FORMER MANAGER MAUCH WAS A MASTERMIND.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

It wasn't fear exactly, though it felt like it at the time. Certainly there was an unquestioned amount of intimidation, intended or not.

Gene Mauch simply had unmistakable presence. He was a small man who carried the body of a journeyman middle infielder, a handsome man with a shock of white hair and sky-blue eyes.

A man who never bothered to conceal his intensity, or anything else. Gene Mauch was Gene Mauch, that's all. His competitive fire always simmering, his mind always at work.

So a young reporter approached with a certain respect, if border trepidation. He was a legendary baseball man. Regarded as one of the brightest men to ever don a uniform.

There might be a nervous first question, seemingly always followed by his infamous pregnant pause. A quick drag on a cigarette, a steely-eyed look. And an answer to light up the notebook.

``Your initial reaction is, he feels he's a lot smarter than I am,'' said Buzzie Bavasi. ``But that wasn't Gene, really.

``Gene was a down to Earth man. He just loved the game of baseball. If you didn't like baseball, you couldn't like Gene.''

Bavasi knew Mauch for more than 60 years when he passed away from lung cancer at 79 on Monday. Had first met the young infielder from Los Angeles when he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1943, and was assigned to Durham, N.C., where Bavasi was then the general manager.

Immediately he sensed in Mauch what hundreds of others would one day.

``Gene was a very knowledgeable young man,'' Bavasi said. ``I'm talking when he was 19, 20 years old.

``You knew he had a future in managing.''

Mauch would become the three-time National League manager of the year. Would win 1,902 games in 26 seasons with the Phillies, Expos, Twins and Angels.

Would take mediocre teams and make them good. Take good teams and introduce them to greatness.

He may not have invented the double switch, but he made it an art form. Did not invent the term sound bite, but excelled at it.

Every move during a game was calculated, sometimes maddeningly so. He could quote the baseball rule book. Would trust veterans. Was the master strategist.

``I guess the best accolade I can pay to him is I think he was another Walter Alston,'' Bavasi said. ``He let the players play the game. When they needed help, he gave it to them.

``And of course, he knew as much about the game as anyone. I think the only man who knew more about the game than Gene was Branch Rickey. When I mention Branch Rickey and Walt Alston in one breath, you know I mean it.''

No matter the lengthy career, no matter all the victories, there was always a major ``but'' when it came to Mauch. Testimonies to his greatness, always followed by - but he never managed a team to the World Series.

The additional expectations that came with Mauch somehow were always eclipsed by crushing disappointments.

A dark cloud he could never completely shake, first appearing when he led a horribly outmanned Phillies team to a 6 1/2-game lead with 12 to play in 1964. And watched as they lost their final 10 games, and the pennant in a storied collapse.

With the Angels, there was taking a 2-0 lead in a best-of-five playoff series against the Milwaukee Brewers, only to watch them drop the final three games.

And his most defining moment, having the Angels one pitch away from the World Series in 1986, only to watch Dave Henderson's home run of sore-armed Donnie Moore bring the Red Sox back to win Game 5 in Anaheim, and then the final two in Boston.

It was Bavasi who hired Mauch to manage the Angels, not once but twice. Bavasi, now 90 but sharp as ever and retired in the San Diego area, said he never second-guessed Mauch's decisions against the Red Sox.

``That's what makes baseball a great game - you never know what's going to happen next,'' he said. ``That game gave me no reaction whatsoever, except my continuing respect for Gene. I felt more badly about the Milwaukee series because I felt the players let us down.

``It wasn't that Gene never got to the World Series, it's just that he never had that kind of talent. You have to have talent to get to the World Series. I never gave it to him. I gave him a third-place club and he finished in first. If I'd given him a second-place club, he'd have won it all.

``But he never had great talent. People forget that. If he had the teams I had in Brooklyn, he'd have won. There's no doubt about it.''

He never did win it, though. The ``Little General'' never knew baseball's ultimate height as a manager. No one ever managed more games and failed to make it to the World Series.

It was always expected that a man so feisty, so intense, so confident, was less buoyed by his years of success than haunted by his failures.

Maybe so, though it's hard to think of Mauch in his final years tormented by dreams that slipped away.

Mauch never utilized his prized intellect to write a book, sharing any private thoughts on his career. Probably never felt a need to explain himself, the way he would before every home game in Bavasi's office.

``He used to come in my office every day just to talk,'' Bavasi said. ``It wasn't just the club, we'd talk about everything.

``He had a great baseball mind. A class guy on the field and off the field.''

He walked away from the Angels and baseball for good in 1988. Retired to the Palm Springs area. Played a lot of golf.

There was no second-guessing of pitching moves on the green. No reminder of how close he came to a life goal, before being turned away.

There was, you hope, peace. And maybe, a slightly nervous caddy.