BOB HORNER TRIES TO COPE WITH A REAL MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

Last Sunday, less than 24 hours before his younger brother could no longer fight leukemia, Bob Horner hit his 18th home run of the season. Like many of Horner’s homers, this one looked too simple, as if all it took was a bat and your once-a-summer softball swing.

He had watched San Francisco Giants starter Mike Krukow miss three times before a strike was called. Then Krukow threw another strike and the count was 3-2. Krukow threw once more, this time deciding on a fastball that began sailing upward as it reached home plate. Moments later, the Braves had a 2-1 fourth-inning lead.

There is no loop, no hitch in Horner’s swing. It slams shut like a car door. “Sometimes I think he’s got 12-inch arms,” Krukow says. “He’s had that swing since he walked out of Arizona State.”

Horner quickly circled the bases, preferring to ignore Krukow, an All-Star game selection this season. Krukow stood on the mound, hands on hips, staring at Horner as he rounded first base. Nor did Horner glance toward the blue seats, where Atlanta fans playfully fought for his home run ball. Instead, he disappeared quietly into the dugout, never smiling.

This, you see, was business, and agony and nothing else.

“I’m not there, but my heart is there,” Horner said softly later.

He would rather have been at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, where his brother, Scott, 25, was doing all he could to live. Instead, Horner was at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, waiting for a dreary and rainy day to end.

“What I’ve been trying to do is concentrate on my job, but there’s no way you can put something like this out of your mind,” Horner said. “It’s hard to describe. Between the chemotherapy and . . . well, it’s been one hell of a thing that Scott has had to go through.”

By simple definition, leukemia is characterized by the presence of “immature and usually a persistently increased number of white blood cells in the circulating blood.” The abnormal white blood cells then begin to interfere with and overwhelm the development of the red blood cells, normal white cells and platelets. Serious infections become a risk.

Doctors diagnosed Scott Horner’s condition in November 1984. As the disease progressed, a bone-marrow transplant was done. Bob Horner was the donor.

The operation didn’t work. For whatever reasons, Scott Horner’s body rejected the bone marrow. He was admitted to St. Joseph’s June 30. About a month later, as the condition worsened, Horner left the Braves to be with him, missing four games before rejoining the team.

When he returned, Horner told Manager Chuck Tanner that it might be better for the team if he didn’t start that night, that he was unable to concentrate on baseball.

Fine, said Tanner. He understood. In 1979, when Tanner was managing the Pittsburgh Pirates, his mother died the day he was taking his team into the fifth game of the World Series. “That’s tough for anybody,” Tanner said. “I know. We work together on it.”

Later in the game, Tanner asked if Horner could pinch-hit. Horner said he would try, then promptly hit a double to tie the score.

And so it went. Horner, 29, would attempt to go about his business, which was to hit thrown baseballs and play first base. But each day there were the lingering thoughts of his brother.

Scott Horner had played baseball, too, Bob said. “He was quiet, even-tempered, a family man.” . . . And then he stopped. “Right now, it’s very hard for me to describe Scott.”

Early last Monday morning, Scott Horner died. Pneumonia was given as the official cause. One struggle had ended. Another, Bob Horner’s, continued in part.

“It’s life,” Horner said. “Nobody said life was going to be easy.”

And isn’t that the contradiction?

If nothing else, there always was the appearance that everything was coming easily for Horner. Hadn’t fame and fortune descended upon him in 1978? That was the year that Horner, fresh off the Arizona State campus, homered off Pittsburgh’s Bert Blyleven in his first professional game. By season’s end, Horner had 23 home runs and 63 RBIs in only 89 games.

“He wasn’t cocky by any means,” said teammate Dale Murphy. “But he was confident, and rightfully so. He had to be close to that, to stay here, to make it. He didn’t talk a lot. He wasn’t one to pop off. I mean, I know I could not have made it (to the majors) any sooner than I did.”

