Cardinals Hope to Erase Series Fiasco and Get Fair Shake Against Mets

The St. Louis Cardinals, still singing the “No Respect” blues, want to forget their shocking World Series loss to Kansas City and hit the ground running in 1986.

Winners of 101 games and a National League pennant last year, many Cards still feel their season was tainted by the media’s portrayal of the 1985 pennant drive. Though the won the NL East by three games over New York, the Mets still occupied center stage.

“It was always the New York Mets losing, not the Cardinals winning,” St. Louis shortstop Ozzie Smith said. “The headlines would always say, ‘Mets Keep Pace,’ instead of ‘Cardinals Hold Lead.’

“I mean, we understand that the New York papers are going to write about the New York Mets. All we wanted was a little respect. We deserved that much.”

Adding to the embarrassment of an otherwise superb and sometimes spectacular season during which they stole 314 bases, the Cardinals were favored going into the World Series, moved out to a 3-1 lead in games and lost the last three.

There was controversy over a bad call that probably lost Game 6 for St. Louis. Joaquin Andujar, a 21-game winner who struggled late in the season, was thrown out of Game 7, a humiliating 11-0 loss at Royals Stadium, and 20-game winner John Tudor, the finale loser, later punched an electric fan in the clubhouse and cut his hand.

“We sure didn’t like losing after we had a 3-1 lead,” Cardinals second baseman Tommy Herr said. “There was disbelief more than anything. We couldn’t comprehend that we had lost, especially the manner in which we lost the sixth game. You don’t like to lose under those circumstances.

“You can’t dwell on it either, but when the season comes down to the last few games, you can’t help it. That’s life. That’s baseball.”

This season, baseball will have a slightly different look in St. Louis.

The core of the team is still there -- Herr, Smith, Tudor, Willie McGee, Vince Coleman and Jack Clark. But Andujar was traded to Oakland last December, and catcher Darrell Porter was released and replaced by Mike Heath, who came over for Andujar.

“Last year, everybody asked us how we were going to replace Bruce Sutter,” Manager Whitey Herzog said. “This year, it’s Andujar. I actually think we’re better off than we were last year. Last year, we had no idea how our bullpen would perform.

“This year, we’ve got John Tudor and Danny Cox (an 18-game winner) and a lot of good young pitchers fighting for the other spots,” he said.

“People say we’ve got to make up 21 games, and we do. But was Andujar going to be able to win 12? Maxie (General Manager Dal Maxvill) and I talked for hours on end. It was a judgment we had to make. I just hope we’re right.”

As Andujar vowed they would, most of the Cardinals defend their departed pitcher, despite his histrionics, which seemed even more outrageous under the microscope of the World Series.

Andujar was tossed from Game 7 after wildly arguing a call with plate umpire Don Denkinger. He also was suspended 10 days at the start of this season for his behavior.

“We hated to see Andujar go,” Smith said. “It was tough to swallow. I think the press had a lot to do with his reputation, and there was a little bit of bad timing involved. But stuff like that’s been going on in baseball for 100 years.”

As for this season, Tudor says the Mets won’t be the only team the Cards consider a rival.

“Everyone is a target this season,” he said. “Everybody will be trying to win, trying to play their best. We’re going to try to keep it going from last year, and despite what the Mets say, I believe there will be a three- or four-team race in the division.”

But Herzog adds: “The Mets will be favored this year, and rightly so because of their starting pitching and power. They can’t outrun us or outfield us, but they can throw a good pitcher out there every day. And sometimes good pitching can take care of bad defense.”

Of the haunting loss in Game 7, Herzog says, “I hope I can lose the seventh game again this year. I wouldn’t mind losing the seventh game of the World Series for the next 10 years. Any manager would say that going in. Maybe I wouldn’t say that in the sixth game of the World Series.”

Andujar’s tantrum in the finale personified his own and his team’s frustration.

He came on in relief in the fifth inning of a runaway game, gave up a hit and a walk and didn’t retire a batter.

But he began arguing with Denkinger, the American League umpire who made the questionable call in the Cards’ sixth-game loss, bumped him, went into a wild tirade and, finally, was ejected.

Andujar’s troubles actually started well before the Series. After Aug. 23, he was 1-5 in nine starts. He was the loser of Game 2 in the NL playoffs against Los Angeles, pitched fairly well as the Cards won Game 6 of the playoffs, then lost Game 4 of the World Series.

“When you don’t get any kind of performance from your 20-game winner, it’s tough,” Smith said. “He just had so many problems, but even with that, we still had a chance.”

The Cardinals’ big chance came in Game 6. Ahead 1-0 after seven strong innings by Cox, the Cards held the same advantage with ace reliever Todd Worrell on the mound to start the ninth against pinch-hitter Jorge Orta.

Orta hit a dribbler toward first, and Worrell was late covering. Denkinger signaled safe, but the Cardinals argued that Orta never touched the bag. Videotaped replays showed Orta indeed had missed the base and should have been out. Steve Balboni followed with a single to left that sent Orta to second, and after Onix Concepcion came in to run for Balboni, Jim Sundberg came to bat.

Sundberg tried to advance the runners with a bunt, but instead, Orta was thrown out at third for the first out of the inning. That brought Hal McRae in to pinch hit for Buddy Biancalana. Worrell let fly a fastball, and Porter missed it cleanly, allowing the runners to advance on a passed ball. McRae was walked intentionally to fill the bases, and pinch-hitter Dane Iorg singled home the tying and winning runs.

“The big thing is that we got to the World Series,” Herr said. “I think a lot of people realize what happened wasn’t fair to us.”

While many of the Cardinals feel they were robbed of victory by Denkinger’s call, Smith feels Porter was as much to blame.

“Even after the call, we had a chance,” Smith said. “That passed ball was the big play. As long as we keep the double play in order, we have a chance. But you breathe the breath of life into a team enough times, and they’ll come back and beat you.”

Still, the Cardinals had hit only .185 as a team, and regardless of the breaks, that’s not going to win many World Series.

There were several reasons for the poor performance at the plate. One was the pitching of the Royals, especially World Series MVP and subsequent Cy Young winner Bret Saberhagen. Then, there was the absence of tablesetter Vince Coleman, who stole 110 bases but was injured in Game 3 of the playoffs when the tarpaulin machine at Busch Stadium ran over his leg.

Smith has yet another reason: the cycles of baseball.

“Look at the things we achieved going into the postseason,” Smith said. “We came back against Montreal, then we had to go into New York to play the Mets. Then we had the Mets at home near the end. We go into the playoffs against Los Angeles against one of the best pitching staffs in baseball.

“The World Series was almost anticlimatic. We played good baseball for a long time, and you can only do that for so long. After we didn’t win in the sixth game, I kind of feel like that was as much time as we were allotted to get the job done. The cycle of good things happening for us had run out.”

In 1982, the Cardinals won the World Series in seven games from the Milwaukee Brewers. Maybe now, Smith says, the Cards are at peace with the odds.

“In ‘82, everything went our way,” he said. “Maybe now we’re even.”