Mitch Williams Survived Joe Carter's Homer.(Interview)

WHEN MITCH WILLIAMS WALKED INTO THE PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES' CLUBHOUSE AFTER THE HOME RUN heard `round the world, he felt like laughing. Not because he had just given up a three-run homer to Joe Carter in the bottom of the ninth inning to lose Game 6 and the 1993 World Series, 8-6. Williams felt like laughing after the first reporter's question he heard.

"Are you going to pull a Donnie Moore?"

"I swear to God!" said Williams, contacted recently at his Hilo, Texas, home. "I said, `If you're waiting for me to kill myself, you have a long wait. No way am I going to kill myself over a baseball game.' I can't even fathom that. I still can't believe he killed himself over a baseball game."

Moore shot himself three years after giving up Dave Henderson's tying home run in Game 5 of the 1986 American League Championship Series, when the California Angels were one strike from their first World Series. The Angels lost the game and the Series. But other factors, such as drinking and marital problems, contributed to Moore's suicide. Still, the perception remains that Moore couldn't handle the disappointment.

Williams has had no problems. He openly talks about it and even appeared with Carter on a comical beer commercial. Like Boston's Mike Torrez, who gave up the eventual game-winning homer to the Yankees' Bucky Dent in a 1978 playoff game to decide the American League East title, Williams accentuates his positives.

"I don't think anybody who knows anything about baseball judges me by that one pitch," Williams said. "But it's the nature of the business. Look at (Bill) Buckner. He's a lifetime .300 hitter. The ball goes between his legs (in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series), and that's all anyone remembers.

"Naturally, everybody remembers I gave up a home run to Carter. Not as many mention that was my best season." True. Williams saved 43 games in 1993, still a team record, and had a 3.34 ERA. He wound up with 192 saves and a 3.63 ERA lifetime.