Nixon Feels Disappointment, but He Does Not Feel Defeat

To Otis Nixon, it was better to have played and lost than not to have played at all. No man on either team had a greater appreciation for the privilege of participating in the 1992 World Series than the Atlanta Braves’ outfielder. If the fate of his team was going to rest on any individual’s shoulders, he welcomed the responsibility.

That he couldn’t bring the Braves from behind a second time, that he couldn’t send the sixth game of the 89th Fall Classic careening toward dawn Sunday, was a disappointment. It was not a defeat. He understood the difference.

“I don’t have any bad feelings,” he said after the Toronto Blue Jays edged the Braves, 4-3, in 11 innings and claimed the World Series for Canada. “I can live with the way this ended. It’s a lot better than last year (for me).”

The final play of the 1992 baseball season was a drag bunt by Nixon with two outs and the potential tying run on third base. Mike Timlin, the seventh Toronto pitcher, fielded the ball cleanly and threw him out. “If I got the bunt down where I wanted it,” the man said, “it’s a tie game and we’re still playing.”

It so happened the Braves still were alive in the 11th only because Nixon singled across their second run with two outs, two on and the count at 0-and-2 in the ninth. It was a moment that will live with him forever, even if he was unable to duplicate within the hour. Only last October, when Atlanta lost the Series in equally painful fashion to the Twins, he was helpless to do anything about it.

He was in a rehab center, trying to save his life after testing positive a second time for drug use. The program called for a 30-day treatment. He extended it to 90 to give him added strength for the ordeal ahead. That’s why he said again and again that this World Series “probably means more to me than anybody else out there on the field.”

Nixon played well in the Series, just as he had during the regular season. He scored eight of the Braves’ 20 runs. He was caught stealing only once in six attempts, the exception occurring in the seventh inning on Saturday night with his team trailing, 2-1. And he certainly atoned for that setback in a memorable ninth inning.

Jeff Blauser greeted relief ace Tom Henke with a leadoff single and reached second on a sacrifice by Damon Berryhill. Pinch hitter Lonnie Smith battled Henke for a walk and then pinch hitter Francisco Cabrera, the hero of Atlanta’s remarkable ninth-inning comeback in the seventh game of the National League playoffs, lashed a line drive that Candy Maldonado speared for the second out. And so it fell to Nixon, whose drug lapse 13 months ago was perceived as a sign of weakness, to preserve the season.

Henke got two strikes on Nixon before the 33-year-old center fielder slapped a single into left field, scoring Blauser. “I wasn’t ready for it to end,” the man said.

The Blue Jays, a resourceful bunch themselves, broke the tie in the 11th as Dave Winfield collected his first extra-base hit in 12 World Series games at a most opportune moment, doubling in two runs. Nixon had to smile at that. The two were teammates briefly on the Yankees when Nixon, a base-stealing legend in the minors but an unschooled hitter, was called to New York late in the 1983 season.

“Dave took me under his wing, so to speak,” Nixon recalled. “I’ve got a foundation now and he’s helping me with mine, based on his foundation. I look up to that man.”

As has happened to so many other prospects in the New York Yankee system, Nixon was traded before he was ready for the final step. On Feb. 5, 1984, he was packaged with George Frazier and sent to Cleveland for Toby Harrah, a veteran whose major distinction was that his last name is a palindrome. Nixon bounced from Cleveland to Montreal to Atlanta, where he has developed into an offensive weapon as well as a skilled outfielder.

Many obstacles have blocked his path, however, most notably the drug dependency that cost the man his first chance at a World Series a year ago. “I’m very happy to have the opportunity to be here,” he said, “to be part of this. I don’t have to look back on (last year) anymore. I hope I get a chance to be in two or three more World Series, but if I don’t, this was a great experience.”

Indeed, it almost was a winning experience. The Braves retaliated in their half of the 11th, with the help of an error by backup shortstop Alfredo Griffin. Once again, there were two outs when Nixon stepped to the plate with Atlanta trailing by a run.

Timlin had replaced Jimmy Key, whom Nixon had hit well in Toronto. “I felt good about having a second chance (to tie the game),” Nixon said. “I thought I was going to get another big hit. I wanted to be up there. I wanted to be the guy to do something about it again.”

On the first pitch, Nixon saw second baseman Roberto Alomar playing deep and knew he could beat out a bunt. “That’s a big part of my game,” he said. But the pitch darted in on Nixon and he couldn’t get it past the pitcher. The season was over.

He thought about Winfield and something the older man had told him as they crossed paths in Game 1. “He said, ‘You’ve come a long way, young man,’ ” Nixon recalled. “I felt good about that.”

Good about Winfield’s acknowledgment of Nixon’s personal victory. “And about the young part, too,” Nixon said, smiling.