Alomar a One-Man Show

Back in ancient times, Babe Ruth or Joe DiMaggio probably had an October when no fan in America could believe, day after day, the things he’d already done and, against all odds, kept right on doing. What Sandy Alomar is achieving can’t be unique.

Then again, maybe it is.

In the age of legends, when all the home runs landed on rooftops, the limit of baseball possibility was one pennant race and a World Series. Even heroes need opportunities to spread themselves.

Now, it’s conceivable that, in one season, a man could win the All-Star Game with a homer in his home park, and also get the game-winning hit to clinch the division title. After that, he could hit a season-saving home run in the first round of the playoffs and, to buff the resume, get a sudden-death, game-winning hit in the League Championship Series.

To top it off, he’d have to bat over .400 with 10 RBI in the first five games of the World Series--with perhaps more to come. Obviously, nobody could ever do all that in one year. Except Alomar already has. The 6-foot-5 catcher’s accomplishment already is statistically unique. Nobody else has ever had 19 RBI in one post-season.

With two out and one on in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 5 on Thursday, Alomar knew what he had to do to save his Indians. He already had a three-run home run and an RBI single. Now, he had to hit another home run to turn an 8-7 defeat into a sudden-death win.

How much can one man do? The previous night, in the snow, he had two singles, a double and three RBI. The night before that, in a game that felt even colder, he had two walks, two hits and three runs produced. Despite six knee surgeries in a career full of heartaches, he caught every inning. Not a bad homestand. For God.

Fortunately, Alomar’s long fly to right field on Thursday died at the edge of the warning track for the final out. The Indians trail the Series three games to two going into Saturday’s Game 6 and could be eliminated in Miami when Marlins ace Kevin Brown gets the ball. Had Alomar struck that final pitch a quarter of an inch lower on the bat, we’d all have had a problem.

After 129 years of big league ball, how would we have coped with something that truly warped, and diminished, our sense of every other post-season deed that came before it? Would Reggie Jackson’s three home runs in the ’78 clincher have seemed like much compared to Sandy’s feats? Maybe Don Larsen’s perfect game wasn’t so improbable after all.

Now, we’re all off the hook. At least until Saturday. You think that, after their Game 5 deflation, Alomar and his courageous Indians mates finally would be flattened. The worst post-season disaster is the blown lead. You can squander one win and rebound, but seldom two. The Indians saw the Orioles trash a 4-2 eighth-inning edge and a 5-3 fifth-inning margin. Now, it’s Cleveland that has led 7-3 and 4-2 in the sixth and lost both games.

If we’ve learned anything about Alomar and his Socks Up Tribe, it’s that they can’t be counted upon to quit. It’s rare for a team to add stubbornness every time it subtracts talent. But the Indians have done it. When you get rid of Albert Belle and Kenny Lofton, but add Marquis Grissom and Matt Williams, you’ve cut swagger but added grit.

“We’ve been down before and we have come back,” said Alomar this week. “This team forgets about the losses, bad games. They throw it out the window, come the next day and say: ‘This is a new day. If you could go back to yesterday, nobody would ever lose.’ ”

Sometimes this month it’s been hard to believe that Sandy and Roberto Alomar are brothers. Roberto has glided through his career on talent, never conditioning himself year-round and, at the moment, worrying his Orioles that, as he turns 30, he’ll age fast. Sandy has battled injuries since being ’91 AL rookie of the year. His dream, finally realized last winter, was that his knees would recover enough to allow him to be a workout maniac. “Now the work’s paid off,” he says.

Roberto spits on an umpire, skips an exhibition game, protests a fine and does nothing to scotch rumors that he’d like to see his manager fired. Sandy says: “I’ve been injured. I’ve been down ... This is what I play for. (Now) I’m having a lot of fun. I’m not afraid to fail.” Baseball is slow to divvy out just desserts, but not remiss.

After five straight seasons so injury-plagued that he couldn’t even get 300 at-bats, after bitter, back-to-back post-season disappointments, Sandy Alomar finally seems to have taken the responsibility for everyone’s happiness on his own back.

Until his final fly out Thursday, only one task had been too tough for Alomar: listing his 1997 heroics in order of their importance. He’s lost track. His .324 average, 21 homers and 30-game hitting streak now seem like afterthoughts. Asked where his all-star homer, which made him MVP, stood in his amazing season, he said, “Just an exhibition game.”

Then, he gave his personal favorites for Sandy’s Greatest Hits. No. 1 with a bullet was his homer off Mariano Rivera to tie Game 4 of the division series against the Yankees when the Indians were within four outs of elimination. No. 2 was his rocket up the left-center field gap on a perfect below-the-knees 98 mph fastball by Armando Benitez to win Game 5 of the ALCS against Baltimore. That night he also had a two-run homer and an RBI hit. Finally, No. 3 was just that plain old division clincher in September.

Perhaps one image of Alomar has been most persistent during this Series. Somebody asks about his homer to help win Game 2 or his chances to be MVP and he always, somehow, manages to answer by talking about how well his pitching staff is battling, despite their horrible stats. Charles Nagy gets lit, Orel Hershiser loses twice, the bullpen folds. “It’s tough to pitch this time of year after so many innings and in this weather. A lot of tired arms,” the catcher says. “My guys are doing the best they can.” Then he drives in a few more runs for ‘em.

Like that last fly ball in Game 5, Alomar and his longshot Indians may fall a bit short. “You don’t want to face Kevin Brown, down to your last game,” said Alomar. “He’s going to be tough.”