Phils Trade Williams To Astros For Jones

Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams, a relief pitcher who gave up the 1993 World Series-winning home run, was traded from the Philadelphia Phillies to the Houston Astros today for reliever Doug Jones and a minor-league pitcher, Jeff Juden.

Williams has 186 career saves, 19th on the major-league career list. Jones had 26 saves with the Astros last season and was their MVP in 1992 with 36 saves.

Juden, 22, a 6-foot-7 right-hander, went 11-6 with the Class AAA Tucson team of the Pacific Coast League last season, recording 156 strikeouts.

-- The Cleveland Indians today signed pitcher Dennis Martinez and first baseman Eddie Murray. Martinez, who had a 15-9 record for the Montreal Expos last season, gets a $1 million signing bonus and $4 million in each of the next two seasons. Murray agreed to a $3 million, one-year deal with a $3 million club option for 1995.

-- Casey Parsons, a former outfielder for the Seattle Mariners, has been named manager of the PCL's Tacoma Tigers. Parsons has spent five years managing in the Oakland Athletics organization, building a 316-304 record. He batted .227 for the Mariners in 1981, his first season in the majors.

-- Baltimore third baseman Mike Pagliarulo accepted an offer to play for Japan's Seibu Lions in 1994.

-- Cuba's 100-game winning streak ended in San Juan, Puerto Rico, with a 4-3 loss to a Puerto Rican Winter League squad that included some major-leaguers. Javier Lopez of the Atlanta Braves got the winning hit, a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Track and field

China widened its lead at the Asian championships in Manila today, winning eight gold medals, including a meet-record victory by hurdler Li Tong, who lives in Los Angeles and attends Washington State University. He ran the 100-meter hurdles in 13.49 seconds.

Vollegball

Washington State's Becky Howlett and Sarah Silvernail led the Cougars to a four-game victory over the University of San Diego in the first round of the NCAA Division I tournament in Pullman.

WSU (21-10) advanced to Saturday's second round at Brigham Young with a 14-16, 15-9, 15-5, 15-11 triumph before a crowd of 1,159 at Bohler Gym. It will face BYU.

Silvernail, of Fife, earlier was named to the Pac-10 all-freshman team. Angela Bransom of the University of Washington also was selected.

Golf

Nick Faldo of England and Zimbabwe's Nick Price shot 5-under-par 67s to share a four-stroke lead after today's first round of the Million Dollar Challenge in Sun City, South Africa.

-- Betsy King will receive the Charley Bartlett Award from the Golf Writers Association of America for her humanitarian activities.

King led a group of 30 LPGA pros in the construction of a Habitat for Humanity in Guadalupe, Ariz., and another group of four to Romania to work with orphans.

Deaths

Alton Grizzard, a former star quarterback at the U.S. Naval Academy, and Kerry O'Neill, a former track star at the same school, were shot to death by a fellow officer, who then fatally turned the gun on himself.

The gunman, George Smith, shot Grizzard, 24, and O'Neill, 21, in O'Neill's room at the U.S. Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, Calif., according to Coronado police Lt. Bill Abel.

Investigators believe the gunman had a relationship with O'Neill, and the two argued.

-- Preliminary results of the autopsy of Joseph Marable, a first cousin of the late Hank Gathers who collapsed on a basketball court in Philadelphia, did not show the exact cause of death. The initial examination of the heart did not show strong evidence of a heart attack or heart disease, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's office said.