“But Bob had ability. I’ve never seen anybody walk into the major leagues and have the at-bats that he had and do what he did.”

This, coming from the man who has averaged more than 36 homers during the previous four seasons.

Horner remains unimpressed with his own doings. “All that seems like a long, long time ago,” he says.

Eight seasons have passed since Horner was named the National League’s Rookie of the Year. Nearly each of those seasons has had its own special tribulation. The list, in condensed form:

1978: Horner and his agent, Bucky Woy, persuaded management to start him in the majors, rather than with the Braves’ Double-A affiliate in Savannah as planned. “I was fortunate at the time to play for a team in last place,” Horner said. “Fortunate for me.”

Then, on June 16 in Atlanta, Horner hit the home run off Blyleven.

“One of the things that can happen to you in a baseball career--as a player, a manager--is to have a lot of success right away,” he said. “Then comparisons are drawn between you and about everyone else in either league. And then the expectations are drawn and made.”

The expectations in this case? A home run with every swing.

Less than two months after hitting his first homer, Horner injured his left shoulder and missed five games. He hurt the shoulder again Sept. 24. Surgery was performed, a pin was put in his shoulder, and he missed the rest of the season.

1979: Another injury, this time a chip fracture in his left ankle, forced Horner to miss more than a month of play. Still, he finished with 33 homers, 98 RBIs and a .314 batting average.

1980: Thirty-five homers, 89 RBIs and only two weeks missed because of injury. But this was also the season when owner Ted Turner wanted Horner sent to Richmond, the team’s Triple-A club. Horner refused and, after some nasty public squabbling, was put on the disqualified list from April 28 to May 10. By the time the season ended, there was no more talk of Richmond.

1981: Fifteen homers and 42 RBIs. He played only 89 games because of torn ligament fibers in his left wrist.

1982: An injured instep and a hyperextension of the left elbow forced him to miss 22 regular-season games. Even so, Horner had 32 homers and 97 RBIs.

1983: More misery. An injured ankle caused him to miss eight days. A broken right wrist on Aug. 15 caused him to miss the rest of the season. Totals: 20 homers, 68 RBIs.

1984: Horner missed 16 games after suffering a separated shoulder. Later, on May 30, he broke his right wrist again and was lost for the season. He played in only 32 games. It was also in 1984 that Scott Horner’s leukemia was discovered.

1985: Surprise! Not a day spent on the disabled list, though Horner did miss about 15 games because of problems with his wrist. A pulled hamstring also forced him to miss several games.

So, there has been something every season. But no season has tested Horner like this one.

In less than five months, Horner has had to cope with his brother’s illness, deal with trade rumors and answer questions about free agency. His contract will expire at season’s end, though General Manager Bobby Cox has said that every attempt will be made to re-sign Horner during the off-season.

On July 6, Horner hit four home runs in a single game. Second baseman Glenn Hubbard remembers a calm, cool Horner arriving in the dugout after the fourth one. “He just doesn’t show it,” Hubbard said.

When he was summoned to Phoenix in late July to be with his brother, Horner left quietly and with little fanfare. “He deals with it himself,” Hubbard said. “He doesn’t want to bother anybody else.”

Said Horner, as his brother was in his final hours: “This is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever had to endure. You can put all the other things together and it doesn’t even come close to this.”

His wife, Christine, once ventured that perhaps her husband was somehow being penalized for that sweet swing of his. Horner, himself, says the thought has crossed his mind, however briefly.

“I’d hate to think that because of what happened to me early in my career means I’m getting all this lumped on me,” he said.

Horner also said that he has learned from all of this. Baseball is no longer life and death. It is a job. Scott Horner and the suffering he endured and fought, that was life and death.

As for those eight injury-marred seasons, Horner says he would keep everything the same. “I wouldn’t change my baseball career. I don’t even think I would change the injuries. They made me a stronger person because of that.”

Good thing, too. If there is one thing Horner has needed, lately, it is strength.