Unlikely heroes put on their capes for postseason

WHEN AARON BOONE thinks back on it now, the whole thing is a blur. It was the 11th inning, Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series between the Yankees and Red Sox, and Boone stepped to the plate against Tim Wakefield, who had always unnerved Boone with his knuckleball. With the score 5-5, Wakefield went into his windup and let go that very pitch, which fluttered up to the plate like a piece of windblown confetti.

Boone swung.

As the ball soared high into the leftfield seats, Yankee Stadium erupted in joy.

The Yankees gained a berth in the World Series and Boone secured a place in history, the latter of which has become more meaningful to him as the years have passed.

"Immediately afterwards, I tried to distance myself from it - just because it had been so disappointing to me that we went on to lose the World Series," said Boone, who came back this year to play for Houston after having heart surgery in March. "But you know what? The older I have gotten, I have developed more of an appreciation for it."

That it was an average player such as Boone and not a superstar of the caliber of Derek Jeter who produced that moment is not altogether unsurprising. In the long history of postseason baseball - which begins again this afternoon as the Phillies face the Rockies in the National League Division Series - it is often an otherwise unheralded player who comes out of nowhere to claim a piece of enduring glory. Go back through the years, and you'll find Don Larsen, the journeyman pitcher who in 1956 for the Yankees hurled the only perfect game in World Series history; Bill Mazeroski, "the good-field/no-hit" Pirates second baseman who beat the Yankees in the 1960 World Series by hitting the only Game 7 walkoff home run ever. And who would ever remember Ron Swoboda were it not for his catch that helped the "Miracle Mets" upset the Orioles in the 1969 World Series? Or Orioles catcher Rick Dempsey, who won the World Series MVP in 1983 against the Phillies with an uncharacteristically stout batting display. Or even Phillies subs Matt Stairs or Eric Bruntlett, both of whom were unlikely heroes in the championship run a year ago.

"To be able to shine in that moment, you have to be hungry to play and produce when you get the chance," says Phillies manager Charlie Manuel, who had only two plate appearances for the Twins in American League Championship Series play against the Orioles. "But baseball is like that. A lot of times, you only get that one chance, so you better step up."

So how did Manuel do in his appearances in 1969 and 1970?

He chuckles.

"I think I walked once," he says. "As a bench-warmer, I just sat there and watched the game."

(Jim Palmer walked Manuel in 1969 and struck him out in 1970.)

Sitting down at the end of the bench from Manuel is Bruntlett and Stairs, both of whom stepped up last year in October when their chances came. A utility infielder who batted only .217 with only two home runs last season, Bruntlett walloped a home run in Game 2 of the World Series, scored the game-winning run in Game 3 and scored the series-clinching run in Game 5. Unsure exactly why the postseason always seems to create unlikely stars - except that "somebody has to do it" - Bruntlett concedes that it could have something to do with the fact that pitchers tend to relax some once they have disposed of the big bats in the lineup. "That certainly could be a part of it," says Bruntlett, who yesterday was left off the roster for the Rockies series. Bruntlett adds that it "always comes as a big surprise" when an average player grabs the spotlight.

No player last year did that more dramatically than Stairs. In Game 4 of the National League Championship Series against the Dodgers, Stairs came up with two outs in the eighth. With the score 5-5 and a runner on, Stairs unloaded a towering home run deep into the rightfield stands. It helped the Phillies gain a 3-1 lead in the series and it elevated Stairs to a stature in Philadelphia he had not enjoyed before. Even as he scuffled through an 0-for-30 stretch this summer as a pinch-hitter, he says fans continually told him, "Keep your chin up. And save it for the playoffs." While Stairs says he has enjoyed other prized moments as a player, including a game-winning home run at Yankee Stadium on "Mickey Mantle Day," he has done more autograph sessions since he slammed that home run than in the 17 years of his career combined.

"Something takes on more meaning when it changes the course of a series, or causes the momentum shift," Stairs says. "Sometimes it just comes down to being in the right place at the right time."

That is exactly where Swoboda was in October 1969. Such an erratic defensive player that his teammates called him "Rocky" - though Swoboda says it also had something to do with the fact he had difficulty absorbing information from managers - Swoboda found himself standing in rightfield at Shea Stadium during a pivotal Game 4 of the World Series when Brooks Robinson drove a line drive that appeared to be a sure double. With Baltimore runners at the corners and the Mets leading by a run, Swoboda dove to his right and - with his body horizontal to the ground - caught the ball on the fly. The runner on third base tagged and scored the tying run, but the Mets were able to win in the 10th inning, in part because Swoboda quelled the Baltimore rally. The underdog Mets ended up winning the series in Game 5.

"Until that catch, I was just another guy playing," says Swoboda, now the color commentator for the Triple A New Orleans Zephyrs. "I had had some problems in the field, even to the point where a television guy once said: 'The only way Swoboda is going to make a living with his glove is if he cooked it and served it.' But, you know, I thank Brooksie whenever I see him for not hitting the ball straight at me."

Swoboda laughs. "Someone once asked me, 'Ron, when are you going to stop living off that catch?' " he says. "And I said, 'How long do I have left?' "

By virtue of that catch, Swoboda placed a gaudy frame around what would otherwise be an unexceptional career. Former Baltimore catcher Rick Dempsey had what he calls a similar "defining moment" in the 1983 World Series against the Phillies. A fine defensive catcher who lugged around a .233 career batting average during his 24 seasons, Dempsey said he was "able to put those statistics behind me" once the series began. In 13 at-bats against the Phillies, Dempsey had five hits - a home run and four doubles. When the Orioles won the Series in five games, he was voted MVP and appeared that week on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

"I got it all," Dempsey says with a chuckle. "To this day, I cannot believe how lucky I was. It was unimaginable. If you are Eddie Murray, you could imagine it. If you were Jim Palmer, you could imagine it. But they were gods of the game. I just wish that whatever I was doing during that series I could have canned it. I could have sold it for a million dollars."

Dempsey says he has not signed an autograph since that World Series that does not include this accompanying information: "MVP 1983 World Series."

"Every day, someone comes up and asks me about being the MVP of that World Series - every day and usually more than once," says Dempsey, a color analyst on the Orioles for the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. "What I just love about Baltimore is how the fans have just kept me up on a pedestal."

Boone is up there with him in New York.

"When you play as long as I have, you have moments that you remember but no one else does," says Boone, who played his 12th season this year. "But that home run changed whatever public perception I have. Not a day goes by that someone does not bring it up. To be remembered for a moment like that is actually pretty cool." *