Cardinals, Red Sox Swap Five Pitchers

Baseball's winter meetings wound up at Houston Friday in a flurry of trades, the adoption of a probably permanent designated hitter rule by the American League and a whole lot of talk about other matters. The biggest trade was between St. Louis and Boston, a deal that involved six players, five of them pitchers. It was their second deal of the winter. The Cardinals, who earlier sent Rick Wise to the Red Sox for Reggie Smith, this time shipped off pitchers Reggie Cleveland and Diego Segui and infielder Terry Hughes for three Boston pitchers: John Curtis, Lynn McGlothen and Mike Garman. Key figures in the deal were Cleveland, 14-10 with a 3.01 earned run average last year in St. Louis, and Curtis, 13-13 with a 3.58 ERA in Boston.

Red Sox general manager Dick O'Connell had a chance at Gaylord Perry of the Cleveland Indians but decided "(Reggie) Cleveland would help us more in the long run." Said Cardinal manager Red Schoendienst of Curtis: "We wanted to get a lefthanded starter and we got one who our scouts tell us they like very much."

The American League removed the three-year time limit on the designated hitter rule, which, although it is still officially an experiment, means it is all but certainly a part of the game for the forseeable future. Since the rule is technically not permanent, however, plans to use a designated runner had to be postponed. League rules say only one experiment may be used in any one season. The designated runner, who could replace a specified hitter twice in one game, may be tried out by some minor leagues that want to experiment with it. Several lower leagues have asked to use it.

Commissioner Bowie Kuhn said the two majoe leagues were considering moving the All-Star game from July to September, but a decision was not reached. During spring training, the major leagues will experiment with an addition to the balk rule. A chalk line (or tape on artificial surface) will be drawn from the back of home plate to the pitcher's rubber. This may enable the umpire to be more sure of himself when calling a balk since the pitcher must step over that line on a move to first base to prevent having a balk called. Kuhn also said he had asked the 24 big league teams to investigate the possibility of using commercial rather than charter flights in an attempt to save energy.