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Sport: Four Long-Suffering Souls

6 minute read
Tom Callahan

Going into this week’s playoffs, California, Houston and New York are sticking with their regular lineups, but Boston has called up John Updike, David Halberstam, Robert B. Parker (Spenser: For Hire) and George Higgins (The Friends of Eddie Coyle) to bolster a worn Globe staff that has been dangling most of the summer by a participle. Pennant races in Boston are hell on adjectives.

The Angels, Astros and Mets also think of themselves as long-suffering worthies finally come to glory, though the combined age of these ’60s expansion teams scarcely equals the venerable misery of the Red Sox, almost 70 years between ultimate championships. Without the peculiar fatalism of New Englanders, this year’s regular season would have contained no tension at all, and the cliff-hanger arrived on schedule last week.

At Fenway Park, Updike’s “lyric little bandbox of a ball park,” hitters have customarily presided and invariably subsided. So a great deal of new hope has been read into the fact that the centerpiece of this Boston team is a pitcher, 6-ft. 4-in. Righthander Roger Clemens, 24, who dominated the American League with 24 victories and an earned-run average of 2.48, striking out up to 20 men a night. However, leading 4-0 in the second inning of his final tune- up, Clemens was stung on the right elbow by a line drive. Nothing was fractured, but the mood was cracked.

If Clemens’ capacity is diminished, the responsibility for holding the Red Sox together tumbles to Designated Hitter Don Baylor, late of the New York Yankees. Clemens says, “From the moment he walked into the clubhouse last spring, there wasn’t any doubt who our leader was.” Leftfielder Jim Rice is still nominally the captain but serves chiefly as Judge Baylor’s kangaroo- court enforcer, having just the disposition for it. Third Baseman Wade Boggs can be counted on for three or four polite hits a game. Behind Clemens, Starters Bruce Hurst and Dennis (“Oil Can”) Boyd stand more or less ready, % but Tom Seaver the Elder has strained his right knee, as crucial to him as his right arm. Reliever Calvin Schiraldi, 24, a minor-leaguer quietly gained from the Mets when Bob Ojeda was loudly lost, may be the Red Sox’ decisive part. He is the closer.

Closing has been the lifelong ambition of California Manager Gene Mauch, 60, popularly regarded as the most brilliant tactician since Paul Richards. Richards never won, either. Like the Astros and the Mets, Manager Mauch is celebrating his silver anniversary in the big leagues. In 1964 his Phillies lost ten straight games to yield a 6 1/2-game advantage with just twelve to play, and his 1982 Angels took a two-game lead before dropping a 3-2 playoff to Milwaukee. (These semifinals have since been elongated to best of seven, same as the World Series.)

Another mean subject is California’s advanced age. “That’s all we ever hear,” complains Third Baseman Doug DeCinces, 36, one of eight veterans whose contracts are lapsing. But for a technicality in his pact, part-time Designated Hitter Reggie Jackson, 40, would have been cashiered last winter, and reportedly he has been given his notice for next year. Alternately bragging and brooding, Jackson has still squeezed 18 home runs out of 412 at- bats, and in what some considered a harbinger last month, began to launch them three at a time. He has had a happy influence on Rookie First Baseman Wally Joyner (.292 average, 22 home runs, 98 RBIs), the Angels’ best player.

Their most necessary one is tireless Catcher Bob Boone, 38, who went by Rick Ferrell and Gabby Hartnett this season to take his crouched position behind Al Lopez as the second stubbornest receiver in history, with over 1,800 games caught. The staff he squires is uniformly solid, and Ace Mike Witt (18 wins, 10 losses, 2.84 ERA) could be the match of even the healthiest Clemens. The tournament is scheduled to open and close in Boston.

This was supposed to be an all-Eastern year for the home-field advantage, until New York lost it to television, pro football and the Astros, in that order. But the Mets have too much swagger to complain overly about where they win. The Astros, in a fair contrast, bear the understated mark of first-year Manager Hal Lanier. “I was looking for a former infielder or catcher,” says Club President Dick Wagner, “someone young enough to relate to today’s players, someone who knew the National League and Astroturf.” He found the ex-shortstop Lanier, 44, in the third-base coaching box at St. Louis. “I asked Whitey Herzog about him, and all Whitey said was, ‘He’s ready.’ ” It was the way he said it.

Strong up the middle, balanced, with good speed, the Astros have most of the classic baseball virtues extolled since before Lanier’s father Max was pitching for the Cardinals 40 years ago. First Baseman Glenn Davis is a slugger; serviceable hitters include Third Baseman Denny Walling and Outfielders Kevin Bass and Jose Cruz. But the pitching, starting with split- fingered No-Hit Man Mike Scott (18 wins, 10 losses, 2.22 ERA ), speeding up with Nolan Ryan (4,277 strikeouts and counting) and taking on ballast with Charlie Kerfeld (250 lbs.), is the thing that might rightly concern the Mets.

That, and the 24 games the Astros won this year in their last at-bat. “You can feel it in the dugout in the late innings,” Lanier says. “It comes from not being the biggest names, from not being picked to win the division, or even to come close. It has to do with character.” Much of it his. Lanier is epileptic and says so out of consideration for others who might be inspired by a competitor who has spent his life at the core of dramatic events. “It could do some good.”

While the Astros were penciled for last place, the Mets were penned for first. Excepting the fallibility of Dwight Gooden (17 wins, 6 losses, 2.84 ERA ), almost every April exaggeration has come to pass. By July, the standings were so out of hand, the Mets occupied themselves gaily with fistfights — on and off the field. Pitchers Ron Darling, Bob Ojeda and Rick Aguilera and Second Baseman Tim Teufel have various court dates pending in, of all jurisdictions, Houston.

The next public quarrel may be over who is the team’s MVP — regal First Baseman Keith Hernandez or political Catcher Gary Carter — and whether whoever it is should automatically be the choice of the league. “We know they’re good,” sighs Cardinal Shortstop Ozzie Smith, “but they act like they have to remind everyone all the time.” Carter, Gooden, Hernandez, Darling, Outfielder Darryl Strawberry and Manager Davey Johnson all have memoirs out or on the way. But only now are they coming to their first critical series of the year.

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