Palmeiro Strikes Big Blow to Gaining Some Respect

The first baseman of the Baltimore Orioles plays in the American League shadow of Mo Vaughn, Frank Thomas and Mark McGwire.

Unappreciated and unrecognized almost. Something of an unknown soldier.

The October spotlight may now change that. A nation may discover what the Orioles already know about Rafael Palmeiro.

“Great [batting] average hitter, great clutch hitter, great clutch hitter for power,” Cal Ripken Jr. said.

“I can’t understand why he doesn’t get more recognition, but he’s very much appreciated on this team. He’s our man.”

He certainly was Thursday, hammering a two-run homer on a 3-and-1 pitch from Jeff Nelson to break a 2-2 tie in the seventh inning and propel the Orioles to a 5-3 victory over the New York Yankees, tying the American League championship series at a game apiece.

If 12-year-old Jeffrey Maier hadn’t stolen Game 1, the Orioles would be leading 2-0 with ace Mike Mussina pitching in Camden Yards tonight.

“Maybes don’t matter,” said Todd Zeile, who also hit a two-run homer Thursday. “The talk in here wasn’t so much of how we got screwed, but more that it was a fact, that it happened, that we had to go out and do something about it.”

The Orioles do it with the long ball. They can start nine players who hit 20 or more homers. They hit a major league record 257 during the regular season, then nine more in the four-game division series victory over the Cleveland Indians.

“Top to bottom they can knock your brains out,” Yankee Manager Joe Torre said.

“That’s what we do,” Oriole Manager Davey Johnson said. “Everybody can hit it out of the park. Make a mistake and we’ll make you pay.

“I mean, we don’t do a lot of bunting, stealing and hitting behind the runner. We hit the ball out of the park.”

They have done it four times in two games against the Yankees, twice by Palmeiro, who has reached base seven times in his 10 plate appearances.

His towering, tie-breaking homer in the cold, gray twilight Thursday was hit where no adolescent skipping school could interfere with it.

The ball landed in what used to be the Yankee bullpen in right center.

Torre wasn’t happy that Nelson put a 3-and-1 pitch where Palmeiro could reach it. Did he consider walking him with first base open and Roberto Alomar on second?

“Nelson considered walking him too,” Torre said. “He wanted to get the ball outside, but for some reason got it over the plate. He was trying to throw something that he would swing at that wasn’t a strike. Once he hit it I was wishing we had walked him intentionally, sure.”

Palmeiro has hit 39 homers in each of the last two years. He drove in a career-high 142 runs this year but didn’t even make the All-Star team.

He has hit 101 homers, driven in 322 runs and batted .304 in three years with the Orioles--two of them strike-shortened. He had signed as a free-agent with Baltimore after a bitter departure from the Rangers.

Palmeiro wanted to test the market, but the Rangers said they couldn’t wait and immediately signed Will Clark to a five-year, $30-million contract. Palmeiro suspected they wanted Clark all along, which hurt considering his quality production, particularly in 1993, when he hit 37 homers and drove in 105 runs.

Palmeiro ultimately signed a five-year, $30-million contract with the Orioles, thriving in Baltimore while Clark has generally been regarded as a bust in Texas.

“That’s all forgotten,” Palmeiro said of a departure laced with stormy rhetoric. “I’m thankful for the opportunity I have here.

“I send thanks to [Texas president] Tom Schiffer every chance I get.”

And has he received proper respect, recognition and appreciation?

“Well, if I haven’t, where does that recognition come from?” he asked a reporter, alone at his locker.

The answer in Palmeiro’s mind seemed to be that he feels overlooked by the media, but he added: “I think the players give me respect and I’m thankful for the opportunity to play with a team of this caliber and make the best of it. If I keep doing what I’m doing, people will recognize it.”

He had been asked a similar question in the crowded interview room earlier and said his sense of feeling unappreciated had waned in the last couple years, that he has received his share of publicity with the Orioles.

“There’s a lot of great players in this game and a lot of great players who play first base in the American League,” he said. “My name gets mentioned in that category sometimes, so I can’t complain too much.”

The Orioles return to Camden Yards, where their long-ball thunder comes with even greater frequency. Palmeiro said he is happy to be out of Yankee Stadium--”the toughest place to play”--and hopes Oriole fans were watching and listening, and are prepared to treat the Yankees with a similar degree of disrespect.