Nine Strikes and You're Out

By Tom Callahan

The bases are about to be loaded with no one out. It is the bottom of the eighth inning in Dodger Stadium. Fernando Valenzuela and Dwight Gooden, pitching's young latitude and younger longitude, are dueling 1-1. With first base open, New York Mets Manager Davey Johnson is at the mound telling Gooden to walk Pedro Guerrero, who earlier hit a home run. Mapping tactics with the infielders, Johnson has scarcely a word for Gooden, the 6-ft. 3-in. centerpiece of the team. He is a slender stalk from Florida, a righthander. Even in repose, the impression of him is mostly arms and legs. As long ago as last November, he was a teenager.

Now Greg Brock is up. The first pitch is a fast ball and a strike. Three seasons back, Brock's promise as a slugging first baseman influenced the Dodgers' enthusiasm for retaining Free Agent Steve Garvey. Though he has been worse than disappointing as Garvey's replacement, in New York not two weeks ago Brock hit a home run off a Gooden change-up that brought Valenzuela his only victory in their three head-on encounters to date. After that game, Johnson lectured Gooden about offering his third best pitch to those who have failed to hit the first two. With Brock up, and only a fly ball needed to score a run, just a look from Johnson is a refresher course.

"Communicating with a pitcher is a language all itself, one without words," the manager says he learned as a second baseman in Baltimore. Middle infielders, the brightest ones, observe the signs and study the patterns. With the same pitch, a scorcher, Gooden comes again at Brock, who tips the ball foul for strike two. A computer type, Johnson tries not to neglect human software either. He knows how to make pulling a pitcher seem a compliment on a par with leaving him in the game. "I see a lot of early Earl Weaver in him," says Frank Cashen, Weaver's old Oriole general manager, who brought Johnson to the Mets last year. "He has that same way of using all his people and taking particular care of each one."

On the third pitch, Brock strikes out, Gooden's 99th strikeout of the year in 93 innings. With 276 strikeouts last season, he blew by Grover Cleveland Alexander, Herb Score and every other rookie in history. "Am I going to hurt myself? It's all mechanics, I think, and it's God-given talent, I know." He calms everyone who frets for his young arm, seemingly every person he meets: "From high school on, even before that, I have always kept something warm on my arm late at night. I'm not afraid. I make sure I use my arm on the off days, playing catch, long throws, you know. I feel safe."

Coming to bat for Los Angeles is Catcher Mike Scioscia, a contact hitter. "The bases are still drunk," Catcher Gary Carter calls out a reminder. "Let's get the double play," barks Third Baseman Ray Knight. Joey Amalfitano, the Dodger coach at third base, wigwags some semaphore to Scioscia, who flicks his helmet to signal message received. Gooden looks at Knight and mouths, "Squeeze bunt?" Knight looks at Amalfitano and says, "Too obvious." At first base, Keith Hernandez gives thought to visiting Gooden, but reconsiders. "What am I going to tell him? Bear down?" Bearing down, Gooden makes Scioscia foul out to Carter on the first delivery, a fourth fast ball.

"The three to Brock were all 94 m.p.h., all exactly 94 m.p.h.," sighs the Dodgers' Mike Brito, whose department this is, "and the one to Scioscia was just 92." He lurks behind the backstop, aiming a radar gun as purposefully as Clint Eastwood. "Straight change-ups 71, hard curves 78, soft ones 73," he mutters in review. "Ninety-mile-per-hour fast balls the whole game long, and his best stuff is waiting at the end. I'm telling you, this kid is amazing." A mustachioed Cuban in a white straw hat, Brito is the Dodger scout who discovered 17-year-old Valenzuela seven springs ago in Mexico. He went there to observe a skinny infielder, but could not help noticing an ample lefthanded breaking-ball pitcher with more than a teenager's command. "Both these guys / seem to have been born with poise and control," he says. In addition, Gooden has a 94-m.p.h. fast ball in the eighth inning.

The next Dodger, Terry Whitfield, is a pinch hitter customarily, pressed into the lineup by injuries. Maybe because he spent three seasons in Japan, his hitting theories are serenely uncomplicated. "A lot of players think at the plate," he says. "I just hack. I go up there, I see the ball, I hit it." What he will see from Gooden, if he can see them, are all fast balls, and all strikes. Catcher Carter stopped proposing anything else after Gooden shook off two curves. "If he wants to throw something you don't want him to throw," Manager Johnson has advised Carter, "try it his way for a while. He has a propensity for making the wrong pitch the right pitch." Carter is a catcher with soft hands and a solid vocabulary.

Seeing at least the third and fourth pitches, because he fouls those off, Whitfield finally strikes out on the fifth. After nine pitches, without ever leaving the strike zone, the Mets' emergency ends and the Dodgers' begins. In the top of the ninth, Valenzuela also loads the bases with no outs. But they are emptied by singles that include Gooden's third of the game. The final score is 4-1. "That's the first time in my career that I ever saw a pitcher fire up the offense," muses Hernandez afterward. He refers to Gooden's pitching, not his hitting. "Oh, I love to hit," Gooden says. "When the Mets drafted me as a pitcher, I was upset. The Pirates had timed me running the bases, the Angels too. Why couldn't I be a hitter?" That cinches it. He's Babe Ruth.