Twins’ Decoy Turned Smith Into Standing Duck, He Says

Lonnie Smith, whose baserunning mistake in the seventh game of the World Series probably cost his Atlanta Braves a run--and possibly the game--acknowledged he was fooled by the Minnesota Twins’ infield.

Smith refused to talk to reporters immediately after Sunday night’s 1-0, 10-inning loss to the Twins. But he told a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist it was “my mistake” when he failed to score from first on Terry Pendleton’s eighth-inning double.

“On the ball Terry hit, if I’d taken the time to take one look, that could have been the difference,” Smith said. “ . . . Evidently, they all seem to think if I had picked the ball up. . . . “It happened. My mistake.”

Smith, who was running on the pitch, said he didn’t look toward the plate as Pendleton swung, but saw second baseman Chuck Knoblauch appear to field a grounder and throw to shortstop Greg Gagne.

It was all a fake--the ball was sailing toward the wall in left-center. Smith stopped after rounding second, then realized where the ball was and resumed running. But the delay forced him to stop at third.

“Evidently, what nobody realizes, I was going with the pitch on a delayed steal,” Smith said. “I got about halfway and I heard the sound of the bat. I made the mistake of not looking in when I started running. I just assumed that the ball would be hit on the ground.”

In fact, left fielder Dan Gladden and center fielder Kirby Puckett were sprinting desperately toward Pendleton’s long drive.

“Before I had a chance to look back, I saw the two infielders trying to glove something,” Smith said.

“Then I looked up and I happened to see Gladden running toward the outfield (fence), and I saw Kirby, and then I noticed the ball almost as it hit, and after I saw they weren’t going to catch it, I started running as hard as I could,” Smith told the newspaper.

“You know, if I saw the ball off the bat, there’s a good chance I could have scored. But I didn’t see it. I didn’t take that look in. That’s my mistake.”

The Braves still had runners on second and third with none out when Ron Gant hit a dribbler to first base. Smith stayed at third.

“I was told to let it go through” before breaking for home, he said. “And if it’s a high chopper, it was my own decision. Since it wasn’t a high chopper, and my momentum wasn’t going forward, and since we had two good hitters coming up there, I decided to play it safe.”

After an intentional walk to David Justice, Sid Bream hit into an inning-ending double play.

“If I was going as he’s going into the windup, if I’m going on contact right off the bat and I took off, I had a chance,” Smith said of Gant’s grounder.

“Terry (Pendleton) was surprised I didn’t go. The only reason I didn’t . . . I didn’t want to risk ending an opportunity.”