Postseason traumatic shock syndrome

Sporting News, The, Oct 23, 1995 by David Falkner

So far, so good. The wild-card teams weasel in and instantly cure us of wild-carditis (how about that Yankees-Mariners series; anyone asked Greg Maddux about the Rockies?), the home runs come with hot dogs and mustard, old superstars who never have been to the postseason rise up, rookie pitchers look great relievers really relieve and obscure players suddenly emerge as heroes. Of course, it's postseason again. After baseball's miserable leap year, there will be another World Series.

In case anyone has forgotten, playing in the short season is special and can do special thins to players great and obscure. How special? Know what Ted Williams hit in the World Series? Two-hundred. Wanna try Brian Doyle, an anonymous Yankees second baseman in the '70s? How about .438? Or Mark Lemke's .417 in the '91 Series.

Aberrations obviously can happen in any short stretch of games at any time. But the numbers really tweak at the senses when it comes to postseason and especially the World Series. All kinds of anomalies jump out of the record books: Joe DiMaggio was a lifetime .325 hitter, in 10 years of Series play he hit.271. Jackie Robinson hit .311 in 10 major league seasons but was only a .234 hitter in six Fall Classics. Conversely, Billy Martin was a.257 career hitter who hit .333 in five Series. Reggie Jackson was .262 lifetime with a Mister Octoberish .357 in the Series, good enough for ninth all-time. "Individual achievements are important, sure," Jackson said in his 1981 book, "but you have to win. You have to get into October still going for it. October. That's when they pay off for playing ball."

Is there something about the World Series, about the air and water in the fall that changes the synapses and blood chemistry of ballplayers? Do the numbers add up or are they only, after all, blips on the screen? The record books are intriguing but don't begin to say what the players themselves know about baseballs most special time of year. It turns out that it actually is special.

Braves righthander John Smoltz, like teammate Maddux, had a rocky time with Colorado in the division series. But coming into this fall, he has been a special postseason performer. Little more than a .500 pitcher (90-83 with a.353 ERA) in eight regular seasons, he has put up big numbers in second-season play: 4-1, 1.93 for three years in the National League Championship Series, and 1-0, 1.95 in the '91 and '92 World Series. Few can forget his classic duel in '91 with Minnesota's Jack Morris, won by the latter when Gene Larkin knocked in the only run in the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 7.

Smoltz, who helped the Braves jump out to a 2-0 lead over the Reds last week in the NLCS, says he takes it up a notch because "a lot of guys are a little bit more aggressive" in postseason. He pitches differently in the playoffs and Series, he says. "I'll be the first to tell you: On a 3-and-1 count during the regular season, I'm going right after you. If you hit a home run, you hit a home run. During the playoffs, that's not going to be the case. During the playoffs, it's like the NBA. You can't give up a layup. Your first inning may be your ninth inning."

Smoltz admits he thinks the regular season as a grind but says the postseason is something special: "In a playoff atmosphere, I approach it as it may be my last game, so I'm going all out."

How can Smoltz or any other player separate one time of year from another? Can the gears be switched so easily, and what happens when they are? Why do some players so easily slip into overdrive while others break the gearbox trying?

Indians righthander Orel Hershiser has some decided opinions about why this time of year is unique - and so demanding - for participants. He built a major league-record streak of 59 consecutive scoreless innings for the Dodgers toward the end of that '88 regular season and won the World Series MVP award, but he paid something of a price for it. Between innings of a couple of games then, national-TV cameras focused on him in the dugout with his head back, mumbling to himself. Afterward, he acknowledged he was singing Christian hymns to himself. "One was a doxology," he says. "The verses go, `Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.'" Hershiser emerged from that Series in fans' minds as a spectacularly good pitcher and a spectacular goody two-shoes. The media of the day emphasized his skill but poked some good-natured fun at his faith, never really bothering to look at what relation there might have been between one good and another.

For Hershiser, the experience of postseason boils down to a single word: adrenalin. "It's that nervousness, that little extra edge, like little butterflies," he says. "The feeling you get when something wakes you out of a deep sleep and you wonder if somebody is in your home." Hershiser had been on the bench watching in '83 when he was a roster replacement for Steve Howe, who had gone into drug rehab, but that did not prepare Hershiser for the adrenalin rush that hit him in '88. "The thing was, it was with me from the moment the postseason began," he says. "When you're out with your family, when you're sleeping, when you're trying to sleep, when you're doing interviews. It's always a constant reminder that something special is going on because your body doesn't seem to gear down. It was something I fought the whole way because adrenalin hits your body, and then when it leaves you're fatigued, so I did all kinds of things."