That’s Quite a Stunt Hatcher Pulled Off

Once upon a time, in spring training in Vero Beach, Fla., an unknown, but audacious young player named Mickey Hatcher cut the seat out of the pants of Tommy Lasorda, who just happened to be the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers at the time.

When you play baseball the way Hatcher does -- sliding on your face, slapping singles to the opposite field and searching for a defensive position where you can hide -- playing jokes on the manager might not seem too smart.

But Hatcher knows his place. And laughter is part of it. For most of his 10 major league seasons, his position might as well have been described as “chemist,” because aiding team chemistry has been one of his main jobs.

Hatcher knew Lasorda would retaliate for the Pants Attack. Little did he guess, however, that he would order a young pitcher named Orel Hershiser to “hit that Hatcher right in the head, or you won’t make the ball club.”

“Yeah, Tommy’ll deny it now,” says Hatcher. “He’s always saying, ‘You’re the biggest liar.’

“But at least Hershiser yelled, ‘Watch out’ and threw it over my head.”

At the moment, Lasorda and Hershiser are both grateful Hatcher’s head remains in one piece. In the great tradition of World Series stars like Rick Dempsey, Bucky Dent and Ray Knight, Hatcher has decided to play the best baseball of his life at the best possible time: when scores of millions are watching.

In the very first inning of the first game of this supposedly mismatched affair, Hatcher hit a two-run homer off Oakland ace Dave Stewart. The ball darted over the left field fence quicker than you could say, “Hatcher had one home run this season.”

Thursday night, the mightily muscled one -- well, actually, the slope-shouldered guy with the folksy smile -- did it again. First inning. One man on base.

Then, boom. We thought Jose Canseco’s grand slam and the game-winning blows hit by Kirk Gibson and Mark McGwire were hit a long way.

The two-run home run Hatcher unleashed Thursday evening through Oakland’s supposedly cement-like air made them all seem short. We’re talking 420 feet, minimum, and maybe 430. Over the wall in straight left field by 60 feet or more.

Of course, the 33-year-old utility man, turned superstar by necessity, ran the bases as though he were one leg of a mile relay team. Does he think his bat is really a baton? On the other hand, Hatcher may just be proud of his speed. Or what used to be his speed when he played wide receiver for Oklahoma in the 1976 Fiesta Bowl.

Hatcher’s season-long role on the Dodgers has been Captain of the Stuntmen. Those are the lowly Dodgers reserves who must play their roles dutifully and modestly. Waiting their chance.

Nobody in a long time has cashed a chance like Hatcher. In every game, he’s been a menace to the A’s. Twice, he has made truly eye-popping plays on line drives off the left field wall that he has held to singles. Perfect reaction to the ball, bare-handed plays of the caroms and quick throws. Once, when moved from left field to right, he made a diving, tumbling catch to rob Canseco of a hit. Naturally, when Lasorda took him out for a defensive replacement in Game 4, Hatcher started kicking the dugout furniture.

It’s not Hatcher’s glove, or even his home run bat, however, which has made him so valuable in this series. His infectiously aggressive attitide and his ability to execute the hit-and-run to perfection have keyed the Dodgers repeatedly.

One of his two hits in Game 2 was an RBI hit-and-run that immediately preceeded Mike Marshall’s three-run homer. Though the Dodgers lost Game 3, Hatcher had a double and came within an inch of a run-scoring rocket back through the box that Bob Welch snagged. Hatcher’s hit-and-run single was the heart of a two-run Dodgers rally in the first inning of Game 4 -- a vital juncture when the Dodgers rebutted the dramatic McGwire homer of the previous night. Finally, in the fourth inning Thursday, Hatcher hit a humble little hump-backed chop toward third and beat it out for a hit with a head-first dive into, over and beyond the first base bag.

With such inspiration, how could Mike Davis help but hit a two-run homer before the inning was completed?

Back in Los Angeles, A’s Manager Tony La Russa insisted that, “The Dodgers are much more than emotion. We’re going to have to deal with a good team, not just a bunch of big hearts.”

But then, the Dodgers still figured to get Gibson back. Nobody knew that Marshall’s body would fail him for the 1,257th time. Who dreamed that John Tudor might end his career on one pitch. Or that catcher Mike Scioscia would be reduced to a gimpy pinch hitter.

For three days here in Oakland, the Dodgers really have been just a bunch of big hearts, plus a superbly deep staff of pitchers. “Everybody calls us underdogs,” said Hatcher before this final Series-clinching Dodgers victory. “I suppose you’d have to say that we are. We’re not a team of stars. Forget .400. We just play hard. We know that it’s always better to make an aggressive mistake. That’s how we’ve played all year and we know it works. That’s why, as a team, we don’t feel we’re underdogs.”

What they are, as a team, is a bunch of Stuntmen, led by a guy who’d love to be riddled with pretend bullets, then hurled through the plate glass window of a western saloon.

Falling off mountains and getting stabbed by foreign spies is easy work compared to what these Dodgers have done. The stunt they pulled on the Oakland A’s in this World Series will be remembered as long as baseball talks about phenomenal upsets and beautifully homely underdogs.