Crowin’, Flowin’, Throwin’ and Mowin’ ‘em Down : Chuck Finley is the Blood, Guts and Soul of the Angels. The Challenge Facing This 33-Year-Old Patriarch is to Lead His Team to the Promised Land.

Chuck Finley squints through the rippling heat waves outside Tempe Diablo Stadium, the Arizona complex where the California Angels train in the spring, and sees the vision of a young player throwing pitches.

He sees himself.

“When I first came up to the big leagues, my mechanics were so bad I looked like two pigs rasslin’ in the mud when I pitched,” Finley says. “Everythin’ goin’ every which way. I’m tellin’ you, man, I was all whacked out.

“That first spring, they took me out every morning 30 minutes early, workin’ on mechanics and throwin’ curveball after curveball. I appreciated all the big-league coachin’ but kept wonderin’ why they were havin’ me throw all these curveballs when I could throw the ball 94, 95 miles an hour?”

A decade later, Finley and his accountants have stopped wondering. After 10 years of work, the fastballs, the forkballs--even the curveballs--could be worth more than $18 million over the next four years under a contract he signed with the Angels Jan. 4.

Chuck Finley is only 33, but he is “Mr. Angel” to General Manager Bill Bavasi, “the blood and guts of this team” to shortstop Gary DiSarcina, and a two-time All-Star who’s one of the most dependable and dominating left-handers in the game. Finley is the Angels’ sole survivor from the team that suffered the worst day in Angel history: Oct. 12, 1986. That was the day that the Angels, leading the American League Championship Series three games to one, were one strike away from the World Series when Boston’s Dave Henderson homered off reliever Donnie Moore, setting the stage for three straight Red Sox victories and the end of California’s pennant hopes. And the big left-hander is one source of comfort for the ’96 Angels, who go into this season after blowing an 11-game lead last year and losing a one-game division championship playoff in the Seattle Kingdome.

Finley struck a positive note in explaining 1995. “We didn’t go through a bad spell all year, then we went into a funk at the end. We lost the 11-game lead, but we put ourselves in that position [the one-game playoff] by winning five straight, so I don’t think there are any lingering negative effects. If we would’ve gone out weakly, that would have been detrimental.”

Angel pitcher Jim Abbott, who roomed with Finley during Abbott’s rookie season, says, “I’ll always think of Chuck in terms of that game last season in the Kingdome when we were three back with five to play. He hadn’t been pitching well, but he sucked it up, shut out that incredible noise and then shut down the hottest team in baseball on three hits. Then in the last game against Oakland, to force a playoff, he comes through and is awesome on three days rest.

“Even when he’s not dominating, he keeps battling and grinding. To me, he’s the most underrated player in baseball.”

Finley’s pitching motion no longer resembles sow mud wrestling. He’s a regular smooth operator these days. But some things about him refuse to be refined.

He owns a 6-year-old Mercedes-Benz but never drives it, choosing instead to bounce through life in a four-wheel-drive Chevy Suburban with mud splatters streaking out from its all-terrain tires. He bought it in 1995 after eight years at the wheel of the same pickup he drove when he was in the minors. “I just want somethin’ that stays runnin’ at red lights,” he says.

His idea of a “classic” automobile? “I saw one of these convertible Bentleys in Newport and said, ‘That’s a pretty car; bet it costs $100,000.’ The sticker said $365,000. I said, ‘What kind of fool would spend that kind of money on a car?’ The next day, I picked up the paper and read where [Philadelphia outfielder] Lenny Dykstra just bought one, and I said, ‘Well, there you go.’ ”

Angel returnee Willie Fraser, a rookie pitcher with Finley in 1986 and the next-to-last player in the Angel’s Tempe clubhouse on this overcast afternoon, leaves laughing. But Finley has nowhere to go. “I have no life,” he says. “The girls went home to Newport.”

Finley has been with actress Tawny Kitaen, the mother of his 3-year-old daughter, Wynter, for six years, and by all accounts he’s a devoted father and mate, on and off the road. Kitaen, who most recently starred on NBC’s revival of “WKRP in Cincinnati” and ABC’s “America’s Funniest People,” met Finley when a friend who knew former Angel Brian Downing’s wife set them up after a game.

“I didn’t even notice it until Cheryl (Downing) pointed it out, but Chuck kept looking at me in the stands,” Kitaen says. “He had his hat on sideways, pointing toward the field, so from far away, it looked like he was watching the game. That was very cute.”

She found her blind date to be a “decent, honest man who, when he tells you something, you can count on it.” They’ve been together ever since, and she now has a large diamond ring. But there’s no wedding date. “I’m sitting here thinking why we’re not married. Well, I’ve never pushed it,” she says. “And if he asked after making me wait so long, I’d say no. Really, though, I’m hoping it will happen soon. But Chuck is such a guy’s guy. I guess he thinks getting married is for wussies.”

