Dream of Fields
By RICHARD CORLISS
The players were practicing their putts on the golf course or their puttering at home. The networks had settled in for a long summer's strike. And one fan among many dozed in front of a baseball-deleted TV set. Then came words to be cherished, perhaps even believed: the strike was over.
It happened so quickly. On Tuesday, Aug. 16, owners and players agreed to bring in a mediator: Big Rock Candy Mountain Landis, grandson of commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who had ruled the sport with an iron fist in the '20s and '30s. Young Landis convened the warring parties in the Who-Needs- a-Commissioner's Office in Manhattan and presented each with a baseball cap full of paper slips. For the players, Donald Fehr drew a slip reading "No Salary Arbitration." For the owners, Richard Ravitch pulled out a note saying "This is the only cap you get," thus dispensing with the proposed salary ceiling. The season resumed the following day. The players agreed to make up the games lost during the strike; for the new opening day, the owners slated doubleheaders on a pay-what-you-wish policy. The voice of Ernie Banks could be heard: "Hey guys, let's play two!"
There was joy in Mudville, which had become the collective name for the 26 major league cities. Fans packed the stadiums on the first day of the "second season." Atlantans heralded the return of Greg Maddux by ringing the pitcher's mound with roses; the Montreal faithful threw small packets of money (Canadian money, but still . . .) toward their low-paid, first-place stars; and a few of Philadelphia's famously cranky spectators actually applauded their own team. In Kansas City, Vince Coleman was greeted with affectionate firecrackers; Cleveland stalwarts shied welcome-back corked bats at Albert Belle. In Toronto, fans waved banners saying WE KNEW YOU WEREN'T IN IT FOR THE MONEY and PLAYERS & OWNERS: OUR HEROES.
Other evidences of sanity followed. The Baseball Network dropped its practice of airing only regional games and re-established the national game of the week, allowing fans to become part of a countrywide community again. In Seattle, whose domed stadium had been closed for a month when ceiling tiles fell into the stands, the town burghers came to the radical conclusion that baseball is an outdoor game; they requisitioned a giant can opener and removed the dome entirely -- and with the mood upon them, they replaced the Kingdome's fake turf with natural grass. Some concession stands even tried putting real meat in hot dogs, but the fans rebelled. The experiment was curtailed.
The prestrike hitting assault continued. Houston phenom Jeff Bagwell, who had broken a bone in his left hand two days before the strike, was undaunted by his injury. "If a one-handed guy like Jim Abbott can pitch," he told reporters, "then a one-handed guy like me can hit." He finished the season with 52 homers and 165 runs batted in -- the best RBI count since the '30s. Chicago muscleman Frank Thomas hit 53 home runs. One of these, on Aug. 30 against Baltimore, was a true oddity: an inside pitch hit Thomas' oaklike arm and caromed 400 ft. into the left-field bleachers. And San Francisco's Matt Williams kept swatting dingers like flies. On Saturday, Sept. 24, before a national TV audience, Mighty Matt clubbed his 62nd home run in his 154th game, erasing Roger Maris' and Babe Ruth's records. He then hit a home run in each succeeding at-bat, bringing his season total to an eerily apt 94.
The swaggering stats of the season's baby boomers had led some to infer that the ball was spiked with Kickapoo Joy Juice. But if so, what antidote was Maddux using on the balls he threw? By Aug. 12 he had surrendered only 1.56 earned runs per game, and he ended the pre-strike season with a three-hit shutout. Maddux was Cy Young redux. Alas, the other Braves were awestruck into entropy. Atlanta finished second in the National League East, looking up at the miracle Montreal Expos.
The first round of the N.L. play-offs saw the Expos defeat the Cincinnati Reds, while the Astros dispatched the all-hit, no-pitch Giants. In the final game of the league championship series (of course it went seven) between the 'Spos and the 'Stros, Bagwell hit a game-winning home run. As his teammates piled on him in the ritual celebration, something snapped -- both of Bagwell's legs. Triumph and tragedy were mixed in that poetic baseball kind of way.
The incompetent American League West finally produced a team that had won more games than it had lost: the A's. Finishing two games over .500, Oakland tiptoed into the A.L. play-offs only to be swept by the Yankees. In contrast, the other play-off matched two good teams: Thomas' White Sox and Belle's Indians, smelling their first World Series in 40 years. The fans went dizzy, and the Cuyahoga River spontaneously burst into flames, as Cleveland took 3 out of 5 to face the Yankees for the pennant.
The Indians' tattered veterans Dennis Martinez and a re-signed Jack Morris won three games between them, and Terry Mulholland emerged from the Yanks' doghouse to pitch a perfect Game Six to even the series. Now it's Game Seven, Yanks 1, Indians 0, bottom of the ninth, two outs, Belle at bat, fleet Kenny Lofton on second. Albert zaps a line drive that drops into right field, Paul O'Neill grabs it and rifles a throw as Lofton races around third and heads for the plate. Just before he reaches home, he trips on Belle's bat, it spins in the air and lands on his head. Momentarily knocked unconscious, he is tagged out by catcher Mike Stanley. Game over, Yanks win pennant, Cleveland fans sink back into terminal depression. Belle's bat is later found to contain plutonium.
As it was in the N.B.A. finals, so it was in the World Series: New York vs. Houston. A titanic tussle! Great glove work by Don Mattingly (his first Series in a noble 13-year career) and, for the Astros, some clutch hits by Yankee reject Andy Stankiewicz. The seventh game was a 1-1 tie after 26 innings, equaling the record set by Brooklyn and Boston in 1920. In the top of the 27th, the Yanks got four runs off late-season call-back Mitch Williams. In the home half of the inning, Houston loaded the bases but had exhausted its roster. Who would come to bat? Finally, a wheelchair appeared on the field and a nurse rolled Jeff Bagwell to the batter's box. Mulholland threw a fat fast ball down the middle . . .
And then I woke up.