael had piled four little roast beef sandwiches on a small plastic plate and he had a cup of coffee. But as he sat against the far wall, under a huge Yankee top-hat insignia and several enlarged photos of memorable Yankee Stadium moments, he was the only one eating when Dick Howser suddenly appeared and walked quickly to a chair in front of the table with the sandwich es.

''Nobody wants a sandwich?'' George Steinbrenner asked. ''Nobody wants a drink?'' One of the newsmen ordered a glass of white wine from the bartender, but that was all. Then there was a momentary silence as George Steinbrenner, husky in a soft-blue shirt with a navy blue and green striped tie, sat at a big tan vinyl chair behind his shiny round desk. O n the desk was a gold numeral one, maybe several inches high, and a s mall sign announcing, ''Lead, Follow or Get the Hell Out of the Way,'' and a miniature brass ship's telegraph.

During the season it's always pointed to full speed ahead,'' he would explain later. ''But in the offseason it's on standby.'' To the owner's right, about 10 feet away, Dick Howser sat stiffly. His legs crossed, he was wearing a beige shirt, a brown tie, brown pants and brown cowboy boots. He was staring out away from George Steinbrenner, staring blankly at the white draperies that had been drawn across the huge window that overlooks the grassy geometry of the ball field where Dick Howser no longer would work. Most of the time he had his left index finger up against his left cheek, as if to keep from having to look at the Yankee owner who now was discussing the managerial situation that had been simmering for several weeks.

''Dick has decided,'' George Steinbrenner began, ''that he will not be returning to the Yankees next year. I should say, not returning to the Yankees as manager.''

Dick has decided. That would be the premise of George Steinbrenner's explanation. Dick has decided. Ostensibly he suddenly decided to go into real estate development in Tallahassee, Fla., and be the supervisor of Yankee scouts in the Southeast after having been the manager for the Yankee team that won 103 games last season, after having been in baseball virtually all his life as a major league infielder, major league coach, college coach and major league manager of baseball's most famous franchise.

But baseball's most famous franchise also has baseball's most demanding owner. When the Yankees were swept in three games by the Kansas City Royals in the American League championship series, George Steinbrenner steamed. And now Dick Howser is in real estate and is a Yankee scouting supervisor.

''At no time,'' George Steinbrenner said yesterday, ''did I lay down rules or commandments that Dick would have to live by if he returned as manager. The door was open for him to return, but he chose to accept this business opportunity. It took so long because he wanted to make sure he was doing the right thing.''

All the while Dick Howser stared at the drawn draperies. ''But could Dick,'' somebody asked George Steinbrenner, ''still be the manager if he wanted to be?'' ''Yes.'' ''Dick, why don't you want to be?'' ''I have to be cautious here,'' Dick Howser said staring straight ahead. ''But the other thing popped up.'' ''Were you satisfied that you could have returned without conditions?'' ''I'd rather not comment on that,'' Dick Howser said. ''If you had won the World Series instead of being eliminated in the playoffs,'' he was asked, ''would you have taken this real estate opportunity?''

''That's hard to say.'' ''Were you fired, Dick?'' ''I'm not going to comment on that,'' the former manager said. ''I didn't fire the man,'' the owner said.

Maybe not, but it is reasonable to believe that George Steinbrenner suggested that Dick Howser look for employment elsewhere. That way George Steinbrenner could put Gene Michael, whom he considers a more combative manager, in the dugout. Perhaps to soothe his conscience, he disclosed yesterday that Dick Howser would be paid his reported $100,000 salary for each of the remaining two years on this three-year contract.

''I feel morally and contractually obligated to Dick and his wife, Nancy,'' the owner said. ''I took him out of Florida State, where he was the baseball coach and where he could have stayed for life. If it hasn't worked out, maybe it's my fault.''

If it hasn't worked out. Until then it had been, ''Dick had decided''. But perhaps on a slip of the tongue it was, ''if it hasn't worked out''. Anybody who knew George Steinbrenner knew that all along. And anybody who knew Dick Howser knew that, if given a choice, he would not decide to go into real estate development rather than be the Yankees' manager.

But still George Steinbrenner persisted. ''I think it's safe to say,'' he said at one point yesterday, ''that Dick Howser wants to be a Florida resident year-round, right, Dick?''

Dick Howser didn't even answer that one. Say this for Dick Howser - instead of going along with George Steinbrenner's party line yesterday, he declined to comment. By not answering questions, he answered them. Anybody could see that. And anybody could see through George Steinbrenner's scheme.

''What advice,'' Dick Howser was being asked now, ''would you give Gene Michael?'' ''To have a strong stomach,'' Dick Howser replied, smiling thinly, ''and a nice contract.'' Minutes later, the execution was over. Dick Howser got up quickly and walked out of the room without a smile. Behind his round desk, George Steinbrenner looked around.

