Leiter Sees Bright Side Again With the Giants : Dodgers: San Francisco pitcher who lost infant son to fatal disease is finding renewal in baseball. L.A. loses, 3-1.

Mark Leiter stood in front of his locker Sunday afternoon with a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth, a cup of beer in his hand and a request for the TV cameramen.

“Hold on, I don’t want kids to see this,” Leiter said, pausing before spitting out the tobacco wad. “Look at me, a beer and a dip. Kids shouldn’t see this.”

Leiter laughed, rinsed out his mouth, then smiled for the array of TV cameras and microphones poised in front of his locker.

He often wondered if he would ever enjoy life again, but after the San Francisco Giants’ 3-1 victory over the Dodgers, he was asked if he has ever had a more wonderful time in baseball.

“Maybe in Little League,” said Leiter, who pitched a five-hit complete game, striking out 10. “If you’re just talking about baseball, I’ve never been happier.”

Leiter not only left the Dodgers (48-45) with their third loss in the last four days, keeping L.A. 3 1/2 games behind the first-place Colorado Rockies, but provided Giant Manager Dusty Baker with his 200th career victory.

“It’s special to get No. 200 against L.A.,” said Baker, who played eight years for the Dodgers. “It’s not a large number. But three years ago, I didn’t even have a number.”

Yet, as Baker will tell you, this day belonged to Leiter, one of the truly good guys in baseball.

In fact, while Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda was lamenting the Dodgers’ latest loss--giving up two runs on a balk and a botched double play and scoring only five runs the last three games--he was reminded of Leiter’s identity.

“Oh, that’s the guy,” Lasorda said, suddenly sounding upbeat. “I remember him. Oh, that’s great for him.

“You know something, he was almost a Dodger. We were going to sign him last spring. In fact, we were waiting for him to show up but he never showed.

“He’s got to be something to go through what he did.”

Leiter’s son, 9-month-old Ryan, was dying of muscular atrophy--a children’s form of Lou Gehrig’s disease--when he was released last spring by the Detroit Tigers. The Dodgers decided they would sign him. They telephoned Leiter’s agent and wanted him in camp.

The Dodgers’ only request was that they first wanted to see Leiter. It had nothing to do with pitching. They wanted to check out his emotional state.

The Angels also called. They didn’t ask a single question about Leiter’s psyche.

Leiter became an Angel.

He was in Minneapolis on opening day, April 4, 1994, when he got an urgent phone call in the Metrodome. It was his wife, Allison. Ryan had died.

Leiter, who pitched five days later, spent the year with the Angels, and was invited back for this season. He was going to return, but the Giants called. They were offering him a job as a possible starter.

Leiter signed a minor-league contract April 7 with the Giants, and four months later, has emerged as the staff ace. Leiter (7-6), the only pitcher on the staff not to miss a start, has now won four consecutive games with a 1.70 earned-run average in his last six starts.

If not for shortstop Jose Offerman’s solo homer in the fifth inning, Leiter would have had his second shutout.

“Can you believe it,” Leiter said, “of all guys to hit a homer off me, it was Offerman. You know how batters charge the mound. I wanted to go out there and tackle him and say, ‘What are you doing?’ ”

It didn’t matter. Leiter retired 13 of the final 15 batters after Offerman’s homer. In fact, he was so dominant that the only hits he yielded after Raul Mondesi’s two-out double in the third was Offerman’s homer and Chad Fonville’s infield single in the seventh.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Leiter said. “Everything’s worked out so great. People ask me if I wish I was back with the Angels, but I really don’t. I know they’re doing great, but I think I’d be just another middle reliever for them.

“I don’t ever want to leave here.”

Leiter, 32, whose 4-year-old son, Mark Jr., hung by his side, also was proud to show off baby pictures. Allison gave birth to their first daughter, Kaley, four months ago.

“It was a very high risk,” Leiter said, his voice lowering to almost a whisper. “The chances were one in four it would happen again. Allison and I talked about it. We decided with Ryan that would be it.

“But we also decided we didn’t want to regret that decision down the road. We thought long and hard about it, and prayed that everything would be OK.

“Look at her, isn’t she beautiful? Besides, it’s great Kaley’s a girl. If she was a boy, I wouldn’t want to spend the next several years comparing him to what Ryan would have been doing.

“But I’ll never put Ryan behind me. I think about Ryan every day of my life.”