The Son Shines

By TIM BROWN

May 19, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

It amuses Al Levine that his mother can hardly watch him pitch.

Susie Levine, who still lives near Chicago in the house where Al grew up, will attend an Angel game at Comiskey Park and watch intently until it is her son’s turn to pitch.

Then she will leave her seat, bound for nowhere in particular. Just away.

“When everyone else is out there, she’s calm and cheering for them,” Al says.

Then they hand him the baseball.

“She’ll go walk the concourse,” he says. “She’s nervous whenever I’m out there.”

He smiles at the thought of her roaming the stadium, she half fearing the hometown cheers that might rise up from the stands.

“All parents go through it,” Susie says with a happy laugh.

It saddens Levine that his father, Alvin, can’t watch him pitch, especially now. The father turned his son from a left-hander to a right-hander 25 years ago, when Al was about 7, and hoped it someday would make Al a big-league third baseman.

Alvin Levine died 3 1/2 years ago. He was 65. A stomach tumor killed him six weeks after doctors finally discovered it, his son said, after some terrible months.

Levine thinks often of his father, of their relationship, of how far it came in the years before his death. Through reddened eyes, he smiles at the thought of him now, surely proud of his son, the right-handed pitcher.

He is 1-0 with a 3.03 earned-run average in 14 appearances. He made 50 appearances last season, all but one in relief, and had a 3.39 ERA.

In baseball’s sea of faceless middle relievers, he has become reliable, and of particular value to the pitching-starved Angels. In May, with Angel starters faltering everywhere, Levine’s ERA is 1.38. It is 1.99 over his last 10 outings.

“It’s pretty evident with Al that he’s not afraid to go after hitters,” Manager Mike Scioscia says. “He’s not scared off of situations. That’s a big part of being successful in major league baseball. It’s not really surprising when you look at the tremendous job he did last year out of the bullpen. He’s picked up where he left off.

“I think Al understands the stuff he has, understands what he has to do to get hitters out, and executes those pitches in tough situations. Right now his role is to give us some length, and productive length. I don’t mean mindless innings to save the bullpen. Al is in a critical role, especially with our starting pitchers being banged up. That’s a pivotal role.”

Levine will be 32 Monday, so his success--he wouldn’t use that word, necessarily--arrived relatively late. There was college, then 5 1/2 seasons in the minor leagues, then seasons in and out of the big leagues with the White Sox in 1996 and 1997, and the Texas Rangers in 1998.

He stayed with the game, matured into a pitcher who believed in his sinker, and found a home with the Angels, who discovered him on the waiver wire in April 1999.

A construction worker for most of his life, Alvin Levine would appreciate the hard work. He would appreciate that the small disappointments did not foul the grander dream. He would appreciate that they would talk about it, father and son, until it felt better.

“He had a big role in my career,” Levine says, “until the day we got in a fight. I said, ‘I’m no longer playing for you. I’m playing for myself. If I don’t play another day, it’s fine.’ That’s when he realized it’s time for him to move on and let me stand alone. He’d just watch.”

Levine was a junior at Southern Illinois when he told his father he’d take his career from there. That was a decade ago, six years before Alvin died. They both simmered for a while, Levine could not recall for how long, before they could grow together again.

“After that, we had a different relationship about baseball,” he says. “He understood not to go past a certain line.”

In the summer of 1996, just before he died, Alvin Levine saw Al pitch in the majors for the first time, for the hometown White Sox.

“My husband, Alvin, was the proudest man walking on two feet,” Susie Levine says. “I think as a person grows older, you sometimes mellow. And also, as a teenager, the kids grow up. They realize different things. What somebody might be telling them, after years, later on they realize maybe they make sense. I think they both gave a little and stepped back a little.”

She pauses and sniffs.

“It’s hard to bury your dad,” she says, then adds slowly, “It’s still just so hard for me. His dad, his buttons would pop open every time Al achieved something else. He was the proudest father . . . “

In recent years, when she has been to the ballpark, Susie has tried hard not to go too far when Al pitches. She watches some, her arm jerking with every pitch, as if to put a final bit of mother’s velocity on it. Perhaps she believes one of them--Susie or Alvin--should watch.

“I still get very nervous,” she says, laughing, “but I’ve really been better.”

Al recently became a father himself. Anthony Ellis--Ellis was Alvin’s middle name--was born two weeks ago to Al and Linda, his wife of seven years.

These are incredible times for Al, for the Levine family. Alvin, they know, would have enjoyed them. The thought of it warms Susie, warms Al.

“I just like to think about him,” he said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

An Angel Named Al

Al Levine came to the Angels through the waiver wire in April of last year:

* Age: Will turn 32 on Monday.

* Height: 6 feet 3.

* Weight: 198 pounds.

* Bats: Left.

* Throws: Right.