8701290933 DETROIT FREE PRESS 870618 Thursday, June 18, 1987 STATE EDITION

SPT

1E MITCH ALBOM SEE ALSO METRO FINAL EDITION PAGE 1E Copyright (c) 1987, Detroit Free Press TRAMMELL'S STREAK ENDS AT 21, BUT ALL ISN'T LOST TORONTO -- The ball went flying high into center field and Chet Lemon waved, he got it, the final out, and that was that. Alan Trammell stood at shortstop, watched the catch, did a short, two-handed punch at the air, then trotted in with the rest of this teammates. The game was won. The streak was over. "Was any part of you hoping Chet wouldn't get that ball?" Trammell would be asked later, after his 21-game hitting streak ended in the Tigers' 3-2 victory over Toronto -- ended with a man on third for Toronto representing the tying run. "Was any part of you hoping he'd drop it and we'd go into extra innings and you'd get one more at-bat?" "Ah, no," he would say. "Sure, I thought about it. I'm disappointed. But mostly I just wanted to win the game and get out of there." Mostly. Not completely. One more at-bat would have been nice. The game was won; the streak was over. Three weeks worth of at least one hit a game for Trammell. More than three weeks, actually. At least one hit. Always. And today, no hits. Four tries. No hits. Over. Trammell walked in toward the dugout, shaking hands with his teammates and looking out toward center field. And suddenly here was Jack Morris, who hadn't pitched but came out of the dugout anyhow, putting his arm around his buddy's shoulder and saying a few words. "First he said, 'Good game' because we won," Trammell would say, noting the order of importance. "Then he said, 'Don't worry about it.' " Sure, he's happy, but . . . He should not worry about it. With a performance at the plate Wednesday that he called "my worst since this thing started," his batting average fell all the way to .355. Everyone should have such problems. Trammell, 29, is still enjoying his best season ever with the bat, and he is able to throw pain-free at shortstop, something he could not claim the past two years. He should be happy. And yet, well, you know. There are different kinds of happiness. The kind you get when your company's stock goes up, and the kind you get when your boss makes you vice-president. Sure Trammell wanted to win this game. It was a big victory for Detroit, it represented a two-of-three victory series against the AL East leaders. But he also would have liked to get a hit, to extend the streak that was the longest in baseball so far this year, the longest he's ever had. What had the streak done? The streak had helped raise his batting average as high as .362. The streak had helped make him the top hitter in the AL. The streak had become a traveling companion, something that met him at the park every day and visited until his first hit, then left like a coy lover with promises of tomorrow. "This is fun," Trammell had said before Wednesday's game. "It really is fun. Sometimes other players say to me, 'What have you been doing, lifting weights or something?' " That is what the streak had done mostly. Given him attention. It attracted the growing stares of fans and reporters, more and more, the way a man on a ledge attracts gawkers in the street below. And then it ended. He grounded into a force out. He grounded out. On his final at-bat in the seventh inning, he popped up. "I knew that was gonna be it," he would say. And yet, had the game reached a 10th inning he would have batted. "I knew that too.I had the exact count of how many more batters we needed. But when Chet caught the ball . . ." But, but. No buts. If not today, tomorrow or the next He sat in the trainer's room for a long time afterwards, his feet propped up on the table. For a while Kirk Gibson lay on the table next to him. Then Gibson left and Morris came in and lay down. Trammell stayed put, sipping a Coke. About 40 minutes after Lemon's catch, he finally came out and stood near a stool by the television set. "What are we watching here?" he asked, nonchalantly, as if the streak and the reporters circling in did not exist. Trammell is the type of guy who prefers no fuss. Not over good, not over bad. And yet the streak had been, well, important. He had been checking the batting averages daily to see where he stood. He was very happy when the streak reached 21 games, because that broke his personal best of 20. "If it had to end," he finally said, "I'm glad it ended when we won. Some of the guys said, 'You'll get 'em tomorrow, but I said uh-uh . . ." Then he smiled, a fresh smile, as if finally making his way to the top of the water line. "We're off tomorrow. Ha, ha." Baseball players talk about burying the personal goals beneath the team goals. That is well and good. But it is also impossible. So here was an intersectiom of we and me, one part happy, one part sad. Then again, 21 games is pretty darn good. "Hey . . . " said Trammell, shrugging. And that was that. The game was won. The streak was over. There is always tomorrow. Or, in his case, the day after.