The World Series : Minnesota Twins vs. St. Louis Cardinals : Magrane Is Always Working on His Delivery : Cardinal Pitcher Throws a Fastball, Sinkerball and an Occasional One-Liner

In the mysterious mind of Joe Magrane, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher and pundit, connections are made that seem to escape most of us.

Perhaps only Magrane could equate an important late-season win with Richard Nixon’s resignation from the presidency. Only Magrane, it seems, would mention Jeffrey Leonard and Gary Hart in the same sentence. Magrane has even been known to issue a “no comment” that runs to several paragraphs.

Magrane, a strapping 23-year-old left-hander who could pass for Nick Nolte’s kid brother, is witty, wry and, like most good comics, topical. But Magrane’s full-time job is pitching and he realizes that there won’t be an audience for his act unless he wins.

That is why you will see a serious Magrane facing the Minnesota Twins tonight in the opening game of the World Series. This is by far the biggest gig of Magrane’s rookie season, so he’s going to play it straight--at least on the mound.

During a brief press conference here Friday, Magrane was unusually restrained, only occasionally indulging in whimsy. It wasn’t his best material, but it’s still early.

Asked about Minnesota’s so-called “Fab Four” hitters--Kent Hrbek, Gary Gaetti, Kirby Puckett and Tom Brunansky--Magrane furrowed his eyebrows and cracked: “Does Fab mean fabulous, or is that a new laundry detergent?”

He also good-naturedly scolded reporters for “not doing their homework” when they couldn’t recall that that he had pitched in the Metrodome in 1983, while he was at the University of Arizona. “I lost to Minnesota, 5-3,” Magrane said. “So I do know how to lose here.”

And when Magrane said Friday that he plans to wear earplugs to help block the noise at the Metrodome, reporters laughed. But Magrane wasn’t kidding, and he almost had to fall back on the familiar line, “But seriously, folks . . . “

Given Magrane’s reputation, it wouldn’t surprise some if he also came out tonight with a fake nose and glasses or an arrow apparently sticking through his head. Anything for a laugh, right?

Not quite. There is a serious side to Magrane, as evidenced by his success with the Cardinals this season.

Magrane, promoted to the major leagues when John Tudor broke his right leg in a freak dugout accident on Easter Sunday, had a 9-7 record with a 3.54 earned-run average. Had it not been for a lingering elbow injury--no, not the funny bone--that hindered his progress, Magrane might have been the Cardinals’ best pitcher this season.

His only playoff start, however, turned into a cruel joke. He gave up four runs in four innings to the San Francisco Giants in Game 3, which St. Louis eventually won. Despite that, Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog gave him the start tonight, over Bob Forsch and Greg Mathews.

“Joe Magrane has got a chance to be a No. 1 pitcher for us some day,” Herzog said in explaining his selection of a pitcher for the Series opener. “He pitched an outstanding game in one of our most important wins late in the season.”

That was Magrane’s complete-game 1-0 victory over the Montreal Expos Sept. 29 that kept St. Louis in first place in the National League East. That also was the night Magrane said of the win: “I haven’t felt like this since Nixon resigned.”

Though Magrane enjoys interjecting some levity into serious situations, he said he knows when to pick his spots.

“I think I have divided it where I know when to take myself seriously, and I know when it’s time to get serious and to start doing the things that I do best,” said Magrane, a communications major in college. “I don’t want that (comic image) to be my epitaph or anything.”

But Magrane, for sure, does not go out of his way to avoid attention. He has a weekly morning radio show on an FM station in St. Louis. In that forum, Magrane suggested that the National Football League hire out-of-work air traffic controllers to play during the strike, and responded to Herzog’s quote that he was throwing like an old man by saying, “Maybe it was my maturity.”

But despite being the Cardinals’ resident card, Magrane guards his privacy. He has turned down all requests for individual interviews during the playoffs and World Series, choosing to speak only in formal press conferences. Apparently, Magrane figures that he works big rooms better.

“Fans tend to look at (players) as machines in uniforms,” Magrane once told an interviewer. “No one likes to have their private life in the National Enquirer.”

Ironically, for somebody so quotable, one of Magrane’s idols is Steve Carlton, who has been mostly mute throughout his career.

Carlton’s influence had more to do with pitching than with public speaking, though. Magrane has tried to emulate Carlton’s fluid pitching motion. He also has taken up Tai-chi, an Oriental exercise Carlton practiced, and submerging his arm in a tub of rice.

Magrane’s father, a former college discus thrower who teaches biology at Morehead State in Kentucky, had Joe on exercise programs as a kid. And Magrane always was advanced for his age. He earned six varsity letters in baseball at his high school in Morehead after the coach received permission to use him as a seventh grader.

At the University of Arizona, Magrane pitched a no-hitter against Cal State Fullerton and also helped the Wildcats advance to the 1984 College World Series, which Fullerton eventually won.

After being the Cardinals’ first-round draft pick in 1984, it took Magrane less than three seasons to make it to the major leagues. Once there, he won his first four games before he was slowed by soreness in his left elbow. He spent 15 days on the disabled list in late May, but regained form late in the season and finished with a winning record.

About the only setback Magrane has faced was his poor performance in Game 3 of the playoffs, when Leonard homered against him.

Magrane, by the way, recently said he did not want to comment on Leonard’s various playoff antics. In explaining why, he said he was thinking of Hart.

“I think I could take lessons in what’s happened in the last year in politics and not be controversial and sidestep that question with as much eloquence as I can,” Magrane said.

But Magrane thinks he has figured out why he was unable to handle Leonard and the rest of the Giants in his playoff start.

“I’m lucky and grateful to get a second chance after the playoffs,” Magrane said. “One of the reasons for my poor performance in San Francisco was, with all the hype and fanfare about the Giant hitters, I threw to their weaknesses as opposed to staying with my strengths.

“That’s how I got into problems. I’m a fastball and sinkerball pitcher, and I know they’ll be ready for my fastball. I can’t deviate from that. If that’s not good enough, at least I’ll be able to say I stayed with my strengths.”

He also doesn’t want to put too much emphasis on that pitcher’s nightmare called the Metrodome, which yields many home runs and has a noise level approaching that of a rock concert.

Reporters kept asking Magrane about the stadium, especially since he had earlier said of chilly Candlestick Park: “I’ll be prepared for it--our seventh grade trip was to Antarctica. Maybe I’ll take a Bunsen burner out there. Maybe some powdered food.”

But no, it appeared as if Magrane was going to play it straight when asked about the Metrodome.

“When I was here before (in 1983), there were only about 2,000 screaming fans, and that made it almost hard to hear,” Magrane said. “So maybe that’s going to be magnified a little.”

And those earplugs? Magrane insists they aren’t merely a prop.

“Seriously, I’ll wear them just to cut down on the noise level,” Magrane said. “If you listen to that for nine innings at such a frantic pace, you’ll keep looking up and wondering if a blimp has crashed into the stadium.”