HE’S IN TUNE : Suddenly a Worldbeater, Twins’ Frank Viola Relishes the Change

Frank Viola is no violet. Where others shrink, on baseball’s greatest stages, the Minnesota Twins’ great southpaw blossoms. A year ago, Viola did not know this about himself, but he sure does now. A trip to the American League playoffs, then a spectacular fortnight as most valuable player in the World Series, and now a perfect evening in Riverfront Stadium as winning pitcher in the 1988 All-Star Game have shown him his rightful place in the scheme of baseball things.

“This is me right here. This is right up my alley,” said Viola, beaming, as he stood in the midst of the American League locker room, surrounded by cameras, mikes and notepads, the day before his all-star start. “You enjoy what you decide to enjoy.”

Have no fear, the big 28-year-old with the mischievous kid’s face and the wispy undernourished mustache, the mound artist teammates call “Sweet Music,” has decided to revel in his hour of fame and his moments of glory.

“I’m enjoying it up here,” Viola said of his status as current king of the pitcher’s hill. “I don’t want to come down yet ... I haven’t done what, say, Dwight Gooden has, but tell him I’m catchin’ up ... Oooohh, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. That’s all I need to do is jinx myself.”

What Ron Guidry was to 1978, what Gooden was to 1985 and what Roger Clemens was to 1986, is where Viola stands at this moment in 1988. What is it about a 25-3 or a 24-4 record that fascinates contemporary watchers of pitchers? Right now, Viola is 14-2. Toss in that 3-0 record in the ’87 postseason and his textbook six-up-six-down showing here Tuesday night and the numbers stretch out even more impressively.

Actually, in the Twins’ last 162 games, Viola has gone 25-6. His ERA for this season-2.24-is, if anything, an understatement of the magical zone in which he finds himself.

“When he gets ahead of you in the count, the feeling is unbelievable,” said Cal Ripken of Baltimore. “He has so many pitches at so many speeds and such command of them all that you don’t know what to look for.”

Viola, who will meet Ripken and his Orioles this weekend in Baltimore, illustrates one of baseball’s more fascinating yet eternally recurrent phenomena -- the vastly talented player who, for years, hangs on the cusp of real greatness, frustrating and teasing everyone who watches him. Including himself.

The statistics say that, since 1984, Viola has won more games (83-51) than any other left-hander and that only Gooden and Jack Morris have more wins. Still, Viola knows how difficult the voyage can be from very-good-but-infuriatingly-erratic to dead-solid-great. After all, before last season, his career record was 63-64 with a 4.25 ERA. Even now, he’s never won 20. Or 19. Or finished more than seven games over .500 (17-10 in ‘87).

How does the Viola of today -- composed, intimidating, a real maestro in Riverfront -- differ from the out-of-tune Viola of just two years ago?

He can tell you exactly.

“First, success breeds confidence.”

As the Twins rose toward a world title, Viola discovered new resources in himself. Like Pete Rose, Reggie Jackson and few others, Viola learned to turn the light of center stage into a private source of voltage. “Now, it’s fun,” he says of the interviews and hoopla.

“Winning brings notoriety. But you get used to it and it becomes easier to handle. You even learn to feed off it. In the playoffs, all the attention may have made my adrenaline flow too fast in my first start. But, by the Series, I’d learned to make it work for me.”

Second, and more important, Viola gained maturity; no special formula, just time.

“You can’t let things that are out of your control affect you,” he said. “Errors, bad calls, bad breaks. It took me five years to get that through my thick head. Left-handers learn slowe1915625518thing I’m most proud of. I’m the one who did it. I was given the talent. It was conquering the other (mental) stuff that was hard. You listen to the things you want to hear. I finally realized I should be hearing some of the advice from older players. I’d say, ‘You know, that guy was right.’

“Bert Byleven really showed me how to handle your disposition on the mound when he arrived (back with the Twins in 1986). He’d give up some titanic home run. It’d be his 50th (gopher ball) of the year. And you couldn’t tell. He didn’t show anything. I thought, ‘Why don’t I just take a lesson from this man?’ ”

Blyleven, of course, took a dozen or more years to learn that lesson himself. When he did, his reputation did a 180-degree reversal. The man whom Chuck Tanner once tagged Get Him Out Before He Finds A Way To Lose in 1979 became the psychological focal point of the 1988 world champion Twins’ starting staff.

The final piece of the puzzle for Viola has been mastery of the straight change-up. Quite a few pitchers, even 6-foot-4, 209-pounders like Viola, have a 90 mile-per-hour fastball, a fine curve and a presentable slider. What alters everything is the polished change.

“It makes 90 look like 95,” said Ripken. “It’s The Pitch. The Difference. And Viola will throw it on 3-2, 3-1 and 2-0 counts.”

“The straight change is the toughest of all pitches,” says New York’s Don Mattingly. “Viola never had trouble with us left-handed hitters. But that tremendous change-up that tails away from right-handers gives him confidence against everybody now.”

Tuesday night, Viola showed it all in a quiet performance as impressive in its way as Clemens’ victory in 1986 in Houston. Of 31 pitches, 25 were strikes. Leadoff man Vince Coleman got a fastball strike, then looked foolish popping up a change-up. Ryne Sandberg got the big curve for a strike for starters, then saw jamming fastballs and sliders until he finally froze and took a perfect low-in fastball for strike three.

Andre Dawson was so far in front of a change-up that he dribbled the ball one-handed. Darryl Strawberry got sliders away that he had no prayer of pulling. Only Will Clark managed so much as a couple of good swings, and he had to go to the opposite field to save face.

No man stays where Viola is now for terribly long. Stuff happens. Injuries, lost mechanics, age. For the moment, however, Viola really is as good as his nickname. While the magic and the music last, it’s worth splurging for the best box-seat ticket in the house just to watch his work at close range.

In the AL All-Star clubhouse this week, George Brett’s brother Ken, a 10-season journeyman who was always said to have had more talent than his little brother, chatted with old friends. Ken Brett’s sliver of baseball immortality is a vivid, bitter quote: “The worst curse in life is unlimited potential.”

Frank Viola has proved that isn’t always true.