WORLD SERIES / CINCINNATI REDS vs. OAKLAND ATHLETICS : Sabo Looks Fine on Third Base

Norman Rockwell would have loved Chris Sabo. He looks as if he just walked off a Saturday Evening Post cover and into a Cincinnati Red uniform and onto third base. You half-expect to see three security officers rush out, grab him and hustle him off the field for impersonating a ballplayer.

First, there’s those glasses. No ballplayer in the world wears glasses like these. A welder, maybe. A schoolmarm. In the old days, they’d call a guy who looked like this “Deacon.” Casey Stengel would dub him “Perfessor.”

Then, there’s the Adam’s apple. And the ears. It’s the perfect profile of a guy who makes his living reading. Or selling ties.

You picture him sitting down at the end of a bar some night and the bartender says to a customer, “You see that guy at the end of the bar? Go down and get him to tell you about the night he drove in two runs against the Oakland Athletics in the World Series and knocked the pitcher out of the box.” And the customer will say “What are ya, some kind of a comedian? That guy couldn’t hit a beach ball. What’s his name--Ichabod? He teaches algebra, right?”

Baseball players are supposed to be these troglodytic creatures with beards you could scratch matches on, bass-baritone voices, chunks of tobacco dripping from their teeth, arms like Popeye and the eyesight of a circling eagle.

Even if you got convinced Chris Sabo was a ballplayer, you would figure him for a Punch-and-Judy hitter, the kind who aims for seams in the infield or outfield--tries to slap hits where they ain’t, instead of like a Babe Ruth, where they’ll never be. You’d figure Christopher Andrew Sabo for the type of batter who gets his 150 hits a year, none of which leave the ground or, at least, not for very long.

Not Chris Sabo. He muscles up like Jose Canseco. He takes the full 360-degree swipe of a guy who wants lift-off, who wants to orbit the ball, not smuggle it past some outstretched mitt. Sabo hit more home runs this year (25) than anyone on the Cincinnati Reds and more than any third baseman in the league.

World Series are almost always the ultimate in anti-hero movies. For every Series a Babe Ruth or Henry Aaron stars in, there are a dozen taken over by guys like a Brian Doyle, who ran wild in the 1978 World Series and was out of baseball two years later; Gene Tenace, who hit four home runs in the ’72 World Series; Rick Dempsey, a superior defensive catcher who turned into Gabby Hartnett in the 1983 World Series.

This year, it may be a reserve outfielder named Billy (not to be confused with Mickey) Hatcher, who is on a non-stop hitting streak.

Or it just may be Chris (Himself) Sabo.

Chris Sabo reminds you of the last kid picked in a playground choose-up game. “Hey, you guys, somebody’s got to pick Chris--his mother says or they take home the ball!” “OK, but if he breaks his glasses don’t blame us!”

Sabo is not exactly the toast of Cincinnati. He’s playing a position last played in the Queen City by the likes of Tony Perez and Pete Rose, no less. The few who tried it since pretty soon left town with a sigh of relief.

Sabo looks to stick around. In this World Series, he’s almost as hard to get out as Pete Rose ever was. In Game 1, he came to the plate in the fifth inning with men on second and third, two out, and he drove the coffin nail in the Oakland chances with a two-run single, scoring the last two runs in a 7-0 rout.

On Wednesday, with his team trailing, 4-3, Sabo came to bat in the sixth inning and slashed a line drive to left center that appeared to take a bad bounce past the fielder. Sabo streaked for second, but outfielder Rickey Henderson speared the ball and threw it in. Sabo was called out at second. But, the chance was not a rash one and could have made a difference in a game that went into extra innings before Sabo’s team won it in a 10th inning three-single burst, 5-4.

In the eighth inning, with the score tied and a runner on first, two out, Sabo again slashed a hit to right.

Sabo has been told so often he should get in another line of work, he feels like an impostor. As if two guys with a straitjacket are going to show up for him any minute.

He ignores the percentages, also the people who say he has delusions of grandeur and is playing, so to speak, with Rose-colored glasses. “I don’t pay attention to what I hear or read,” he says. “I hit mistakes pretty good. And, sometimes I hit good pitches pretty good. I work hard. I changed my swing after working with Lou Piniella. I intend to improve. I’m in the right game.”

No matter what he looks like with his shirt off and his glasses on, Chris Sabo looks good in a box score. A little like Pete Rose, in fact--in spite of the fact that he’s 3,900 hits behind Pete and will never catch him (neither, probably, will anyone else). But he’s right where the Rose by any other name was so often--on a team leading a World Series, 2-0. And Sabo looks as fine on third base on that team as he would on any Norman Rockwell canvas.