BASEBALL : Tag Team Gets Only 1 Fall From Harper

There has always been a question about his arm, but never his heart.

Brian Harper would display it again in several ways Wednesday night in Game 4 of the World Series.

It was there in his emotional disagreement to the umpiring decision that gave the Atlanta Braves a 3-2 victory over his Minnesota Twins and evened the best-of-seven series at two games each.

It was there in his ability to withstand the most violent of tomahawk chops, as delivered by Lonnie Smith, and his ensuing, face-in-the-dirt retrieval of a potential wild pitch and diving tag of Terry Pendleton--those two plays in the fifth inning saving two runs.

“A catcher expects to get hit, to be involved in a lot of important plays, but to get three like that in the fourth game of the World Series is pretty phenomenal,” Harper said.

What might be more phenomenal is that the 32-year-old Harper had the heart to get here, to stick out a 12-year odyssey in which he played for 14 teams before his career--as catcher and major leaguer--was reborn with the Twins in 1988.

Maybe that is what this World Series is all about, a showcase for fortitude.

Mark Lemke, Greg Olson, Carl Willis and Jerry Willard are others who stuck out long and difficult journeys to reach this special moment.

“There are quite a few castoffs having quite a bit of fun in this World Series, and I’m one of them,” said Harper, who is with his sixth big league team but never played more than 60 games in a season with the other five.

A San Pedro High catcher drafted on the fourth round by the Angels in 1977, he was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Tim Foli in 1981 and was switched to the outfield and utility ranks.

He went from the Pirates to the St. Louis Cardinals to the Detroit Tigers to the Oakland Athletics, with assorted minor-league stops in between.

Out of work for six weeks in 1987, he considered quitting and becoming a youth pastor at his church in Lomita or pursuing a coaching degree.

“I was going backwards,” he said Wednesday night. “We were traveling all over the country, I was losing money, it was becoming more and more difficult for my wife and kids.

“I was beginning to think, ‘What’s the sense in this anymore?’ but I also still loved the game and still had faith in myself. I still felt if someone one give me a chance I could be a starting catcher in the big leagues. At heart, I’ve always felt I was a catcher.”

Signed eventually as a free agent by the Twins, Harper has appeared in 123 or more games in each of the last three years, batting .325, .294 and .311. It is a story of heart and redemption that could payoff big in free agency this winter, but Harper, who isn’t looking back, isn’t looking ahead yet either.

On a night when he also singled and doubled to improve his 1991 World Series average to .462, Harper was looking into a circle of cameras, microphones and notebooks.

Only minutes earlier, with the score tied, 2-2, one out in the ninth and Lemke running from third base on a fly to short right, Harper took a short hop throw from Shane Mack a few feet up the line toward third, wheeled and attempted to tag the sliding Lemke.

Harper thought he did it. Umpire Terry Tata ruled that he only made contact with his left shoulder and elbow. Lemke scored the winning run, and Harper exploded. He threw his mask. He threw his glove. He leaped off the ground in disgust, throwing his helmet.

“I’m an emotional player,” he said calmly in the clubhouse. “If you don’t react at a game-deciding play in the ninth inning of the World Series, there’s something wrong with you.

“Obviously, I thought I made the tag. I know I made contact. I’ve never made contact on a play like that and had the umpire call the runner safe. I haven’t seen the replay, but I’d have called him out.

“Shane made a good throw. If it had been back toward the plate a few feet, I’d have had time to catch it and make a clean tag.”

Replays showed that Tata made the right call. Minnesota Manager Tom Kelly supported it.

The Twins wouldn’t have been tied in the ninth save for Harper’s defensive work in the fifth.

First, he absorbed that vicious hit from Smith, attempting to score from second on Pendleton’s double. A relay from Kirby Puckett to Chuck Knoblauch to Harper arrived moments before Smith, who hit the catcher in the chest with both forearms, bowling him over.

“Hardest I’ve been hit since I played quarterback in high school and was sacked on a regular basis,” Harper said, “but it was clean. All you can do is concentrate on catching the throw, holding it, and let it (the hit) come.”

Pendleton went to third on the play, then tried to score when Jack Morris’ forkball bounced in the dirt, off Harper’s glove and into the left-handed batter’s box, where it spun in the dirt. Harper pounced on it, turned and dived back in front of the plate to make the tag.

Later, Harper said after escaping the fifth inning he thought the Twins would win.

“Now it’s two of three,” he said, taking heart in where he is and what he has been through.