Pendleton Duly Rewards a Brave Decision : Atlanta’s Gamble Might Pay Off With the NL MVP Award

No wonder Terry Pendleton became the manager’s pet. He has, after all, surpassed all reasonable expectations.

The Atlanta Braves third baseman started the season a short round mound of little renown and is ending it as a candidate for most valuable player in the National League.

Were the Braves that smart, or that lucky?

In January, Atlanta raised eyebrows by dipping into its defense budget to sign Pendleton to a four-year, $10.2-million contract. John Schuerholz, the team’s general manager, said the Braves needed to plug the porous left side of their infield.

Critics wondered if there wasn’t a larger hole in Schuerholz’s head.

Pendleton, 31, a career .259 hitter, was coming off an injury-plagued season in which he batted only .230 and lost his starting job in St. Louis to Todd Zeile.

“He was a little bit of a gamble,” Braves Manager Bobby Cox said, “but he has really been the perfect guy for us.”

How perfect? Let Cox count the ways.

“His defense. His ability to play situation baseball, move runners over and hit in the clutch. Really his all-around play,” Cox said before a recent game at Dodger Stadium. “The guy has been perfect all season. The perfect gentleman and the perfect leader. He’s been Mr. Perfect for me.”

Which is why it makes perfect sense that Pendleton is the favorite player of Cox’s youngest daughter, Skyla, who showed her affection by naming her prized tropical fish after him.

“It was kind of funny,” Cox said. “I’d get up in the morning and one of the first things I’d hear was, ‘Has anybody fed Pendleton yet?’ ”

And yes, unfortunately, Cox did mean was .

By all rights, the Braves could have gone belly up around the same time as the fish. But Pendleton the player wouldn’t let them.

Atlanta was 9 1/2 games behind the NL West-leading Dodgers at the All-Star break and suffering from a severe power outage. David Justice and Sid Bream, the Nos. 4 and 6 batters in the Brave order, were on the disabled list.

Pendleton responded by batting .360 in July with five home runs and 21 runs batted in to lead the Braves’ charge back into the pennant chase.

“There were a lot of guys who contributed during that time, but Terry absolutely went crazy,” second baseman Jeff Treadway said. “He carried us for a long time.”

So now the Braves, who have not finished better than next to last since 1984, are, with nine games remaining, poised and within striking distance of Pendleton’s favorite--better make that former favorite--team.

“I used to be a die-hard Dodger fan,” said Pendleton, who grew up and still resides in Oxnard. “I was really still a Dodger fan when I signed with the Cardinals (in 1982).”

In fact, many close friends remain loyal to the Dodgers.

“It’s funny, everybody says they want to see me do well, but they want the Dodgers to win,” Pendleton said. “I tell them that I hope we win no matter how well I do.”

While his usual consistent self on defense, Pendleton also has packed a surprising wallop at bat this season. His .316 batting average is third best in the league and he has 79 RBIs and a career-high 20 home runs.

“If he hit .280, that would have been fine with me,” Cox said. “We wanted his glove, but he’s giving us a lot more than that. The home runs, the RBIs . . . and I mean clutch ones. Some guys hit, but Terry hits in the clutch.”

Pendleton has averaged a respectable 68 RBIs during his six full seasons in the majors, but his best batting campaign before this one was turned in for the pennant-winning Cardinals of 1987. He batted .286 with 12 home runs and a career-high 96 RBIs.

All while learning a valuable lesson.

“I went down the tubes in September that year because Jack Clark got hurt and I tried to do too much,” Pendleton said. “I went from .303 to .286 in a hurry.”

With Justice and Bream out, he was placed in a similar position this season. “I told myself that I could only do so much,” Pendleton said. “Otis Nixon reminded me. He said, ‘Don’t even try to do your job and their job. It won’t work.’ I thought about that and he was right. I just relaxed and did what I was capable of doing.”

Which, according to all accounts, has been invaluable--perhaps even Most Valuable--to the Braves.

“You have to be around him every day to know his real value,” Cox said. “It’s a day-in and day-out thing in the clubhouse, in the dugout, out on the field. You see it all over.”

Pendleton’s contributions started during spring training.

“I looked around and saw the Braves of old,” Pendleton said. “They were just going out and going through the motions. It was like, ‘Let’s hurry up and get the season going and get it over with.’ ”

Together with Bream, another newcomer who had signed as a free agent after spending last season with the NL East-champion Pittsburgh Pirates, Pendleton plotted a change in attitude.

And, most important, he committed to setting a personal example of how to prepare for a winning season.

“Terry isn’t afraid to stand up and say some things,” Treadway said, “but a lot of times when someone does that, it isn’t received so well. People listen to him because he picks his spots and they respect him because he does his job on the field.”

That respect goes well beyond members of the Braves.

Joe Amalfitano, who as the Dodger third base coach gets an up-close look at the league’s best corner men, grades Pendleton near the top of the list.

“When Terry was with the Cardinals, I used to always tease him and Ozzie (Smith),” Amalfitano said. “I’d say, ‘We’re going to protest all these games because you guys have 10 guys on the field. There must be three guys on this side of the infield!’ I mean, in a game, nothing got through them.”

Amalfitano has been an admirer since Pendleton made his major-league debut with the Cardinals midway through the 1984 season.

“He has a presence about him,” Amalfitano said. “We all have certain skills or we wouldn’t be at this level, but some of us acquire more knowledge about how to approach this game than other people.

“Watching him, he looks like he’s in control of the whole thing. You watch him in infield drills and you can see in the way he prepares himself that he is very disciplined.”

Pendleton said he acquired a professional approach to baseball at an early age.

He recalls that as a 9-year-old Little Leaguer he went hitless for an entire season. “I was probably the worst player in the whole league,” Pendleton said. “I was the kid in right field. Even though I could catch and throw, they put me there because I couldn’t hit.”

The following winter, while his friends played Pop Warner football, Pendleton played “strikeouts” against the closest available wall and collared whomever he could to pitch batting practice against him.

The next season, he was the all-star shortstop.

So knowing his history, the past year’s transition no longer seems surprising. Last September, Pendleton appeared in only three games--all as a pinch-hitter. This season he might be MVP.