And He’s Fielding So Well Again : Reluctant Downing Plays Flawlessly in Return to Left

Brian Downing dusted off his baseball glove and took it out to left field Friday night. This little chore was a matter of personal choice. Manager Gene Mauch’s.

Had it been up to Downing, that fielder’s glove would have remained on the shelf of his dressing-room cubicle until cobwebs formed and the leather began to rot. Downing had hoped that he would be forever left out of left field. He figured he had run into his last outfield wall . . . fought his last fight with a ball in the lights.

But when Mauch posted his lineup card in the Angels’ dugout for Friday night’s series opener against Seattle, there was Downing’s name right on top. For the first time since the American League Championship Series last October, he was the starting left fielder.

To hear Downing tell it, this was akin to being sent to the dentist for a root canal. When approached by a reporter before the game for his thoughts about returning to the outfield, his brief responses ranged from “I’ve got nothing to say about it” to “I hate it out there . . . despise it.”

This from a guy who has spent some rather glowing moments as a left fielder. He went from May 25, 1981, to July 21, 1983, without making an error, a major-league record 244 consecutive errorless games. He opened last season with 75 straight errorless games, to add on to the 44 he closed 1985 with. His fielding percentage was 1.000 in 1982, and again in ’84. Obviously, it’s not as if he doesn’t know how to use that glove.

It’s just that Downing became the club’s full-time designated hitter this spring and embraced the role the way a kid hugs his first puppy. And he didn’t particularly care to let it go.

Then, on Tuesday, along came Bill Buckner, who signed with the Angels after being released by the Boston Red Sox. Until Friday night, Buckner had filled in at first base for Wally Joyner, who was waiting for the pain in his tender ribs to subside. Joyner returned to the lineup against the Mariners to face Scott Bankhead, a right-hander. Buckner made his debut in an Angel home uniform as the designated hitter, and Downing reached for his glove.

“I don’t want to be out there, but I’m out there,” Downing said. “So we’ll see what happens.”

What happened was this: Downing fielded his only two chances in the outfield flawlessly and hit the ball hard in four at-bats before he left the game after the sixth inning of the Angels’ 8-2 victory. He led off the bottom of the first by doubling to (where else?) the left-field corner. He flied out to left in the second, flied to the warning track in right in the fourth and had a sacrifice fly to right for an RBI in the sixth.

His first chance in left came in the second, when David Valle lofted a soft fly ball to left that Downing ran under for an easy out. In the sixth, Gary Matthews pulled a base hit toward the the left-field line that Downing charged to field it and then made a strong, one-hop throw to second to hold Matthews to a single.

Such a smooth return to the outfield came as no great surprise to Mauch.

“The first thing Downing wants is to win,” he said. “Maybe the first, second and third things.”

And what of Downing’s acknowledged distaste for playing the field?

“His reaction to me wasn’t as strong as some people would like to make it out to be,” Mauch said. “When I first sat down and discussed it with him, he said, ‘You know I’d rather not play left field, but I’ll do whatever it takes to win.’ That was his reaction to me.”