Do-or-Die Guy Goes to Mound : Andujar Is Relaxed for Not-So-Crucial Third Game of Series

His heart has been questioned, his intelligence mocked, his vanity lampooned, his temper tested.

Joaquin Andujar is in danger of being portrayed in a stereotypical way: One (fill in the adjective of your choice) Dominican.

But on the eve of Game 3 of the World Series, scheduled to be played here tonight, it is worth recalling what Andujar said and did the last time he pitched in a World Series.

“There’s no way I let these guys beat me,” Andujar said before taking the mound against the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 7 of the 1982 Series. “I die first.”

Andujar was a man of his word. The Brewers bit the bullet, 6-3, and the Cardinals came away with their ninth World Series championship.

The stakes will not be as high tonight for Andujar, with the Cardinals having swept two games from the Royals in Kansas City.

“But you can’t have a big head or a big mouth,” said Andujar, who came down to Busch Stadium Monday to meet the press even though the Cardinals did not work out.

“You still have to give 100%. It’s like my favorite word--you never know.”

For the better part of two months, that’s the way it has been for Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog. Whenever he has sent Andujar out to pitch, Herzog had no way of knowing what he was getting.

Andujar has won just once since Aug. 23, and in two starts against the Dodgers in the National League playoffs, he came away with a loss and a 6.97 earned-run average.

Tonight, Andujar will be opposed by another 20-game winner, Kansas City’s 21-year-old Bret Saberhagen, whose anxieties about making his first Series appearance are competing with his expectations of becoming a father for the first time.

Saberhagen’s wife, Janeane, is due to give birth any time now. “She’s still at home,” he said Monday. “Hopefully, she’ll stay that way until I come home. . . . But I won’t leave until I’m through pitching.”

The Royals are hopeful that the Cardinals will give Saberhagen more of a chance to pitch than the Blue Jays did during the American League playoffs. Twice, Saberhagen literally was knocked out of games by Toronto. Lloyd Moseby drilled him in the left ankle with a line drive in Game 3, the ball hitting Saberhagen so hard that it carried into the outfield. Then, in Game 7, he fielded a smash by Willie Upshaw with his bare hand and injured his thumb.

Saberhagen said that his thumb is fine, but the Cardinals learned Monday that rookie outfielder Vince Coleman will not play again this season.

Team physician Stan London, who examined Coleman Monday, discovered a tiny chip of bone on the outside of his left knee, the result of a freak accident involving the Busch Stadium tarp nine days ago. London has told Coleman to rest for the next six weeks.

The loss of Coleman, the league’s leading base stealer, has been mitigated by the play of Tito Landrum, who is hitting .450 in five postseason starts, .455 overall.

“I feel real bad for (Coleman),” Andujar said. “He was a key to St. Louis winning a championship. He helped more than anybody. But now I have to think about Tito Landrum and Andy Van Slyke and Cesar Cedeno.”

And, of course, about Andujar as well. “Probably the last two months, I have been hanging my slider,” Andujar said. “And if you make a mistake, they’re going to kill you.”

It also hurt, he said, to hear rumors during the playoffs that he might be traded.

“Everybody knows I love St. Louis,” Andujar said. “If Whitey has it in his mind to trade me to Detroit or to the moon . . .

“I want to die in St. Louis,” he said. “I want to play 50 years for Whitey Herzog. . . . If I were rich, I’m being honest with you, I’d quit so I could stay in St. Louis.”

Andujar, who called Herzog a great manager, had good words for almost anybody whose name came up. When someone asked him about George Brett, he said: “George Brett, he’s too much. Just like (Dwight) Gooden. They’re too much for baseball.”

He praised Royal pitcher Charlie Leibrandt, who lost Game 2 Sunday night when he gave up four runs in the ninth. “Don’t blame the pitcher,” he said. “He pitched a great game. I was surprised we won in the last inning. The way he was pitching, I’m surprised we got four runs off him.”

He said that Pedro Guerrero of the Dodgers was the best Dominican player in baseball today--”He could hit 50 home runs”--then a moment later said that “right now, it’s George Bell (of Toronto), in my opinion.”

And before he was through, Andujar had nice things to say about those who have written much worse about him. The reason he stopped talking to reporters, he said, was because he was ignored during spring training even though he’d won 20 games the year before.

“I sweared to God then that I was going to win 20 games (again) and not talk to anybody,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t like you guys--I just take my revenge.”

Someone asked Andujar if he planned on talking after Game 3.

“I’m going to talk to you,” he said.

“Depending on what I read in the paper tomorrow.”