Brown Outhit and Outpitched

Lugging a 33-inch, 31-ounce Louisville Slugger on loan from Orel Hershiser to home plate, Chad Ogea came to bat for the Cleveland Indians in the second inning of Game 6 of the World Series, with the bases loaded. He hadn’t had a hit since high school.

On the mound, 60 feet 6 inches away, stood Kevin Brown, a tall and menacing Florida Marlin with a nasty fastball and a disposition to match. No hitter is happy to see Brown--he no-hit the San Francisco Giants on June 10--but to be Ogea, and not have so much as a bloop single off anybody in nine years, is to be filled with dread.

Four times, Brown fired strikes.

Four times, Ogea fouled them off.

“He went up,” teammate Marquis Grissom said, “and stood in there like a man.”

He didn’t shut his eyes. He didn’t bail out. He didn’t swing like a . . .

(Look, I know this is not a nice thing to say . . . )

. . . like a pitcher.

And on his next swing with Hershiser’s bat--no, very funny, it wasn’t corked--Ogea did something no one in Saturday night’s crowd of 67,498 anticipated. He made contact. He inside-outed a 93-mph Brown fastball cleanly into right field. Matt Williams jogged home from third base. Jim Thome rumbled home from second, sliding and slapping a palm on the plate. The Indians had two runs and would need no more.

They were on their way to Game 7 of the Series, the final frontier, where no Cleveland team has gone for 77 years.

And that bat?

“Going right into the old trophy case,” Hershiser joked, proud to contribute to this World Series any way he could.

Chad Ogea--pronounced “O.J.”--sent a chill through the Sunshine State, pitching and hitting the Indians past the Marlins, 4-1. He also doubled and scored in the fifth inning, leaving the game soon thereafter with a .500 lifetime World Series batting average and a Hit Heard ‘Round Ohio, should the Tribe pull this thing out.

It was Ogea vs. Brown, and it should have been no contest.

“I’m glad he didn’t throw me any breaking balls,” said Ogea, who was 0 for 2 at the plate for the 1997 season, without evident emotion, but rather matter-of-factly. “I probably wouldn’t have had a chance.”

Brown, as intimidating in person as on a mound, responded with a NOW-you-tell-me look on his face.

The loser again--for the second time in this series--Brown said, “It’s frustrating enough to get beat, without the opposing pitcher doing it to you.

“What can I say? Ogea out-pitched me. He beat me . . . again.”

The Indians were overjoyed.

One by one, they sang their pitcher’s praises.

Manager Mike Hargrove: “Chad Ogea has been a winner, everywhere he’s been.”

Pitching coach Mark Wiley: “He’s got a short little stroke, and he makes pretty good contact. But obviously you don’t expect a guy like him to go out and single and double in a World Series.”

Infielder Bip Roberts: “We won today the Ogea Way!”

As for Grissom--who made a basket catch in deepest center field that partly made up for Willie Mays’ robbery of Cleveland’s Vic Wertz--he expressed an appreciation for everything Ogea did, even if the pitcher did go only five innings.

“Got a little tired, probably from running the bases,” Grissom said, with a grin. “Probably hasn’t run them in four or five years.”

No, longer.

Ogea never got to bat in college, while pitching Louisiana State to the 1991 NCAA title. He had to rack his brain, simply to recall swinging a bat for St. Louis High in his hometown of Lake Charles, La.

Had he helped himself to Hershiser’s bats before?

“They give us bats with the World Series emblems on them,” Ogea said. “But we stash those away. I used Orel’s bats. Orel is a pretty good hitting pitcher.”

Ogea was the guy, remember, who got Hershiser in hot water, by saying Orel had given him tips on how to cheat while pitching. The two Indians later called it a joke that got out of hand.

And does Orel help him bat?

“When?” Hershiser asked. “We hardly ever get to hit.”

Ogea had a long, long year. He did two months on a disabled list. He gave up a grand slam to Paul O’Neill of the New York Yankees in the American League divisional series. He hadn’t had much luck since retiring the last batter of Cleveland’s 1996 season . . . Mike Devereaux of the Baltimore Orioles, a guy Ogea once hit with a pitch in the face.

On deck with Brown about to walk Grissom to load the bases, Ogea felt OK.

He said, “I know our hitters will laugh at me for saying this, but in the last game I saw the ball go out of [Brown’s] hand and I was on it.”

Ogea, 0 for ever, got a hit.

Oh, did Ohio love that.