Goat or Not, Nixon Shows He Is Winner

By common consent and newspaper lore, every World Series has a hero and a goat.

The tradition probably started in the 1912 World Series, when an otherwise sure-handed New York Giant outfielder named Fred Snodgrass dropped an easy fly in the 10th inning of the final game, giving the Boston Red Sox the title. The use of the word goat as the opposite of hero is believed to have derived from that incident.

Last year, it was the consensus in the press box that the World Series’ principal gaffe was a base-running lapse by Atlanta’s Lonnie Smith, who hesitated on the basepaths and failed to score because he was decoyed by enemy infielders into thinking a two-base-hit had been caught. His run might have won the game and the Series. There was a scoreless tie at the time, and it was not broken until the 10th inning.

Lonnie Smith did not take the public obloquy in stride. When he starred in this year’s World Series--with a grand slam--he upbraided the press for visiting the goat’s horns on him last year and suggested the criticism had been forthcoming “because I’m a black man.”

Considering that there has been a long line of anti-heroes in the World Series who were non-blacks, it’s hard to credit Lonnie’s bitter assessment. No one ever spent a longer winter than the New York Giant third baseman, Heinie Zimmerman, who chased the winning run across the plate in the 1917 World Series when a throw would have caught the runner, Eddie Collins, in the rundown.

When the mighty Ted Williams bats only .200 in his only World Series, or the great Hank Greenberg hits only .167--or when Johnny Pesky holds a relay from the outfield while Enos Slaughter runs the winning run home all the way from first on a single--the game finds the goat’s horns are indifferent to color and reputation. Ineptitude in a crisis is the key to admission to this forlorn fraternity, not race or color.

Still, I hope--though I fear differently--that this year’s horns will not be cut to fit another unfortunate black player--Otis Nixon.

Nixon is farther in front than Clinton at the moment, however.

Nixon had an adequate World Series. He batted .286, not far off his season average and far higher than his lifetime’s, .257. He ignited the rally that won Game 5 for the Braves. He was a flawless leadoff man and stole five bases.

Then the perverse baseball fates, those dealers in what Aristotle called “undeserved misfortune,” stepped in. They put Nixon at bat with the tying run of the World Series 90 feet away in the 11th inning. Two innings before, he had knocked in the tying run--and almost the winning run behind it when the left fielder, Candy Maldonado, uncorked a throw that went halfway up the backstop.

But this time, Nixon hit upon a piece of strategy that will keep the hot stove leagues hissing all winter. He bunted.

Now, a bunt generally is a play in which you give up an out for a base--or a run. It’s not your basic two-out play. It is a low-percentage, go-for-the-miracle shot.

Nixon’s was a perfect squeeze play. It brought the run in, all right. Only trouble is, there were two out. Nixon was an easy out at first. The World Series was over. It had ended on an ill-advised stratagem.

An out is an out, but a leaping catch would have left the fans with a more satisfied feeling. This smacked of quitting in your corner.

Now, the question becomes--did Nixon realize that there were two out? Did he feel overmatched by the pitcher? Well, the pitcher was a guy named Timlin who had given up 45 hits in 43 innings of relief this year. Not your basic Rollie Fingers.

So, Nixon rolled the dice. And sevened out.

It was, to say the least, an unusual tactic to end a World Series on. The fastest baserunner takes 3.5 seconds to get down to first base. A baseball travels 90 m.p.h. And pitcher Timlin had about a 40-foot throw.

Still, a lot of us can hope Nixon does not have to spend the winter in horns. This is because Otis Nixon missed this World Series last year. He was in the grip of cocaine addiction.

A few of us were questioning Otis on the eve of Game 6 in an interview room under the stands.

“How did it feel to be watching this thing on TV last year, knowing you were no part of it?” we wanted to know.

Nixon didn’t even wince.

“I was in the grip of a terrible disease,” he said. “I had to try to cure it and this was part of the cure, not to be in the World Series. But no one, not the fans, not the media, not the owners or players, can know the wonderful feeling it gives me to be playing in here this year.”

Nixon started this baseball season still under suspension. He was first caught for cocaine possession in 1987. He had consented to weekly testing but somehow concealed his drug use until September, 1991, when he tested positive and was hit with a 60-day suspension which barred him from the Braves’ World Series.

Instead of railing against the league, the commissioner, the government or whoever else played a part in his detection and suspension, Nixon rejoiced.

“It was the best thing that could have happened to me,” he said. “I got another chance because of it. I made up my mind I should be grateful, not resentful.”

Nixon was nobody’s candidate for the horns this year. A quiet, dignified man with the face of a very old Indian, Nixon went about his business in the Series uncomplaining and obliging, quite willing to talk about his rehabilitation if it meant giving hope to others.

Nixon does not cry “Politics!” or question why a white pitcher like Steve Howe is still continuing to battle the baseball establishment. In the mind of Otis Nixon, baseball did him the greatest favor it could have done. He was able to win something a lot bigger than a World Series.

So, we know that, even if he gets the goat horns, Nixon can handle it.

And, hey! Timlin might have hurried that throw and hurled the ball into right field. Then, Otis would have been a genius.

Even so, it would only have been the second-greatest victory of his baseball career and not a patch on his first.