Black Cloud Over Leibrandt Is Found to Have a Silver Lining

At a few minutes after 10 Missouri time Saturday night, Charles Louis Leibrandt Jr., a left-handed pitcher, must have known what the captain of the Titanic or General William Armstrong Custer felt like--or any guy who has just turned over four kings and heard the other guy say “Not good enough, guy, I got these.”

Charlie Leibrandt could be pardoned for looking heavenward and shaking his head and saying, “Me again, huh, God?” Or, “When is it someone else’s turn in the barrel?”

Charlie Leibrandt wouldn’t. He’s a religious young man but he had apparently just joined the gallery of the great snake-bittens of history.

Charlie Leibrandt may be the best pitcher in this tournament they call the World Series. He makes impeccable pitches; he works the hitters like a guy with his own deck. Charlie pitches the best games you would ever want to see.

But he got beat in a playoff game in Detroit last year when he allowed the coming world champions, the Detroit Tigers, just three scratch hits. The trouble was, his own team only got three, too, and Charlie lost, 1-0, on a double-play ball that reached first an instant late.

Charlie lost to Toronto in his playoff starts this year and lost in Game 2 of the World Series this year because his team got him a total of four runs in the four games. Charlie is always playing with the rent money. One mistake and it’s tap-out.

He had a two-hit shutout going into the ninth inning of Game 2 and a 2-0 lead with two out in that game when icebergs began to show up off the port bow. The puniest hits you have ever seen on artificial turf began to squirt through his infield. They looked more like slow leaks than hard hits. When they stopped bleeding through, Charlie Leibrandt was standing under an old familiar cloud again. Charlie Bftsplk. Kansas City’s bad-luck charm. The pitching version of a broken mirror. A guy who was born under a ladder. Black Cat Charlie. He lost the game, 4-2.

Charlie, you had to say, was a guy you would never want in your lifeboat. Charlie, you figured, was one of those guys who looked good losing. Because he got a lot of practice at it, with his luck.

So, a lot of people couldn’t bear to look when Charlie took the ball for the sixth game of this all-Missouri World Series Saturday night. You had the feeling you’d seen this movie before, and Charlie died in the end.

Charlie mowed the Cardinals down with such stylish ease that they not only couldn’t score, they couldn’t even hit. Charlie had a no-hitter going as late as the sixth inning.

Knowing Charlie, you figured that wouldn’t be enough. And it wasn’t. His team had seven hits but no runs either. Charlie’s no-hitting was only getting him a tie.

In the eighth inning with two out and two strikes on the batter and a runner on second and first, Charlie made a quality pitch. It was a fastball up and in. It did what fastballs up and in are supposed to do. It broke the batter’s bat. It had swerved in on the handle. Any other pitcher in the game makes this pitch, and the batter pops it to the pitcher’s mound for out No. 3. This batter got the first pinch hit the St. Louis Cardinals have got in this Series, a handle hit that lofted into center field like a soap bubble. It looked as if it was the athletic version of the Book of Job again. You had to keep away from Charlie in thunderstorms, hide the silverware when he went home, keep him away from high places. It was more than unfair, it was un-American.

God must have agreed. Enough was enough.

Because the things that happened to the St. Louis Cardinals in the ninth inning smacked of, if not divine retribution, at least supernatural.

Here is the scene: the batter is Jorge Orta, a much-traveled, light-hitting refugee from the Mexican leagues whose best years are so far behind him, the best guess is his stated birthdate is just a rough approximation. Orta dribbles the ball down the first-base line and is out by a step in the view of everybody in the country with a TV set and 20/50 vision. The first-base umpire, Don Denkinger, doesn’t have the TV and he is the only one in America who doesn’t know Orta is out. He is also the only one whose knowledge--or lack of--counts.

The next batter is Steve Balboni, who gets two quick swings like a guy beating a carpet, then gets a hit to left. This is so unexpected, the prevalent belief is, Balboni didn’t really do it, he just heard this voice whispering in his ear, “Now swing! I’ll take care of the rest!” as the ball came past him. Balboni is not your basic ninth-inning clutch hitter.

Then, Leibrandt really got rewarded. The Cardinal pitcher threw a curve ball at batter Hal McRae. This so surprised Catcher Darrell Porter that he watched it go by like a streetcar that wasn’t going his way.

The bases were suddenly loaded, one out. The heavens didn’t open, this voice didn’t call out, but you figured Lourdes was on the line when the batter, Dane Iorg, lofted a soft liner to right. Two runs scored.

Charlie Leibrandt didn’t win the game--technically. But God didn’t promise him a rose garden. The technical win went to Dan Quisenberry, who pitched in relief.

For a lot of people, it was a restoration of faith. To say nothing of hope and charity. A lot of people like the way Charlie Leibrandt had confronted what can only be inadequately described as adversity in previous horror outings. Charlie didn’t attack the locker room mirror, kick chairs, curse teammates or hide in trainers’ rooms. Charlie treated it like lost ball games, not lost paradise.

He didn’t get a break Saturday, he got his just desserts. He never once said, “Me again, huh?” and suddenly it wasn’t he again. It was almost a love story. A morality play. There may be a lesson in there somewhere. Maybe, we all have a Leibrandt coming. You can hope.