The Hills Are Alive and So’s the Mound

I wonder if Julie Andrews watches baseball on television. Fair is fair. Denny Neagle watches her. Every time “The Sound of Music” is on TV, the Neagle family drops whatever it is doing to watch the Von Trapp family, unless Denny has a ball game to pitch. He feels so sorry for Maria and those poor Von Trapps: “Hey, I wouldn’t put up with that Nazi crap.”

Neagle won a game here Saturday, easy as do-re-mi. He is a knucklehead pitcher for the Atlanta Braves--not to be confused with a knuckleball pitcher--and a film nut who is available to work with Siskel, any time he dumps Ebert.

“My wife and I, we went to our usual movie today,” Neagle volunteered, after an award-worthy performance in a 4-0 victory. “We saw ‘U-Turn,’ with Sean Penn Definitely two thumbs-down. A really weird movie. We got up and left early.”

Most of the Florida Marlins, who wouldn’t know Maria Von Trapp from Andy Van Slyke, wish that Neagle would have left Game 4 of this series early. Unfortunately for them, Neagle stuck around for all nine innings, pitching the first complete game in a National League championship series since 1992, when a Pittsburgh Pirate teammate of his (Tim Wakefield) did it to his current teammates (the Braves).

Only four Marlins got hits.

No one reached third base.

One got to second base.

A practical joker of the first order--never, never, never borrow a fountain pen or a cigarette lighter from Neagle, or you’ll regret it--this left-handed screwball was all business Saturday, never once playing the fool on the hill.

“On the day I pitch, I get serious,” he says.

Which is lucky, because:

“The rest of the time, I’m goofy.”

A lot of people think he is Dizzy. We have here a pitcher who exits and enters a room, doing an impersonation of a train’s whistle. He goes, “Wooo-OOOOOO!”--often hitting a decibel level so shrill, an Emergency Broadcast Network could be letting you know that a nuclear attack has been launched. The nutty pitcher of old, Dizzy Dean, liked to warble “The Wabash Cannonball” in a horrible voice, for anyone who would listen. Trust me. This is worse.

Atlanta’s manager, Bobby Cox, was answering a question about Neagle after the game Saturday, when he heard it:

“Wooo-OOOOOO!”

Cox shook his head.

“Well, I guess here comes Denny,” he said.

Neagle, 29, had not done much pitching of late. He hadn’t started a game since Sept. 28. Having been a 20-game winner during the season--no other National League pitcher could make that claim--it seemed odd that Neagle would have to sit twiddling his thumbs--or using them to review movies--for so long.

He did pitch a few innings of comic relief in Game 1, a few days ago at Atlanta, after which Neagle said: “I almost got lost on my way to the mound.”

The only thing lost in Game 4 was the home team’s cause. A record Marlin crowd of 54,890 sat restlessly and left early, much like Neagle at an Oliver Stone film. The loudspeakers were alive, with the sound of music. Florida’s fans, and bats, were quiet.

I am trying to remember a Florida hitter hitting the ball hard. I do, but am pretty sure it was in some Marlin-Dodger game. Neagle was masterful. He looked as serious as Penn being shot by paparazzi. The difference between Denny on off-days and Denny on work days is like day and night.

“I call him ‘The Transformer,’ ” said Atlanta’s first baseman, Fred McGriff, “because on days he’s not pitching, he messes around and does things like the train.

“On days he’s pitching, you can’t even talk to him.”

Neagle can drive guys nuts. He bursts into the clubhouse suddenly, imitating Kramer from the “Seinfeld” TV show. Or he contorts his face, like Jim Carrey from an “Ace Ventura” movie. He quotes dialogue from dumb movies and dumber movies, the way scholars quote Shakespeare.

Pitcher Tom Glavine, a lefty himself, says, “People have a stereotype of the flaky left-hander. I’d say Denny fits that pretty well.”

I can vouch for this, Neagle being the first pitcher I have ever seen, after a big game, being asked to name his favorite Von Trapp.

“Lisl,” he said. “The oldest one.”

Another critical baseball question, answered.