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Man for man, the Braves had neither the talents nor the physiques of the Indians. In fact, you might see better builds in the local country-club locker room than in the Atlanta clubhouse, which actually does have a miniature golf course. But as manager Bobby Cox says, "They may not look like much, but Greg Maddux, Mark Lemke, Tom Glavine, Rafael Belliard--those little guys can play for me any day of the week. We don't have a lot of superstars. But we do have a team."
The two sides of baseball were readily apparent in the World Series. On the one hand, you had Cleveland pitcher Orel Hershiser, who was so nice that he stopped his press conference after winning Game Five because he heard someone's tape recorder click off on the table in front of him. (He found the recorder, flipped over the cassette and resumed talking.) On the other hand, Hershiser's teammate, Albert Belle, verbally assaulted nbc reporter Hannah Storm as she waited in the Indians' dugout before Game Three. (Shouldn't Albert and Hannah swap names?)
Then there was the brief, out-of-character confrontation between Hershiser and Greg Maddux in the first inning of Game Five, after Maddux brushed back Eddie Murray. "I told him, 'You can do better than that,' says Hershiser. "He just looked at me, and we shared respectful glances."
If one image stands for '95, it might be from the late innings of Game One of the American League Championship Series between the Mariners and the Indians. Seattle manager Lou Piniella had taken a gamble on an unproven 22-year-old rookie, Bob Wolcott, and Wolcott came through with a surprising and winning performance, even though he had walked the bases full with nobody out in the first inning. There was Wolcott sitting with the 6-ft. 10-in. ace of the staff, Randy Johnson. The veteran patted Wolcott on the leg as if to say, "Nice going, kid," and Wolcott grinned from ear to ear.
Nice going, baseball.