Spring Training / Highlights : Vida Blue Is Reinstated by Ueberroth

Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth has reinstated pitcher Vida Blue, who has been training with the San Francisco Giants, it was announced Friday.

Blue had been suspended for the 1984 season by former Commissioner Bowie Kuhn as a result of Blue’s 1983 conviction for drug possession.

Kuhn’s decision required that before reinstatement in 1985, Blue establish that he no longer was involved in any drug use. It further required that Blue document his full compliance with his federal probationary program and that a satisfactory after-care program, to include testing, be in place to ensure Blue’s continuing non-use of drugs.

All of these conditions have been fully satisfied, the commissioner’s office said.

In making the announcement, Ueberroth said: “I am very pleased that Vida has apparently put his drug-use problems behind him. I wish him well in the resumption of his baseball career.”

Blue, 35, began his major league career in 1970 with the Oakland A’s. He led the American League in shutouts with eight in 1971, the same year he was named the AL’s Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award winner after compiling a 24-8 record.

Exhibition Notes

Rookie Nelson Simmons hit his seventh home run of the spring as the Detroit Tigers defeated the New York Mets, 6-5, at Lakeland, Fla. Simmons has hit five home runs in the last four games, raising his RBI total to 23. Simmons, 21, a 6-1, 195-pound switch-hitting outfielder, batted .307 with 22 homers and 83 RBIs in 142 games last season at Evansville.

Jim Rice, Mike Easler and winning pitcher Steve Crawford hit home runs to overcome a grand slam by Cincinnati’s Nick Esasky as the Boston Red Sox defeated the Reds, 7-6, at Tampa, Fla. It was Esasky’s fourth homer of the spring. The first Cincinnati run scored on an RBI single by Manager Pete Rose in the third inning.

Montreal rookie Herm Winningham, who has won the center-field job, tied the score with a pinch single in the seventh, then hit a two-run triple in the eighth to lift the Expos to a 5-3 win over the Kansas City Royals at West Palm Beach, Fla. Winningham, 23, came to the Expos from the New York Mets in the Gary Carter deal. Last season at Tidewater, he hit .281 with three home runs and 47 RBIs in 115 games. U.L. Washington had two hits for the Royals, raising his average to .513, and George Brett went 3 for 4.

Bob Dernier had three hits and Leon Durham drove in two runs to raise his team-high RBI total to 17 as the Chicago Cubs defeated the Cleveland Indians, 5-3. A crowd of 7,101 at Mesa, Ariz., raised the Cubs’ home exhibition attendance to 102,950, breaking the spring record of 85,000 set by the New York Yankees at Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 1983.

Pitcher Matt Young of the Seattle Mariners was admitted to a Tempe, Ariz., hospital with stomach problems and will remain two days for tests. Young was leading the staff in earned-run average this spring at 1.41.