Finley adores the women in his life--he gave up deer hunting after watching “Bambi” with Wynter--but that doesn’t mean he has to take them on the golf course, does it?

“Tawny and I played golf once,” Finley says. “She’s a good athlete, but I’m sorry, the two worst sounds you can hear on the golf course are ‘Fore!’ and a lady’s voice. And I don’t like takin’ women huntin’ or fishin’. We used to go ‘coon huntin’ in the middle of the night, barefoot, up to our knees in water with water moccasins and crocodiles swimmin’ ‘round. Not too many women enjoy that sort of thing.”

Kitaen doesn’t even wince anymore. “I’m a very strong-willed person who thinks she can change the world, and at first it was ‘Absolutely not, this isn’t how it’s going to be.’ But I just wasn’t going to win this one. He has no problem with me playing golf--so long as it’s on another course.”

So maybe Finley hasn’t come all the way out of the woods, but he’s Mr. Savoir faire in comparison to the 23-year-old who made his first foray into the big leagues--the one who ordered room-service chicken at a New York hotel and tried to eat the paper poultry frills. “Shoot, I didn’t know it was just for decorative purposes.”

Although a 6-foot-5 country-boy baseball player with just the right amount of stubble on that square jaw can get into a heap of trouble in the big city, Finley’s bayou intuition seems to protect him from all kinds of creatures. Such as the night when, after driving home from the ballpark, he was greeted at his Newport Beach condo by a beautiful young woman wearing the mini-est of miniskirts. She wanted to know if he would invite her in for a drink “or something.”

“I said, ‘You’re very attractive, ma’am, but it’s very late and I’m tired.’ I guess I was tempted, but I had a bad feelin’.”

*

Finley stands in the deserted clubhouse, swinging a bat and describing in detail a rare chance to hit during an exhibition game. He loves the competition and camaraderie of baseball, but you can’t escape the feeling that he’d be perfectly content back in West Monroe, La., with a shovel, a rifle or a fishing pole in his hands. Finley never fantasized about being a professional baseball player. In fact, the main reason he signed with the Angels was to please his father.

Fin--that’s what his teammates call him, and it’s appropriate because he’s a monosyllabic kind of guy--always figured he would end up taking over the 200-acre family nursery in West Monroe. He’d drive the tractor and plant the trees. He’d work hard so at the end of the day he could pull on his waders and go shoot some ducks. “I didn’t even want to go to college,” he says. “I just wanted to work on the nursery, go huntin’ and fishin’ and maybe drive down to Shreveport to see a concert when the Doobie Brothers come in.

“By the time I was 10, I could drive an 18-wheeler and a bulldozer, weld, fix engines. It was on-the-job trainin’ every day,” Finley says. “I played baseball in high school and got some letters from colleges and pro teams my senior year, but I wasn’t much of anything. This career sort of just fell in my lap.”

West Monroe High School was playing a team from southern Louisiana for a berth in the state playoffs. Finley had been the team’s best pitcher all year, but the coach decided that his nephew should start instead. “Boy, was I pissed,” Finley says. “He gets shelled in the first inning; I come in and shut ‘em out for the rest of the game, strike out 12 or somethin’, and we still lose.

“That left a bad taste in my mouth for baseball.”

And that, coupled with Finley’s desire to avoid college, was a problem for Louisiana Tech University Coach Pat Patterson, who decided on an end run. He had a long talk with Charles (Big Chuck) and Sue Finley. “He got into my parents head,” the Angel left-hander says, resignation still evident in his voice, “and my dad was playin’ the old refrain: ‘This nursery business is a tough life; it ain’t all you think it’s cracked up to be. School would be good for you.’ ”

Finley played one year at Tech, but when Patterson got another job, the young pitcher feuded with the assistant left in charge, quit school and went home.

“I sat my parents down and said, ‘I ain’t goin’ to that school no more.’ My dad was so mad and disappointed, all he said was, ‘OK, you’re comin’ to work with me.’ ”

Young Chuck trimmed the six-acre front yard with a hand mower, over and over again. He did “stupid things we both knew didn’t need to be done” inside the hothouses on the hottest days of summer.

“That boy was in my doghouse,” Big Chuck says, laughing. “I done treated him just like a hired hand--no mercy whatsoever. From 7 o’clock in the morning until 8 at night, he worked.”

Young Finley figured he would hang in there and that things would soon return to normal, but he came to realize that Big Chuck had been wounded when his son left school--and baseball. “I started thinkin’ maybe I’d pulled the trigger too quick,” Finley says, “but I figured I could fix it.”

