Limelight Followed Simpson, Deputies : Law enforcement: Low-key officers were cast in history’s most gripping freeway drama.

For most of their careers the routine patrol stops of Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Pool and Sgt. Jim Sewell would hardly make them players in the big time.

But Friday, for one day, the deputies were in The Game.

The low-key pair were the front line chasing former football star-turned fugitive O.J. Simpson and his friend, Al Cowlings, through a freeway thicket of cheering spectators and television cameras.

The game kicked off when Pool, 33, headed out after his shift Friday, wisecracking that he wasn’t going home until he nabbed Simpson.

Heading north on the Santa Ana Freeway, Pool’s joke wasn’t so funny. The eight-year veteran caught a glimpse of a white Bronco on the swooping on-ramp from eastbound Jamboree Road. He sped alongside, easing into the Bronco’s blind spot to check out the occupants.

“Cowlings turned around and looked at me and smiled nervously,” Pool said. “Then he turned right back around and continued driving. At that point, through the window tinting, it looked like Simpson.”

Pool radioed to check the plate. It was a match. “I said, ‘10-4 I’m behind it,’ ” Pool said. “There was this really pregnant pause and all air traffic on the radio stopped.”

As they headed north, Sewell, 40, joined the chase at 4th Street in Santa Ana. The pursuit turned tense when traffic stopped the Bronco at Grand Avenue.

The deputies got out of their cars, drew their guns and ordered Cowlings to turn off his engine.

“Cowlings started screaming and swearing no and pounding both his fists on the driver’s side door so violently he’s actually shaking the whole car,” Pool said.

Cowlings shouted at the deputies to put their guns down, that Simpson was in the back of the car with a gun to his head, Pool said.

Then, with traffic clear in front, Cowlings took off down the freeway, launching a chase that would last 80 minutes, cross three freeways and reach speeds of 70 m.p.h.

Behind him, a wedge of Orange County’s finest fanned out, first Pool and Sewell and two other Orange County sheriff’s cars, then three Santa Ana police cars, then an assortment of local agencies, which peeled off when their jurisdictions ended.

Once they hit the Los Angeles County line, the pursuit turned into an obstacle course with pedestrians crowding onto the freeway and cars filled with gawkers joining the chase, Pool said. The police cars had to merge into single file at some points to avoid pedestrians.

“There were portions of the highway where it looked like a concert had let out on the highway,” Pool said. “They were really agitating Cowlings. Motorists would come up alongside him and would come really close and give him the thumbs up and he would violently swerve his vehicle at them.”

“Here we were, following a truck with an armed murder suspect,” Sewell said, “and they were waving and honking and holding up signs.”

When they hit Sunset Boulevard, both deputies knew they were headed for Simpson’s home. The chase ended in his Brentwood driveway when the Los Angeles police SWAT team let them know it was their ballgame now.

During the chase, both deputies said, they tried to keep their minds off the fact that they were chasing one of the most famous football heroes.

“My mind was on everything that I had to take care of,” Sewell said. “But in the back of my mind I’m thinking, ‘This is O.J. Simpson and I am not going to lose him.’ ”