Tuesday, October 05, 1999
Leiter's gem brings Franco playoffs
1st postseason appearance for former Red
BY JOHN ERARDI
The Cincinnati Enquirer
![[franco]](http://reds.enquirer.com/img/photos/1999/10/100599franco_180x134.jpg)
John Franco waits for a chance to hug Al Leiter.
(AP photo)
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Former Red John Franco sprinted toward the mound and let out a roar into the left ear of Al Leiter, just before the two of them — New York boys through and through — were enveloped in a cocoon of blue and orange in the middle of Cinergy Field.
Nobody appreciated the Mets' 5-0 victory over the Reds in the regular-season playoff for the National League wild-card berth like these two veteran left-handers.
And it showed as they wrapped those arms around each other in the scrum atop the mound that Leiter had ruled for nine innings, 135 pitches.
“You've gotta remember, I'm a fan as well as a player,” Leiter told the media on the field after the celebration had cleared. “This is something special ... Hey, I've gotta get going or I'm going to get gypped out of my champagne!”
He headed for the Mets dugout and then down and up the steps that lead to the visitors' clubhouse. Just before he made the turn for the door, a clubhouse aide took his hat and handed him a “Wild Card” T-shirt to slip over his jersey.
No sooner had he set foot inside than Shawon Dunston began showering Leiter with champagne.
“Way to go, Jerry Koosman! Way to go, Jerry Koosman!” Dunston yelled to his teammate as the two embraced.
It was a reference to the former left-hander who was a key member of the 1969 Miracle Mets who won the World Series.
“It seems like we've been playing must-win games for the last two weeks,” Leiter said. “I went out with the intention of just making pitches, one by one, one after another, and I was focused in the way I'd liked to be.”
He said the two-run lead his teammates built in the first half of the first inning allowed him to relax a little bit.
“That's probably why I walked the first hitter I faced,” Leiter said. “But because we had the lead, I think I got some help from some of the other hitters. (Greg) Vaughn swung at a high curveball. Sean Casey swung at a couple of pitches he normally wouldn't have swung at.
“Even though it was only 3-0 after the third inning, I started getting the feeling they were getting a little anxious as a lineup.”
Asked if he had to make any “big” pitches, Leiter paused for a moment and then a smile crossed his face.
“That last batter of the game, I really wanted to experience being on the field for the last pitch of the game,” Leiter said. “I wanted to be one of the nine players participating in the celebration. The couple of times I've experienced celebrations, I was always running from the dugout to get to the field.”
Leiter said half-jokingly: “I think I'm deaf in my ear from Johnny shouting into my ear. And I had to watch to my right, because Robin Ventura was making a pretty good charge to my right.”
“It's ironic,” a champagne-drenched Franco told a reporter in the Mets' postgame clubhouse. “I was brought up in this organization (the Reds) in the other clubhouse, and now I get my first playoffs over here. My stomach's been churnin' for days, not sleepin', and now to get it, oh, man, it is undescribable.”
Franco said he has heard for years how he is the longest active player not to make the postseason.
“It'll be good not to hear it anymore,” he said.
He said he never thought the Mets were dead, not even after a seven-game losing streak late in the season that appeared to doom the New York team.
Like Leiter, Franco thought getting the early lead allowed the Mets to relax. The deficit kept the Reds from playing their game.
“We were so low after that seven-game losing streak, the only way we had to go was up,” Franco said. “The only question was if we'd go up quick enough before we ran out of games. We got help from Milwaukee, and then we took care of business the way we had to.”
Franco is the Reds' all-time saves leader. He was always one of the most popular Reds to the fans (the little guy with the big heart and a fear of nothing) and to his Reds teammates (the clubhouse's merry prankster, dispensing shaving cream pies to the unsuspecting).
He was traded to the Mets for Randy Myers right before the Reds won the 1990 World Championship.
If there was any player who had served his dues and been denied an opportunity to get a ring with the Reds, it was Franco.
“It's a great feeling to be in (the postseason),” Franco said. “That was always the key — to get in. It didn't matter where it happened, just that it did. But yeah, it's ironic. I had a lot of great times in this stadium. It's ironic I'd finally make it to the postseason here but wearing the other team's uniform.”
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