He enrolled at nearby Northeast Louisiana University and attended classes for a semester to regain his eligibility. He joined the baseball team as walk-on and eventually earned a scholarship. After an unremarkable two-year career that produced a 6-7 won-lost record, he felt a sense of accomplishment--and a sense of closure. “I figured I was max’d out as a player,” he says.

No such luck. He was left-handed, and his pitches could hit the high 80s on the radar gun. That was enough to send the pro scouts scurrying. Finley was out in the shed welding something when Sue Finley arrived, out of breath. “Momma says, ‘Some guy on the phone from the Shreveport news channel said the Angels drafted you in the first round. What’s that mean?’

“I said, ‘Hell if I know.’ ”

Turns out, it didn’t mean much. Scout Lou Snipp arrived with radar gun in tow--and after Finley bounced some fastballs off the naked shins and ribs of an obviously devoted friend in a nearby field--proclaimed that Finley didn’t throw as hard as they thought he did, and that the Angels’ best offer was “35.”

“I said, ‘Great, I’ll take it--35-thousand is a lot of money; are they going to mail it?’ That’s when he told me it was 35-hundred. I felt like I was gettin’ taken advantage of, but he said, ‘If I leave here, I ain’t comin’ back.’ ”

Big Chuck had been fishing with friends, letting the boy take care of his own business, “and we caught a lot of fish, too.” But his mood swung when he found his wife and son in the backyard swing at the point of tears.

“Chuck said: ‘Daddy, I think I done somethin’ wrong.’ It really dug into him that the money was so low. It teed me off, too,” the elder Finley says, “but I told him everythin’ would be all right.”

So Sue dragged out the Samsonite, “all of ‘em, from the one as big as a trunk to that little one you put your makeup in,” the pitcher says, smiling, and he was off on his first trip west of Dallas to attend rookie camp at Cal State Fullerton. On the way, his plane hit an air pocket, and the flight attendant dropped a meal tray of hot pork chops onto his lap. He was wearing white pants, which he tried to rescue with his club soda, but to little effect.

“I walked off the airplane, and Bill Bavasi [then director of minor league operations] was there to meet me,” he says. “I don’t know how he knew it was me. Must’ve been the pork chops.”

Finley’s career in the minor leagues was abbreviated: a total of 41 innings--29 in rookie ball at Salem, Ore., and a dozen with the Class A Quad City Angels in Davenport, Iowa. Then came a strange telephone call from then General Manager Mike Port, which was followed by the young pitcher’s call home--one that made Big Chuck “cry like a baby” and still chokes him up when he talks about it now.

“When you’re in A ball, all you think about is life in double-A,” Finley says. “It was, ‘Golly, those guys in double-A don’t have to wash their own uniforms.’ When I got that call from Mr. Port and he told me I would be joinin’ the team in New York, I kept tryin’ to figure out which minor league team was playin’ in New York. When I realized he was talkin’ about the big leagues, I said, ‘Mr. Port, are you sure you got the right guy?’ ”

Did they ever.

Finley’s fast track to the majors was paved because of two factors: former Manager Gene Mauch’s eye for raw talent and the organization’s inability to develop any good left-handers. With Mauch honing Finley’s mental approach and pitching coach Marcel Lachemann--now the Angel manager--refining his motion, Finley responded quickly.

He started 31 games in 1988, his second full season in the majors. In a three-year span from 1989 to 1991, he won 52 games and lost 27; his earned-run average was a commendable 2.57 in ’89 and 2.40 in ’90.

“He had terrible mechanics,” Mauch says, “but you could tell he was going to be something special. We all knew it was just a matter of time, and by the end of the year, he was really contributing. He pitched in three games of the playoff series against Boston.

“He was such a quiet kid around us, but by then he was one of the boys.” Somebody forgot to tell Finley that he could now speak out. He had kept his eyes open and his mouth shut ever since a $45 Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride cab journey from airport to hotel in New York City and that taste of poultry paper during his first day in the major leagues.

“I remember walkin’ into the Yankee Stadium clubhouse, and there’s all these guys I grew up watchin’: Don Sutton, Reggie Jackson, Bobby Grich, Doug DeCinces, Rick Burleson--it was just amazin’. The personalities and characters on that team; how Gene kept it all together I’ll never know.

“One day in Chicago, right after I came up, [pitchers] Doug Corbett and John Candelaria had this confrontation. Doug thought Candy was pickin’ on him, and he had had enough. So he walks into the outfield durin’ battin’ practice and they both start throwin’ haymakers. I’m standin’ 10 feet away thinkin’: ‘Gee, a couple of weeks ago I was in Waterloo, pitchin’ in front of 600 people, and there’s three or four thousand here to watch battin’ practice and they’re gettin’ Saturday Night at the Fights.’ ”

Finley the rookie made the mistake of offering an opinion once, only to be sharply rebuked by Reggie Jackson. “Rookies are to be seen and not heard, kid,” Mr. October snarled. But Finley himself would never say anything along the lines of what Jackson said. He treats the guy who serves lunch in the clubhouse with the same respect he accords 88-year-old team owner Gene Autry. But he does feel a responsibility to pass on traditions of the game.

