Sam Of 1,000 Ways

When McDowell walked to the warm-up mound in the right-field corner before the Oakland game, fans came running from every part of Municipal Stadium to watch. He did not warm up like most pitchers, soft-tossing 40 feet from the catcher as if trying to prolong the inevitable trek back to 60 feet 6 inches, where one's deficiencies become glaringly evident. McDowell began throwing 80 feet from his catcher, and almost from his first pitch the ball was swallowed into the catcher's mitt with a reverberating crack. Even when McDowell throws his first curve-ball he does not cautiously spin it up to the plate in a lazy arc "just to get the spin right." Instead, he fires it with such force and snap that it collapses at the plate like a mallard shot on the wing. By the time McDowell finally works down to 60 feet 6 inches it sounds as if there is a small thunderstorm in the Cleveland bullpen.

It is obvious that McDowell takes great delight in watching his pitches behave, even when he is only warming up. In point of fact, he admits that often he concentrates so much on perfecting individual pitches that he loses sight of any larger picture—a victory, for instance. "I try to break things down to their simplest element," McDowell says, "and sometimes I guess I do it to an extreme. For instance, a game to me is just a series of individual challenges—me against Reggie Jackson or me against Don Mincher . If I find I can get a guy out with a fastball, it takes all the challenge away, so next time I throw him all curveballs. If I don't have a challenge I create one. It makes the game more interesting."

Reggie Jackson says of McDowell: "Now don't get me wrong, I like Sudden and I think he's got the greatest fastball, curveball, slider and changeup I ever saw. I call him "Instant Heat.' But still, I don't mind facing him—and that's not because I hit him so easy, either. Because I don't. It's just that Sudden simplifies things out there. He makes it like it used to be when we were kids. You know he's gonna challenge you, his strength against yours, and either you beat him or he beats you. And if you do beat him with a home run or something, hell, it don't bother him that much. He's not greedy. He lets you have a little, too. And he won't throw at you, either, because he's too nice a guy. He knows that with his fastball he could kill you if he ever hit you.

"You see, baseball's still a game to Sudden, the way it should be to all of us. That's why I love to watch him pitch—because I know he's enjoying himself so much. Do you know he's got 12 different moves to first base? That's a fact. When he was going for his 1,500th strikeout he was trying so hard he fell down on a pitch to me. I loved that. That's why I look forward to facing him, even if I don't hit him a hell of a lot. As a matter of fact, I think he'd be tougher if he had less ability. Sounds crazy, huh? But it's true. Sudden's just got too much stuff."

Alvin Dark agrees that it is possible, but he refuses to admit that it is specifically true of his ace lefthander. As a matter of fact, Dark refuses to admit much of anything about McDowell, handling all such questions with the same dread that little girls treat the offer of candy from strange old men.

"Some guys, you break them down pitch by pitch," says Dark, "and they should be 20-game winners. But when you add them all together again, the best they do is 15-18 wins. Something's missing. I don't know what. Just something. Now I'm not saying that's the case with Sudden. I'm just saying that's the way it is with some guys."

Most members of the Cleveland press and front office would not be so ambiguous as Dark. They definitely think there is something missing from McDowell that has prevented him from achieving the greatness they have been predicting for him for the past decade.

When McDowell was first brought to Cleveland in 1961 he was a scrawny 18-year-old rookie with a blazing fastball, a $65,000 bonus and a reputation for eccentricity. The fans, the press and the front office immediately billed him as "the new Bob Feller " and waited impatiently for him to fulfill his potential. He didn't. He either failed or refused to play the roles everyone else had defined for him. He was not sober and dignified like Feller. Nor did he win games like Feller or Early Wynn or Mike Garcia or Bob Lemon .

At first it was hard for fans to understand how a pitcher with McDowell's stuff never seemed to be as good as the sum of his parts. When it became apparent that this was the case, though, they reacted with a bitterness that culminated in the remarks of a Cleveland sportscaster who said that Sam McDowell would never be anything more than a second-rate pitcher because "he has a million-dollar arm and a 10� head."

Although most people did not agree with the tone of that remark, they did agree with its substance, and Cleveland fans began to resign themselves to the fact that McDowell would never equal his potential. At least this made life easier for everyone involved. The fans grew to love him (they voted him Man of the Decade recently), the writers no longer badgered him and the front office treated him like some likable mischievous child who finds it impossible to take much of anything in life too seriously. Even McDowell seems to do his best to foster this view of himself, although it is not quite clear whether he does it by accident or on purpose.