Justice Has Been Served

Now, Robbie Alomar may wish that he had been suspended after all. Baseball has a wonderful way of squaring its books.

Sometimes, the process takes years. This time, 16 days was enough. Alomar went from spitting in an umpire’s face to ending up with egg on his own.

The Great Expectorator, whom many fans think should have been on an enforced holiday during the playoffs, ended the season wearing a Scarlet E. His comical fielding gaffe in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series opened the door for five unearned runs. That sank his Baltimore Orioles and clinched a New York Yankees pennant as well.

Thanks to that day’s conclusive 6-4 outcome, no Oriole could deny the Yankees their first trip to a World Series in 15 years. New York stomped Baltimore in all nine games played at Camden Yards this season. Many good teams brag that their home field is “Our House.” Baltimore should call Oriole Park “The Guest House.” Until the Orioles become more dominant there, they can have success, but not championships. The cozy ballpark and congenial crowd make visitors feel like vacationers. Why not put mints in the on-deck circle?

This final playoff game finished on all the appropriate notes. Now, Jeff Maier, the Jersey kid who did what any 12-year-old worth his glove would’ve done back in Game 1, is totally off the hook. The Orioles died so passively--going into a complete anxiety-provoked, clutch-hitting drought after the pivotal eighth inning of Game 3--that nobody’d dare blame it on a bleacher boy.

Best of all, perhaps, was the way Game 5 gave a final scene to the ugly Alomar episode. Those who wanted to see Alomar punished in baseball terms--since those terms circumscribe his world--have their wish. Those who merely think it time to drop this whole sticky mess and move on to any other subject also have closure.

Four moments will square the compass of the Alomar Tale. The first came in Toronto when Alomar spit in John Hirschbeck’s face after an ejection. The second came the next day when Hirschbeck ran into the Orioles’ clubhouse, screaming that he would “kill” Alomar; Hirschbeck had learned that Alomar had made insensitive, inappropriate comments about the death of the umpire’s child. The third came against Cleveland in the division series when Alomar--a potential Hall of Famer--had perhaps the finest game of his career. His down-to-the-last-strike hit tied the score in the ninth and his homer in the 11th won it as Baltimore eliminated the defending league champion Indians.

That seemed far too fine a finish for such a deed. Alomar’s no devil. But a hero who led his team to the World Series? Perhaps that’s simply not allowed.

The final moment came in the third inning of Game 5 against New York, when the best of all Yankees, Bernie Williams, smacked a routine double-play ground ball to Alomar. The inning should have ended with New York ahead, 1-0. Instead, the ball did not bounce. Or Alomar did not bend enough. Or, perhaps, the cumulative effect of millions of boos, barbs and voodoo needles in No. 12 dolls took their toll. The ball scooted through Alomar’s wickets. Before the inning ended, the Yankees had scored five more runs--all unearned, courtesy of Alomar’s muff.

“I hope this is the final chapter,” said Orioles assistant GM Kevin Malone, regarding Alomar. “There is no justification for what he did, but there’s also no justification for all the people who are still looking to persecute him. Hopefully those people will think that justice has been served. Although I beg to differ.”

All the Yankees runs scored in just the proper way to ensure that all the threads of playoff drama were neatly snipped and knotted for the winter.

Three runs arrived on a home run by Cecil Fielder off Scott Erickson. Big Daddy also iced the Yankees’ crucial Game 3 win with a blast into the same left field bleachers. What Eddie Murray’s calming presence did for the Orioles, Fielder’s jovial, joyous demeanor did in even larger measure for the sometimes tense and aggravated Yankees, especially in a clubhouse that has to endure visits from The Boss.

Darryl Strawberry followed Fielder’s homer with one of the longest blasts in the five-year history of Camden Yards. Erickson had entered the third inning having given up only one home run in 385 at-bats to the players on the Yankees’ roster. In one inning, counting a leadoff homer by Jim Leyritz, he gave up three. Don’t try to figure out baseball; it resents the attempt.

While the Yankees played their way into the series with progressively stronger performances each day at Camden Yards, the home team wilted. Pressure is the one absolute rule of the playoffs and it is progressive like a disease. Everybody knows what causes it. A subliminal tension that you can’t even feel and a desire to win that’s so deep that it makes you try too hard--while giving the appearance that you’re barely trying at all. It’s a paradox. The only way out is not to care. Or, at least, to care only about yourself and not the group. Not many can do it, either.