BASEBALL PLAYOFFS : NATIONAL: San Francisco vs. St. Louis : ‘The Best Team Lost,’ Says MVP Leonard : He Would Trade the Trophy and His $50,000 Bonus for a Trip to Minneapolis

The trophy sat on a ledge in his locker.

Jeffrey Leonard, the Most Valuable Player in the National League playoffs, was asked what his thoughts will be when he looks at it.

“I’ll always be reminded that the better team lost,” he said. “I still think we’re the better team, but there’s no rule that says the better team has to go.”

The St. Louis Cardinals are going to Minneapolis today, having qualified for the World Series by defeating Leonard and the San Francisco Giants, 6-0, Wednesday night in the seventh and final game of their championship series.

The Giants failed to score in the final 22 innings although building a 3-2 lead in games. Leonard’s convictions proved tougher than his team’s offense.

“I couldn’t believe that team would beat us, let alone shut us out two games in a row,” he said. “To be shut out twice in a row is unbelievable.”

The Hac-Man was a little of that, as well. He was Most Valuable and Most Voluble. The partisans in a crowd of 55,331 at Busch Stadium Wednesday night chanted his name and booed his plate appearances. Unlike in Game 6, however, when he dodged beer, coins and cowbells, they threw only some change and a few stuffed dolls.

The slings and arrows came from the opposing clubhouse.

St. Louis shortstop Ozzie Smith said Leonard didn’t deserve to be the MVP, that he probably won because the media was feeling sorry for him as a member of the losing team.

Smith also said Leonard represented a classless team and that he had delivered a cheap-shot slide, attempting to break up a double play in the fourth inning, by coming up from the slide while Smith still straddled him.

Smith yelled at Leonard as he left the field, but Leonard said he hadn’t heard anything.

“I hit him,” Leonard said of the slide, “but I don’t know what he’s got to be upset about. That’s only the third time in nine years I’ve made contact with him, and that’s a compliment. It was a clean slide and nothing more. I hit him on his way down after he threw to first.

“The Wizard of Oz, huh. I think he’s full of . . . If I don’t deserve the MVP, who does? How many records did I break and tie? What does he want?”

Leonard singled twice in the final game and was deprived of a third hit on Smith’s leaping catch of a line drive.

He batted .417 and tied playoff records for hits (10), total bases 22) and home runs (4), becoming the first player in playoff history to hit homers in four straight games.

And he did it while infuriating the Cardinals and their fans with both words and actions.

“I don’t take anything back,” he said. “I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean. I put a lot of heat on myself, but my performance indicates that I wasn’t bothered by it.

“The louder they (the Cardinals and their fans) got, the louder I got. The meaner they got, the meaner I got.”

His individual reward doesn’t stop with a trophy. He’ll also receive a contract-stipulated $50,000 bonus as the MVP.

“Right now, I have no feeling about any of that,” Leonard insisted. “I have a lot of trophies and plaques at home. The $50,000 is nice, but I’d trade that and the trophy for the trip to Minneapolis. I respect the Cardinals but I still think we’re the best team.”

It could not be expected that the Hac-Man would go gently into that good night. Only his team did, failing to score in the final two games here despite putting the leadoff man on base in 9 of the 18 innings, while being retired in order only 4 times.

Manager Roger Craig bristled when a reporter mentioned the word choke . Craig reminded the man that his team had gone from a 62-100 record in 1985 to 83-79 last season and 90-72 this year, winning the Western Division en route to the seventh game of the championship series.

“Don’t use that word choke around me,” he said. “We lost 100 games two years ago, and now look where we are. We just didn’t score any runs, and you’ve got to give their pitchers credit.

“I mean, I don’t think we pressed; they just pitched better than we did. But we had a great year, that’s the way I look at it. We’ve made giant strides in two years. We’re already a good club, but we’re going to get better.”

Craig said he had gone back to his hotel room after Tuesday night’s 1-0 loss, poured a drink and wrestled with the idea of what to say to his team when it came to the park for Game 7.

“I wanted them to know what a great job they had done and to eliminate any pressure there might be coming down to the one game on which everything you’ve worked for is riding.

“I told them that win or lose, I was proud of what they had done and to just go out and have some fun.

“Then I went around and talked to each player individually, complimenting him on his contributions.

“I was hopeful that it would have an impact on the game tonight. I know that Mike Krukow was so pumped up after I talked to him that he said, ‘Do it to me again, do it to me again.’ ”

The Giants may have appreciated the message, but Danny Cox had the final word, shutting out a team that had been shut out only eight times during the regular season, only three times after July 4.

The numbers for the series tell the story: Chili Davis batted .150, Candy Maldonado .211, Robby Thompson .100, Bob Brenly .235. Only Will Clark at .360 and Bob Melvin at .429 shared some of Leonard’s respectability.

The Cardinal pitching?

“I’d call it good but not great,” Leonard said. “We helped them a lot. We just weren’t very selective when we had runners on base. It was as if we were pressing, trying to be too aggressive. We swung at the pitchers’ pitch way too often.”

Was there a lesson to be learned from it.

“The lesson,” he said, “is that we now know we can dig deeper, that we can ask more of ourselves. We’re too good not to be back, and we know now what it will take.”

It will take winning four games, better team or not.