DATE: Thursday, October 16, 1997            TAG: 9710160745

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BOB MOLINARO

                                            LENGTH:   67 lines

ORIOLES' ODDBALL LOSS TO INDIANS WAS FOR THE BIRDS

Nobody recalls the American Baseball Public clamoring for a World Series between the Cleveland Indians and Florida Marlins.

This one could turn out to be a boon for the game - of football.

So be it. Like the Baltimore Orioles, baseball's diehards will have to adjust to the bizarre and unexpected.

Wednesday evening, the Orioles couldn't have anticipated that a 35-year-old middle infielder with 77 career home runs would beat them with the long ball in the final game of the American League Championship Series.

For the Orioles, Tony Fernandez's 11th-inning shot over the rightfield wall was an odd - not to mention cruel - way to lose a game and a season.

Then again, was Fernandez's blast any more fantastic than the Birds losing Game 3 on a missed suicide squeeze by the Indians?

Or Baltimore giving up two runs on a single wild pitch while dropping Game 4?

Or the Indians winning in six games despite hitting .193 as a team?

In losing to Cleveland, the unexpected became the norm for the Orioles. Anywhere the Indians played turned into Oddville.

You could say that the bizarre became the rule of thumb in this ALCS. And speaking of thumbs, it was a bruised digit suffered by Bip Roberts that forced Indians' manager Mike Hargrove to insert Fernandez into the lineup just before game time.

Roberts' left thumb was injured when it was hit by a ball during batting practice. And who hit the ball? Fernandez, of course.

As for the home run, Fernandez explained his clutch at-bat this way: ``When I first stepped in, I said, `Lord guide my thoughts, I need help.' ''

The Indians' prayers were answered, as they were every time the Orioles allowed the flammable Armando Benitez near the mound.

``There's no way,'' said Roberts, ``that I hit a home run in that situation.''

Apparently, there was no way the Orioles were going to score in this game, despite outhitting the Indians 10-3. For the second time in the ALCS, Baltimore wasted a spectacular effort from Mike Mussina, who gave up one hit in eight innings.

By striking out 10, the righthander brought his strikeout total to 25 in just two games.

``Mussina,'' said teammate Rafael Palmeiro, ``is the best pitcher in the game.''

So it seemed in October.

``We left 14 runners on base,'' said Mussina. ``It's tough to win that way. We might have played 20 innings and they wouldn't have let us score.''

In their quiet, but not quite gloomy clubhouse, the Orioles seemed almost philosophical about this series of uncommon drama, in which all four Indians' victories came by one run.

``I think people are going to remember this series for a long time,'' said Brady Anderson. ``It was fun playing in it.''

Said Mussina: ``That's why you go to spring training, so that eight months later you can play in great games like this in October. It was just a lot of fun.''

Well, maybe not for everyone in the Orioles clubhouse. Manager Davey Johnson compared the disappointment to the Birds losing the 1969 World Series.

Johnson, the second baseman on that Orioles team, said, ``We were the best in the American League this year the way we were the best in 1969 when the Mets beat us.''

Johnson shrugged.

``The whole series,'' he said, ``I didn't think we caught any breaks.''

Maybe not. But if the breaks went to the Indians, the many great moments were shared by everyone.

The odd moments, too.

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