''Nobody ate any sandwiches,'' the Yankee owner said.

By Dave Anderson

The nickname was bestowed upon Reggie Jackson three years ago by Thurman Munson, his late teammate. Then the broadcasters and the sportswriters turned it into a household phrase.

Mr. October. Seldom, if ever, has a baseball player had a nickname with a time frame. When the Babe hit 60 homers in 1927, he did not become known as Mr. September. The Georgia Peach did not have to bloom in June. The Hammer didn't have to hit the nail on the head in April. Say Hey didn't have to climb the center-field fence in May. Not even the Yankee Clipper had to complete a 56-game hitting streak every August. But when the calendar says it's October, that's when Reggie Jackson is supposed to produce the big hits for the Yankees. Nothing less than total success will do. But sometimes the nickname is more of a burden than a blessing. Like now.

I take it as a compliment,'' Mr. October says, ''but I've got to live with it both ways.'' During the first two games of the American League championship series, Mr. October had to live with it the hard way. No hits in four times at bat in a 7-2 loss in the opener. Two singles in four at bats in the 3-2 loss in the second game. And when the Yankees returned to Yankee Stadium last night for the third game, they were within one loss of elimination. Some people, notably George Steinbrenner, the only ship builder who enjoys storms, were holding Mr. October primarily responsible.

''I go two for four,'' Mr. October was saying after Thursday night's loss, ''but if I don't hit the ball out of the ballpark, I fail.''

It is said, Mr. October has only himself to blame. His nickname was assured of being on his eventual Hall of Fame plaque the minute he ended the 1977 World Series for the Yankees with three homers. In his four World Series, always as a member of the winning team, he has hit nine homers and driven in 23 runs with a .360 average. In his seven previous American League championship series, he has hit five homers and driven in 15 runs. And except for 1971 and 1975, when he was with the Oakland A's, his team always won the pennant playoff.

But not every October has been his. In the 1973 playoff, as a member of the A's, he batted .167; in the 1977 playoff, with the Yankees, he batted .125.

''It's tough to have a big name like this when you're not hitting,'' Mr. October says, ''but I don't mind the name. I just don't want to be ridiculed.''

Whenever the opportunity has occurred this year, George Steinbrenner seems to enjoy ridiculing Mr. October for his failures. Only a cynic would believe that the Yankees' principal owner is using that ridicule as the beginning of contract negotiations. Mr. October's five-year contract ends after the 1981 season. Rather than wait 'til after next season to negotiate a new contract, Mr. October understandably would prefer to have his new contract settled during the coming offseason.

It's not unreasonable to expect Mr. October to ask for at least $1 million a year in a three-year contract. As the Yankee primarily responsible for the club setting American League attendance records at Yankee Stadium and on the road this year, Reggie Jackson is worth it. At nearly $600,000 a year on his current contract, he has been a bargain.

But whenever George Steinbrenner has a chance, he has sniped at Mr. October, even in August. When the Yankee lead had been whittled to one-half game by the Baltimore Orioles in August, the Yankees' principal owner publicly chastised Reggie Jackson for not hitting. And after the Yankees lost the opener in Kansas City Wednesday, he chastised Reggie Jackson again. In his rationalization, George Steinbrenner says Reggie Jackson ''can take it,'' that ''it makes him a better player,'' that Mr. October responds to pressure.

But the situation of the divisional race or the playoffs or the World Series is usually enough for Mr. October to thrive. When the recent season moved into October last week, the Yankees still had not clinched the American League East, but over five games through the first five days in the month, Mr. October hit .471 with eight hits in 17 at bats, including three homers, two triples and two doubles, and drove in nine runs. For the season, he hit .300 for the first time, shared the league lead with 41 home runs and drove in 111 runs. But in Kansas City earlier this week, he was Mr. Obsolete.

''They're not giving me anything to drive,'' he said of the Royals' pitchers. ''Everything is outside and down, either off the plate or on the corner. It's either slap the ball to the left or the hell with you.''

For all his criticism of Mr. October and other Yankee players, George Steinbrenner has seldom showed less class than when he publicly condemned Mike Ferraro, the Yankees' third base coach, for waving Willie Randolph home on Bob Watson's double into the leftfield corner in the eighth inning of Thursday night's loss. After having stumbled in getting away from first base, Randolph was thrown out at the plate.

''That's what the third-base coach doesn't see,'' the Yankee owner said of Randolph's stumble. ''He hasn't seen it all year.'' But Mike Ferraro acknowledged later that he had seen Willie Randolph stumble. He also defended his decision to send Randolph home, as did Dick Howser, the Yankees' manager, who had been their third-base coach for a decade. But instead of granting that Willie Wilson, George Brett and Darrell Porter had produced a perfect relay, George Steinbrenner saw fit only to second-guess his third-base coach. Call him Mr. Obnoxious.

