It’s Almost as If He’s Pitching for the Foreign Legion

The proposition for Mark Langston, the baseball player, is really quite simple: does he want to be a left-handed pitcher or a lanceur gaucher ? Does he want to be known as a strikeout king or le roi des retraits au baton?

Can he cope with an environment where an earned-run average is a moyenne des points merite with an accent over the “e”? Where his fastball is known as the rapide and his slider as a glissante? And his curve is spelt courbe? The changeup is a changement de vitesse? A walk is a but sur balles?

Does Kevin Mitchell look any easier to pitch to because he’s a frappeur instead of a power hitter? Is a home run any easier to give up because it’s a coup circuit? Is it any more comforting to give up a base hit when it’s described as a coup sur?

Like to see your shutout referred to as a blanchissage . Would you?

French is a beautiful language. I mean, it’s got words such as Beaujolais and mon petit chou . It’s the language of love.

But is it the language of baseball? Does the game lose something in translation? Ballplayers who play the game in Montreal tend to feel they’re on a demonstration tour of southern France. “You never feel as if you have a home game,” Ron Fairly, who played there for five years and rolled up several hundred coups sur , once observed. “The weather was very changeable. It ranged from bad to terrible. The announcer used to come on in the morning to predict the day would be ‘cold and windy with intermittent daylight.’ ”

Mark Langston is the curious case of a guy who belongs on Broadway but finds himself playing Bridgeport. Or Peoria. Or, as in his case, a foreign country.

He is one of the best pitchers in the grand old game but found himself on the mound for the Seattle Mariners. That’s like Caruso winding up in a barber shop quartet, Laurence Olivier in “Smokey and the Bandit II.”

The Mariners are less a team than a sitcom. Pitching in the Kingdome is not a job, it’s a sentence. Four times in its brief history, it has been the home run capital of the world. Most of those were hit by the visitors. The “power” alleys are a laughable 357 1/2 feet, the foul poles are 316 feet away. Umpires have to be careful invoking the infield-fly rule. It might turn out to be a home run.

Finding yourself in the Kingdome with Jose Canseco is like finding yourself in an elevator with a lion. Nevertheless, Mark Langston won 19 games in this closet in 1987, a year when 218 home runs rattled out in the Kingdome.

Langston learned early on the importance of geography. Pitching in that glorified tent, Langston won 17 games, led the league in strikeouts, even had two shutouts, in 1984, his rookie season. Nobody even looked up. Meanwhile, over in New York, another rookie pitcher, Dwight Gooden won the same number of games, did not lead the league in strikeouts and only had one more shutout. But, he became rookie of the year, Doctor K, and, the next year, Cy Young winner. Langston became What’d-you-say-his-name-was-again?

Old What’s his name has more lifetime strikeouts than Dr. K. He has led the league three times in strikeouts. He struck out 16 in a game (against Toronto) last year. He just missed a no-hitter, throwing a one-hit game against Texas.

Yet, he had to hire a Hollywood publicity firm to get his name in the papers.

He played in the Kingdome on a team that finished last two of the five seasons he pitched there and next-to-last in two others. He knew he had to get out of there. So, he forced a trade. And he got to go to--ta, da!--Montreal!

Now, Montreal is not exactly the show-biz capital of the world. It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to pitch there. At least in Seattle, they knew he was a hurler and not a lanceur . And Mark has no great desire to become Doctor Retraits Au Baton . He probably knew he was in trouble the minute he stepped off the plane and someone addressed him as mon vieux (old friend). The trouble with Montreal is their heroes come with hockey sticks attached. Everyone else is Coco Laboy.

So, when does Mark What’s-His-Name get to play the Palace, trod the boards at the Old Vic, so to speak, get on prime time? He needs a compass, not a curve. Fame and fortune lies south and Langston seems to be looking for the Northwest Passage. One more move and he’ll need a dog sled.

Montreal would like to keep him. He’s the best lanceur they’ve got. But the Expos would have liked to have kept Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, Rusty Staub and Warren Cromartie. They all went over the wall. Tim Raines tried. Andre Dawson even signed a blank contract at Chicago rather than go back over the border.

Montreal took a calculated risk in trading for Langston. He becomes a free agent at the end of the year. Montreal is hoping he will find their city rich in Old World charm.

Montreal’s gerant (manager), Bob Rodgers, is acutely aware of the problem.

“I know. Everybody wants to play in Southern California or New York,” he admits. “What we have to do is convince them we have a first-class operation here, that it doesn’t snow in Montreal in July, and that it just might be one of the best places in baseball to win a pennant.”

Gerant Rodgers acknowledges lanceur Langston, who has won 10 games for the Montreal Expos since his escape from Seattle, will be avidly sought when he reaches free agency this fall. “He has great stuff, but he’s a pitcher not a thrower. He could mean a pennant to a number of teams. I would hope one of them would be us.”

Langston is unsure. He admits he is pitching this year with his bags packed and the car running and double-parked. “But, what I wanted basically was to get into a pennant race. I had never been in one and I like having the games mean something.”

I don’t know what the French word is for pennant. Up to now, of course, they haven’t needed one up there. If they don’t get one this year, the word for Langston next year may be au revoir .