BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : At Last, an Opportunity Knocks for Mack

He came out of Gahr High and UCLA to reach Olympian heights right from the start.

He was one of 16 players to advance to the major leagues from the 1984 Olympic team, one of the best amateur teams ever, and Shane Mack was supposed to be as good as any of them, including Will Clark, Mark McGwire and Barry Larkin.

He was the first-round draft choice of the San Diego Padres that summer, the 11th player chosen nationally, but that seemed to be as good as it would get.

Two years ago, released by the Padres while recovering from elbow surgery and a staph infection that required intravenous injections for two months, Mack feared that his career might be over at 25.

“What hurt most,” he was saying Saturday night, “was to see those other guys . . . McGwire, Clark . . . come up and start off so well, while I’d play a few games, then be back on the bench.

“I mean, I never really felt like I got a chance to get comfortable, to settle in there. Those other first-rounders were allowed to show what they could do, but it was as if I was under the gun all the time.

“I might have understood if I were in the pennant race, but that wasn’t the case. They’d sign a veteran outfielder every year, and one of us--Shawn Abner, Stan Jefferson or myself--would be on the shuttle back to Las Vegas, usually me.

“By the time I was released, I was actually happy about it. But I also had my elbow in a sling, was strapped to the IV and couldn’t be sure anyone would take a chance. I was confident I could still play, but I was afraid I wouldn’t get the chance.”

In the clubhouse of the Minnesota Twins, who took a chance by acquiring Mack for a modest $50,000 in the 1989 December draft of unprotected players, Mack smiled and added, “That’s why this is all a dream come true.”

Re-establishing his career as the Minnesota right fielder, Mack had just added a new chapter to the dream in Game 6 of the World Series.

The Twins won it, 4-3, on Kirby Puckett’s home run in the 11th inning, setting the stage for Game 7 tonight.

It was an appropriately dramatic conclusion to the most dramatic game yet, and Mack performed an influential supporting role.

His run-scoring single in the first inning broke an 0-for-15 Series drought and 0-for-17 postseason slump that had left him benched for Game 5 Thursday night. He also doubled in the fourth and made an important defensive play in the 11th.

Sid Bream, the Atlanta Braves’ first baseman, rifled a clean hit into the right-field corner to open the inning. It appeared to be a double, but Mack, aware of the Metrodome’s eccentricities, raced over to get it, whirled and fired a strike to second base, holding Bream at first.

Pinch-runner Keith Mitchell was thrown out attempting to steal second. Rick Aguilera retired the next two batters on infield pop-ups, and Puckett won it on the fourth pitch of the Twins’ 11th.

Of his play on Bream, Mack credited local knowledge.

“I knew that the ball doesn’t bounce off the tarp (that passes as a right-field fence),” he said. “I knew I’d have to get there and get it. Anyone not familiar with this field might have played it a lot differently. That’s why we have such a home-field advantage.”

The Homer Hankies were waving in salute, as they had been in the first inning when Mack, who batted .310 and drove in 74 runs during the season, got his first Series hit and RBI.

He later saluted Puckett.

“Kirby is everything to this team,” Mack said. “He really helped me with my defense the last two years, learning to communicate in the outfield.

“He’s always in the game, always keeping things loose, no matter how he’s hitting, and he talked with me before the game, told me to relax, that I’d had a great season, to just go out and play.”

Mack had opened the season four for 40, but his 0 for 15 in the World Series came under national scrutiny, and he acknowledged that he wasn’t being patient, wasn’t waiting for his pitch. The chat with Puckett helped, he said, and remembering where he had been and what he had been through also eased the simmering pressure.

“The key to my turnaround here,” said Mack, who recently moved back to Los Angeles from Las Vegas, “is that I got the chance to play, and the manager has been behind me all the way.”

Tom Kelly returned Mack to the lineup Saturday night and offered the encouragement he needed after being acquired by the Twins, calling to tell Mack that all he asked was that he come to camp in shape.

Teams were allowed to carry three extra players at the start of the 1990 season because of the protracted labor negotiations, and that was the break Mack needed. He was one of the three, opened the season in a right-field platoon, hit well, won the job outright and finished the year at .326.

For the former Olympian, it has all been golden here, as he always thought it could be.