By Dave Anderson

At the bar, the New York negative thinker salted his beer every so often with a tear. ''It's never been this bad,'' he lamented. ''Between them, the Giants and the Jets are 3-15 this season.''

''But you don't understand,'' the positive thinker said. ''If they don't lose their momentum, either the Giants or the Jets have a chance to get the No. 1 choice in the National Football League draft, the very first choice.''

Who'll be the first choice?'' ''It could be George Rogers, the South Carolina running back. He might win the Heisman Trophy this year.'' ''But those Heisman winners never make it.'' ''The ones who are running backs do. Billy Sims won the Heisman, Earl Campbell won it, Tony Dorsett won it, O.J. Simpson won it.'' ''But is George Rogers that good?'' ''That's not the question,'' the positive thinker said. ''The question is are the Giants or the Jets that bad?'' ''Can any team be worse?'' ''So far the New Orleans Saints are worse. They're 0-9 this year. The Giants are 1-8, the Jets 2-7.'' ''Can the Saints go all the way?'' ''They play the Jets at Shea on Dec. 14, the next-to-last game of the season. If the Jets can lose that one, the Saints and the Giants would be tied at 1-14, as long as neither one wins a game before then.''

''If they wind up tied, who gets the No. 1 choice?'' ''Then the N.F.L. figures out which team played the stronger schedule, based on the overall won-lost record of all its opponents. The team that had the easier schedule gets to pick ahead of the one that had the harder schedule.''

''But if New Orleans gets the choice, won't they take Rogers?'' ''They do need a running back, especially since they traded Chuck Muncie to San Diego a few weeks ago. But they'll get a lot of offers for the No. 1 choice. Oakland has stockpiled some first-round and second-round choices that Al Davis might be willing to trade for the very first choice.''

''Wouldn't the Raiders take Rogers?'' ''Not necessarily. The word is that the Raiders are looking for defense. They might go for Leonard Mitchell, that big defensive lineman at the University of Houston, he's 6-7, 270.''

''If the Giants get the No. 1 choice or if Rogers is still there as the next choice, will they take him?'' ''I don't see how the Giants could pass him up. Some pro football scouts think he would mean as much to a team as Billy Sims has meant to the Detroit Lions this year. Other scouts don't think he's quite that good, more like Ricky Bell of the Tampa Bay Bucs, but that's pretty good, too. And even if New Orleans takes Rogers, the Giants would get a shot at Hugh Green, the Pitt defensive end who is projected as a pro linebacker. He's 6-2, 215.''

''When is the last time the Giants had the No. 1 choice?'' ''Back in 1965, they took Tucker Frederickson out of Auburn, a running back who was a great prospect. But he kept getting hurt.'' ''Didn't the Giants have another No. 1 a long time ago?'' ''You're right. Back in 1951, when the N.F.L. still had what they called the 'bonus choice' ahead of the regular draft, the Giants got Kyle Rote that way.''

''Kyle Rote,'' the negative thinker said, weeping. ''Kyle Rote.'' ''But the Jets,'' the positive thinker said, ''have never had the very first choice in the draft, not even in the old American Football League draft before the combined draft.''

''Not even Joe Namath was a No. 1 pick?'' ''That year the Houston Oilers took a wide receiver named Lawrence Elkins from Baylor with the first choice in the A.F.L. draft, then the Jets took Namath with a choice they got from the Oilers in a trade for the negotiation rights to a quarterback named Jerry Rhome.''

''You wait and see, the Jets will win a couple of games and wind up drafting sixth or seventh, just far enough back so they won't get a blue-chipper.''

''Even if the Jets do win a couple, some scouts think that this is supposed to be a terrific year for college players, one of the deepest drafts in a long time with a lot of good defensive players. And there's another running back who's rated high that the Jets might get, Marion Barber at Minnesota, he's 6-3, 225.''

''Any good quarterbacks this year?'' ''Rich Campbell of the University of California had knee surgery over the weekend, so he's a question mark now. And there's Mark Herrmann at Purdue, but some scouts think the best pro passer will be Neil Lomax at the University of Portland. But with Phil Simms and Richard Todd, the Giants and the Jets don't need a quarterback as much as they need players at other positions.''

''It's never been this bad,'' the negative thinker said. ''It's even worse in New Orleans,'' the positive thinker said. ''Some teen-ager down there was charged with stealing $100 worth of Saints' tickets, which is a felony, but the judge said, 'Considering the value of Saints tickets this year, this offense ought to be reduced to a misdemeanor.' Now that's bad.''