Win Knocked Out of Braves

NEW YORK — Doesn’t matter how big you are. Doesn’t matter how much bench you sit. Doesn’t matter how much disappointment you swallow.

You jog toward first base with your arms curled above your shoulders after hitting a ball an entire town catches and presses against its pounding heart, you look huge.

Tuesday night, little buzz-headed Chad Curtis was huge.

It was more than a home run, it was a lesson, his 10th-inning blast that gave the New York Yankees a 6-5 comeback victory over the Atlanta Braves and an insurmountable three-games-to-none lead in this short and suddenly sweet World Series.

It was a lesson written in the face of teammate Chili Davis, who marveled that this bench warmer would hit not one but two home runs in his first World Series start.

“I almost had a tear in my eye,” Davis said. “[Curtis] sits around, and sits around, and finally gets the opportunity and makes the most of it.”

It was a lesson shown in the feet of Paul O’Neill, who came spinning out of the dugout to greet Curtis with an unusual show of emotion.

“There are so many people in here who are happy for that guy,” he said. “You guys have got the statistics. And you see, it’s not about the statistics.”

It was a lesson that could be heard in the voices of the Yankees who crowded in their clubhouse food room afterward to watch the home run again on video, screaming and hugging as if seeing it for the first time.

The lesson, as offered by a man who sat on the bench next to Curtis for a couple of months this season, is this:

“Sometimes, when things are going bad, you have to keep thinking there must be a reason for all of it,” Jim Leyritz said. “Tonight, for Chad, this must have been the reason.”

Curtis was thinking the same thing as he rounded second base, the ball safely in the left-field seats, all of New York bellowing with excitement, his feet suddenly burning.

“I’ve never hit a walk-away home run before, but I’ve heard people talk about tingling,” he said. “When I rounded second and third, and saw my teammates waiting for me at home place, electricity ran through my legs.”

With two swings, the man who played 151 regular-season games last season but not once in the World Series became another Yankee legend.

With two swings, the man who batted only 195 times during this regular season became a man with two of the biggest at-bats of the season.

And with one postgame interview, a man who alienated everyone in the clubhouse this year because of a verbal fight with Derek Jeter became the ultimate team player.

The interview was with--you guessed it--NBC’s Jim Gray.

Earlier Tuesday, Curtis and teammates voted to snub Gray for the rest of the Series because of Gray’s infamous confrontational interview Sunday with Pete Rose.

Gray tries to talk to the hero immediately after every game, so everyone thought the person doing the snubbing would be Jeter or O’Neill or somebody who is the hero lots of times.

Who knew it would be Curtis who was suddenly given a once-in-a-lifetime chance to talk on national TV when Gray approached him immediately after the home run?

And who would guess that Curtis would actually turn down this rare opportunity at self-promotion by following the wishes of his teammates?

“Because of what happened with Pete Rose, we’re not going to talk . . . “ he said to Gray.

He looked into the camera, smiled, and ran off.

“It’s not a personal thing with me and Jim Gray,” Curtis said afterward. “We just decided that as a team, we would boycott him. If my teammates decided that, I’m going to honor that.”

For one magical night in the life of Chad David Curtis, it was the Yankees who were honored by him.

Southland baseball fans may remember him.

Well, maybe.

* He was a 45th-round draft choice of the Angels in 1989.

* He played three average seasons for the Angels before being traded to Detroit for a player you sadly do remember--Tony Phillips--in 1995.

* He returned to play 43 forgettable games for the Dodgers at the end of 1996, during which he hit as many home runs as he hit Tuesday night.

The 5-foot-10-if-that player who disappeared underneath all those pinstripes shortly before midnight is pretty much the same one who played in our town.

Crew cut. Deep stare. Wears his socks high in memory of the great old players.

Hates to sit the bench, even though he is best suited only for part-time play against left-handed pitchers.

But finally, at age 30, only cares about October.

“I remember telling friends last winter that, if my role was reversed last winter and I only played in the World Series and not in the regular season, I would make that trade.”

And so it happened exactly like that, although not without one more hitch.

He didn’t have a hit in the first two rounds of the postseason. He was on the World Series roster only because of the left-handed presence of Tom Glavine and relievers John Rocker and Mike Remlinger.

When Glavine was a late scratch from Game 1 because of flu, Curtis was also scratched, only later.

“I was really fired up to play, I had been in the clubhouse for a half hour before going down to watch films, then somebody said, ‘Didn’t you hear, Glavine is not pitching,’ ” Curtis recalled. “And I said, ‘What?’ ”

So Tuesday was his first start, his big chance, and he hit a weak flyout against Glavine in the third inning, and the Yankees trailed by four runs when he came to bat in the fifth.

And just like that, a quick first-pitch flick from a guy just trying to get on base, he hit the ball into the right-field stands and everything changed.

“That first home was as big as the second,” O’Neill said. “We were down, Glavine had us, and then . . . we’re back into the game.”

And then one flick later, they won it, and he was back in the dugout, and Manager Joe Torre was in his face, congratulating him and thanking him and . . .

Put him in the lineup today? Against John Smoltz? A right-hander?

“I’m gonna wait on that,” Torre said with a smile. “See what happens.”

As if something already hasn’t.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: [email protected].