BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN : WORLD SERIES : ATLANTA BRAVES vs. CLEVELAND INDIANS : Orel Pitches for the Good of Cleveland

It wasn’t only that the Cleveland Indians were facing World Series elimination.

It was that his uncharacteristic decision to remove himself from Game 1 may have contributed to their tenuous situation.

“It was the first time I’ve been involved in anything controversial in the World Series and maybe in my career,” Orel Hershiser said, “and it was important for me to go back out there and show the intensity and leadership I was brought here to show and not look like someone who walked off without the good of the team in mind.

“I thought that what I was doing [in Game 1] was in the best interest of the team, but maybe I should have been more of the bulldog.

“Maybe I should have been less of a manager and more of a player. Maybe I should have said, ‘I’m in here until they take me out.’

“That was how I went about it tonight.”

The bulldog rose to the occasion again in Game 5 Thursday night.

Leaning on advice from Sandy Koufax to refine the mechanics that deserted him in the seventh inning of the 3-2 loss in Game 1, Hershiser and the Indians bested Greg Maddux and the Braves, 5-4, to send the Series back to Atlanta.

Jose Mesa yielded a two-run homer to Ryan Klesko in the ninth to make it close, but Hershiser dominated for eight innings.

He gave up only five hits and a walk, struck out six and permitted only two runs, one earned.

“He’s absolutely the best I’ve ever seen at focusing in on what he has to do,” Cleveland Manager Mike Hargrove said.

The Indians now trail, 3-2, in the best-of-seven Series, and Hershiser’s focus is illustrated by the following:

He has a career record of 8-1 with a 1.64 earned-run average in the postseason; he has a career World Series record of 3-1, and he is 4-1 with a 1.54 ERA in the current postseason, tying 1) a record shared by Dave Stewart and Jack Morris for the most victories in one postseason and 2) a record shared by Tom Seaver and Bob Gibson for the most strikeouts (35) in one postseason.

Hershiser, of course, has had an extra series to work with, but at 37, five years after reconstructive shoulder surgery, who’s counting?

His spectacular series of October performances is a page out of 1988, or as Jim Thome, Thursday night’s hitting hero, said:

“I told Orel in midseason that he’s the guy I wanted on the mound in a big game.”

Hershiser misplaced some of the perspective of who he is and what he has done in that seventh inning of Game 1.

He walked Fred McGriff and David Justice to open the inning and bring pitching coach Mark Wiley to the mound.

Hershiser recommended a change, saying he had lost his release point, couldn’t relocate it and didn’t want to leave a high pitch in Ryan Klesko’s wheelhouse. He tried to say it was a joint decision but it was really his.

The score was tied when he left, but the Braves went on to score two runs in the inning and won by one behind Maddux’s two-hitter.

Since then, as Hershiser noted Thursday night, there have been manuscripts written about the incident, and the irony is that it took only a few minutes of throwing on the side a day or two later to make the adjustment that eluded him on the mound that night.

“Maybe I wasn’t feeling real confident at that point or was feeling the weight of the game, but I blanked on my mechanics,” he said.

“I forgot what Sandy Koufax had told me many times about standing taller when you want to throw lower. I kept getting lower in my delivery and the ball kept going higher.”

Hershiser stood taller and prouder Thursday night, literally going face to face with Maddux.

When the latter knocked Eddie Murray off the plate in the first inning and both benches emptied, Hershiser intentionally came out to speak to Maddux.

“I asked him if he was throwing at Murray and he said he was just trying to jam him,” Hershiser said.

“I said to him, ‘Well, if you want to throw inside you don’t have to get it so close because you’re better than that,’ and I also said, ‘I get the ball too.’

“It was kind of an unbelievable and weird scene, talking to the opposing pitcher during the game, and we kind of exchanged respectful glances.

“He’s a legend and maybe the best pitcher of the century, and I don’t think he meant to throw at Eddie. Nor was it my job to come back with any payback. There were more important things at stake.”

Hershiser said he knew he would “have to climb a mountain” to beat Maddux.

He slipped momentarily on the way up, making a throwing error and fielding bobble in the fifth that allowed Atlanta to score an unearned and tying run, but he came back in the eighth to catch a Marquis Grissom line drive at his chest and double a runner off first. As Hershiser said: “It was strictly self-defense. Thank God I remembered to throw to first.”

The Indians had many reasons for thanks after Hershiser’s 20th and most important victory of the season.