Three years ago, a couple of rookies beat Finley and veteran pitcher Scott Sanderson in golf, winning a “clubhouse service,” which meant that the loser had to do whatever the winner asked of him for one full day. The rookies had enough sense to ask for nothing, until another rookie pitcher, Mark Holzemer, got involved.

“I kept daring my buddy to have Fin get him coffee and stuff,” Holzemer says. “Then Fin found out I was the one behind it.

“The next day, while I’m pitching, Fin goes out and gets his jack, takes off all my tires, leaves my car up on blocks and stacks the tires in front of my locker with a ‘For Sale’ sign on them. I learned my lesson about rookies who pop off.”

*

Angel infielder Rex Hudler, in speaking of Finley, recalls a moment that depicts “the thing I admire most: his competitiveness and the way he confronts problems.

“Last year, I was stretching and saw him over behind the [batting] cage talking to [White Sox shortstop] Ozzie Guillen, and it’s very unusual to see him talking to an opponent, especially a hitter. Well, the night before, after he gave up a grand slam, Guillen had called him a ‘loser.’ Guillen’s manager, Terry Bevington, is standing right there and Fin says, ‘I just wanted to give you the opportunity to say that to my face.’ Guillen denied he’d said anything at all.

“I was like, ‘Wow, check you out. You are beautiful.’ Hey, it’s a privilege to play with the man.”

Finley has won 15 or more games in five of the last seven seasons, led the American League with 13 complete games in 1993 and in innings pitched (183 1/3) and starts (25) in the strike-shortened 1994 season. Last year, he was 15-12 in 32 starts, pitched 203 innings and was among the league leaders in strikeouts with 195.

Teammates aren’t the only ones who understand Finley’s full value. General Manager Bill Bavasi found himself in an ugly spot this winter, when the Walt Disney Co. was negotiating to buy part of the club from the Autrys. Getting an ownership decision on anything was difficult, especially an expenditure of $18 million. Finley, who automatically became a free agent when his contract expired after the 1995 season, was free to deal with any club in baseball. There were lucrative offers on his table, some of which were falling off as clubs spent their money elsewhere.

“Not signing him would have had a very demoralizing effect in the clubhouse,” Bavasi says. “There was a lot of bad in the way we finished last year, but there was good in the way we fought back and forced the playoff. I think there was a very positive approach to the off-season among the players, but it could have eroded if we didn’t sign him.

“He could have gotten more money elsewhere. I know that because he told me and I believe him, and he certainly could have saved the aggravation and signed earlier.”

But Finley waited. The Angel front office squirmed. Jackie Autry, who was calling the shots, telephones to say how much the team wanted him. His agents sweated. Finley waited some more.

“Deals were passin’ me by, and we were comin’ down to the wire. But waitin’ ain’t so hard if you’re committed to what you’re doin’, if you know in your heart it’s right.” The contract was finally signed three days before the Jan. 8 deadline that would have barred the team from negotiating with him until May 1, after the season had already begun.

“It ain’t all about money,” Finley insists. “Even when I signed my first big contract, I never jumped up and down and went out and bought myself this or that.” Which may be why he has politely closed the door on endorsement offers, choosing privacy over another deposit at the bank. “It’s all worked out exactly how I would’ve wanted it to,” he says. “Maybe I could’ve been a household name in Southern California if I went after somethin’ like that. But I enjoy my privacy. Anyway, I’d rather have my teammates say I’m a good guy than have a million people who don’t know me say, ‘He must be a nice guy ‘cause he’s funny on television.’ ”

Finley stretches out in the director’s chair in front of his locker and surveys the empty clubhouse like a man admiring the shore of his own lake from a bass boat. He smiles in the direction of three clubhouse boys collecting dirty uniforms.

“This is about being comfortable somewhere. This is about Jimmy and Bubba and Kenny there, all of us working together. We all have a job to do, and just ‘cause one guy does his in front of the cameras doesn’t mean it’s more important to the organization. That’s why I wanted to stay here, to be around people I enjoy, people I can trust.

“Anyway, I’m too tired to learn all them new faces and names.”

Every kid in America has heard of O.J. Simpson and Mike Tyson and Deion Sanders. Too bad they don’t all know Chuck Finley.

“There are no heroes in sports these days because nobody in the media is hunting heroes,” says Bill Bavasi. “Maybe that’s good. Maybe my kids will study hard instead of aspiring to be pro athletes. But the fact is, the biggest stories are always negative now.

“So consider yourself very fortunate. You’ve got the rare chance to do a feel-good story. With this guy, there’s no other choice.”