No One, Including Andujar, Wants to Talk About Andujar

On a day when patriotic Americans were busy intercepting a pack of terrorists in the sky--Yankees 1, Pirates 0--the land-locked Dodgers found themselves being strafed by a space cadet named Joaquin Andujar, who is one weird Dominican.

When Mariano Duncan stepped up to home plate, Air Andujar buzzed one right by his ear. When Steve Sax stepped up, Andujar nearly gave him a third eye.

By the time Thursday’s 8-2 National League playoff victory was in the books, the Dodgers were lucky that the spacey ace of the St. Louis Cardinals did not force any other batters to duck. Because that is exactly what Andujar turned them into--dodgers.

Andujar did not want to discuss it afterward. He did not want to discuss a thing. “I’m not talking. No comment,” he barked.

Not even about the knucklehead play of the playoffs? Not running out a popped-up bunt and being doubled up after the ball was allowed to fall? Not even that, Joaquin?

No comment.

He was in no mood for rapping, with good reason. First and foremost, St. Louis now trails 2-0 in the playoffs. Big trouble in Birdland. Second, Andujar has won one game since Aug. 23. For a guy with back-to-back 20-win seasons, he suddenly is pitching like a man who does not know his right arm from his left.

Third, there is a chance--mind you, just a chance--that Andujar’s manager will not even let him work another game in the playoffs. Danny Cox goes next, then John Tudor, then Bob Forsch. If Cox looks good Saturday, Whitey Herzog might elect to bring him back next Wednesday in Los Angeles.

“I’m not gonna decide that right now,” Herzog said.

No one was committing to much of anything on the subject of Joaquin. Catcher Darrell Porter was asked about Andujar after the game. He said he would be happy to talk about anything else. Another such question was asked, a minute later. “You guys, I don’t want to talk about Joaquin,” Porter said.

Reporters jotted that down. “What are you doing now--quoting me on that ?” Porter asked.

Uh, yeah, as a matter of fact. When a catcher does not care to discuss his pitcher after a game in a league championship series, it does seem at least semi-noteworthy. Just as it was noteworthy that while Dodger infielders and coaches rushed to comfort Orel Hershiser during times of trouble Thursday, Cardinal personnel held their ground.

Even first baseman Jack Clark noticed that. “A lot of times it’s better to leave him alone,” Clark said. “It’s hard to tell when he’s rattled, because he’s not real emotional on the mound. It’s not easy to know when things are bothering him. You’d like to go over and tell him, but instead you let him work it out. Anyway, he’s been around. He doesn’t need to be told.”

Hmmmm, let’s see--when was Andujar rattled? Certainly not in the first two innings. He struck out four in a row. Must have been in the third, after Sax got the Dodgers’ first hit. Andujar tried to pick Sax off first base and instead sent him hustling to third, making a wild throw to the right-field tarpaulin.

That did it. The Dodgers scored three runs that inning, two the next, one the next and two the next. “For some reason, he tried to pick Sax off when there was no reason,” Herzog said. “Once he tried to pick Sax off, he fell apart.”

The next time Sax came to bat, he entered the box just as teammate Greg Brock was taking a curtain call, acknowledging a standing ovation for a two-run homer. Andujar whistled a pitch right in front of Sax’s kisser. It struck the bat for a foul ball as Sax bailed out.

Sax gave Andujar a long look that was not designed to communicate warmth and affection. Then he thought better of it and went back to work. “Aw, I really don’t want to talk about that,” Sax said later. “I don’t want to judge what kind of person he is.”

Reminded that he did shoot the guy a dirty look, Sax said: “Well, I am human. But you got to have a lot of restraint in a game like this. You get thrown out of the game, a few guys get hurt and bang. You got everything to lose. You’re up two games. The other team’s got nothing to lose.”

Forgive and forget, that’s their motto. “He is a nice guy,” Dodger Duncan said of his Dominican compatriot, the very guy who dusted him off in the first inning. “I don’t want to say anything bad about him. A lot of people say he is crazy, but he is a nice guy.”

Andujar himself had addressed a press gathering the day before the game on the subject of how crazy he is or is not. “All you guys call me crazy because I play hard. That’s the way I play. No way to stop me or change me,” he said. He also said people should not blame everything on him. Those were his parting words that day, in fact: “Thank you, and don’t blame it on Joaquin.”

But Joaquin, better known as One Tough Dominican to his friends, is a hard man to understand. He still bats left-handed some times and right-handed others. He still wears two different batting helmets--one with a right-ear flap, one with a left--when one double-flapped helmet would do.

Herzog reportedly wanted to pitch Cox Thursday and save Andujar, who worked last Sunday, for Game 3. But he didn’t want to make Andujar mad.

That might be true--but then again, it might not be. And maybe we have seen the last of Joaquin Andujar--but then again, maybe not.