The Night Scott Had All the Answers

Who is this Mike Scott, anyway? Where did he come from? What do you mean, “Santa Monica?” Santa Monica, Earth, or Santa Monica, Mars? From what planet did the Astros beam up Mr. Scott?

Where did he learn this split-fingered pitch? How exactly did he split those fingers of his? On splinters from his surfboard when he went to college in Malibu? Or shaking hands with Glenn Davis? Or on a broken-bat single, maybe? That is, if Mike Scott ever got a single?

How did this pitcher become this sort of pitcher? How did he get this good? Where does Mike Scott get off striking out 14 New York Mets on the opening night of the National League playoffs? What makes him think he can hang out 60 feet 6 inches from a bunch of guys who won 108 games and turn their Louisville Sluggers into Popsicle sticks?

How does Mike Scott outpitch Dwight Gooden, a man who once seemed to be in a league--the National--by himself? What sort of spinach has Mike Scott been eating that empowers him to stand before Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter and Darryl Strawberry a dozen times in one night and blow, blow, blow these men down on eight of these at-bats?

Is this Mr. Scott being totally honest and above board with us? Is he, perchance, doing something to the baseballs before he pitches them? Is he smudging Chub Feeney’s signature with shoe polish? Could he be putting cuts on the ball in a way that would make Gillette ashamed that it ever sponsored a game? Is he slopping some sort of goop on the ball that makes it wiggle and dip like a dancer in a Greek restaurant?

If he is not, why were those Mets so angry Wednesday night at the Astrodome? Why did they keep spinning around and glaring at umpire Doug Harvey as though he had just said something naughty about their mamas? Why did Gary Carter ask to inspect the ball? Did it have spit on it? Did it have Shinola on it? Does Gary Carter know spit from Shinola?

Come on, what’s the story here? Do you mean to sit there and say that there’s a pitcher who spends five years in the majors, never wins more than 10 games, then suddenly orders the amazing Miracle Pitch from Ronco or something and puts 18-8 and 18-10 seasons back-to-back?

You say Roger Craig taught him the split-finger? Who is this witch doctor Craig? What magic garlic or eye of newt or potion No. 9 does he use? When a guy goes 5-11 with “an ERA of 150, or something like that,” as Mike Scott exaggerates that he had, and two years later whiffs 306 batters, throws a no-hitter, challenges for the Cy Young Award and ices the Mets, 1-0, in a playoff game, why isn’t every pitcher in baseball holding this Craig character at gunpoint until he spills his guts and gives them the secret formula?

What are we supposed to think when October has arrived and a man has given up seven hits in his last 25 innings? When you hear Astro Manager Hal Lanier say, “If he doesn’t win the Cy Young Award, I don’t know who will,” is it possible that Fernando Valenzuela is out there somewhere in TV viewer land, disagreeing?

Doesn’t it seem obvious that when an opponent uses a pulled-in infield in the fifth inning of a 1-0 ballgame, it is a pretty splendid testimonial to the guy pitching for the other side? Doesn’t it pretty much tell you that the New York coaches are sitting in that dugout thinking, “We’d better not give up two runs because we sure as hell ain’t gonna get three,” or something along those lines?

When this Scott was going 9-1 his senior year at Hawthorne High, or 6-0 his first year at Pepperdine, did everybody on campus realize that they were watchin’ some bitchin’ pitchin’ goin’ on, and that by age 30 this Scott would someday turn into the greatest strikeout artist since Rodney Dangerfield discovered singles bars?

Could they believe their eyes when he was out there Wednesday making Gary Carter lunge at pitches that were brushing the dirt from home plate, or firing fastballs at Keith Hernandez--fastballs at Keith Hernandez!--in the eighth inning with two men on and two out and one of America’s great fastball hitters digging in?

How about this Scott? Are you a believer now, as Gooden became, saying: “Now you see why he put up the numbers he did?” Do you blame the Mets’ manager, Davey Johnson, for actually looking forward to facing Nolan Ryan in the next game? For saying: “He doesn’t throw the split-finger, does he?”

Doesn’t he? Shouldn’t he? Shouldn’t everybody?

When teammate Kevin Bass says that Mike Scott has “nerves of steel,” that he has “unreal stuff,” that he has “the kind of talent that makes you think the other team’s never going to score off him,” does he know something the rest of us don’t? Does he know that Mike Scott is not of this world? That he wasn’t born in Santa Monica, but transported there by capsule? That he is secretly Ace Astro, right-hander from another planet?

Don’t ask.