THE PRIVATE WAR OF RANDY MYERS -

BALTIMORE -- The "toys" in his locker at Oriole Park at Camden Yards include a stun gun and a gas mask. His affinity for guns leads his manager to say, "If he could shoot a bazooka, he would. I imagine he's shot just about everything you can shoot." Yet he says the nickname he prefers to go by is "Mr. Mellow."

Welcome to the world of Randy Myers.

Jesse Orosco has known his Baltimore Orioles bullpen-mate for 11 years, since the pair's days together with the New York Mets. Yet when the veteran relief pitcher was asked recently to describe Myers's personality, there was a long pause. Finally, Orosco said: "What's another word for crazy?"

A baseball clubhouse is a gathering place for strong wills and free spirits, and no will is stronger nor any spirit freer than Myers's. Baseball people expect their team's bullpen stopper to be a bit offbeat. The closer's job practically demands that. It puts someone on the mound 60 or so times per season for an inning at a time, almost always with the game on the line. And Myers certainly doesn't disappoint in the unconventional department.

He wears camouflage clothing to the ballpark. He's been known to use his stun gun to zap unwanted visitors -- like reporters -- who violate his territorial rights around his locker. His clubhouse arsenal also includes an inactive grenade. He drives something that resembles a cross between a jeep and a tank.

Recently, Myers had a package delivered to Camden Yards. It contained a paper shredder. When he was asked why he'd ordered such an item, he launched into a lengthy explanation about just how much people can find out about you by going through your trash. As some Orioles players were watching the movie "The Silence of the Lambs" in the clubhouse one afternoon on the road, Myers was asked about the night vision goggles the serial killer uses to track Jodie Foster's character in the film's climactic scene. Not only did Myers say he had a pair; he also offered exhaustive details about make, model, price and the Russians' old Cold War superiority in that area of technology. "It's best just to avoid talking to him," one Orioles player said.

Orioles Manager Davey Johnson, who also managed Myers in New York, recalls that whenever the Mets went to San Diego, he heard rumors that Myers was spending his free time at a local shooting range. "I didn't want to know," Johnson said. "I would have been worried that he'd shoot himself in the foot or something. As long as he wasn't shooting an M-16 or something that would break his wrist, I didn't want to know."

Orosco remembers the time when a man walked into the Mets' bullpen at Shea Stadium during a game. The fan was carrying a box of baseballs, hats and other paraphernalia, Orosco said, and wanted the players to sign the items. When the bullpen security guard told the man he had to leave, he became enraged. He cursed the players and shoved the guard, Orosco said. Some of the players went to help the guard and wrestled the man to the ground.

"Randy was just sitting there, reading his magazine," Orosco said. "It was like he didn't even notice what was going on. Then, all of a sudden, I saw Randy go by me like this blur. He grabbed the guy by the neck and he said, One false move and you're done, pal.' We said, " Randy, settle down. It's over.' We had to pry him off the guy."

Then there were the home run-hitting contests the Mets pitchers used to have -- starters vs. relievers -- during batting practice. "Randy took it seriously," Orosco said. "He swung hard. I started noticing that every time he didn't hit a home run, he'd rush into the weight room right after. He'd be doing arm curls and yelling at himself: I'll get one tomorrow.' I told the guys, You've got to see this.' He was pounding it as hard as he could. I said, That guy's going to hurt himself.' "

Myers has a different view. Asked about his reputation for eccentricity, to put it kindly, Myers said: "I don't think I have that reputation. I think I have the reputation of being very calm and relaxed until I have to go to work.

"My nickname is Mr. Mellow,' " Myers said. "I think I have a very low-intense personality. I'm very easygoing. I don't get too overbearing until I go out there to pitch. Then I have a job to do."

And what about the fatigues and the arsenal? Said the Vancouver, Wash., native: "I'm from Washington state. That's the outdoors. Reporters blow a lot of things out of proportion."

He is articulate, thoughtful and opinionated. When he lay on the floor in the Orioles' spring training clubhouse to do sit-ups as part of his daily workout routine, it would be with Rush Limbaugh, not beach volleyball, on the television in front of him.

Myers is more than happy to share his conservative, tough-on-crime political views with anyone who asks. But those who know him say that there is no extremist, overthrow-the-government agenda beneath his weapon-toting act. In fact, Johnson suggests that all of it is, at least in part, just that -- an act.

"I prefer to say he's got a mind of his own," Johnson said. "He tries to figure things out. He's no dummy. He tries to give you this macho stuff. He plays that role. That's the way he feels he can deal with things.

"The job of a closer is so tough," Johnson continued. "We're talking about 50 or 60 appearances in a season, most of them in tough situations. You've got to come into the game in a zone. We all, in our own ways, talk ourselves into a high concentration level. He does it well. . . . If you took one of those personality tests, you'd find some abnormal behavior patterns in probably 80 percent of {closers}. You have to have that soldier-of-fortune mentality -- {Rich} Gossage, Lee Smith, {Rob} Dibble. It's kind of like a war. . . . It's a tough-guy mentality that you have to have."

Johnson, Orosco and another former Mets and current Orioles teammate, Roger McDowell, say that Myers hasn't changed very much off the field since he arrived in the big leagues to stay in 1987. "He didn't have all the stuff yet," Orosco said. "He didn't have money then. But he was always into reading Soldier of Fortune' {magazine}. He was already wearing fatigues. I said, This guy is right out of G.I. Joe.' "

The refrain is the same from McDowell, who said: "He's not any different. He just has more money to buy bigger stuff. He always had Soldier of Fortune' magazines down in the bullpen. He had a grenade in his locker. He had an ammo box to keep his mail in. He had a switch blade. Now he's got a tank and a stun gun that makes him look like Darth Vader. . . . Other than carrying a switch blade to the mound, he's a pretty normal guy."

Johnson said he never has attempted to change Myers, adding: "I've never tried to tell anybody how to lead his life as long as what he does doesn't affect his on-the-field performance."

But Myers has changed as a pitcher. He is not just a thrower any more. The 33-year-old left-hander has learned to use his other pitches, including a now-nasty slider, to set up his lively fastball. "He's learned how to pitch," Orosco said. "He used to be just a high fastball pitcher. Now he sets his pitches up."

Myers is dedicated to his craft. During the offseason, he leaves his house every morning by 7:30, he says. He spends six hours working out. He goes to basketball practice -- he helps coach the women's team at Clark Community College in Vancouver (and he even played on the men's team for a season during the major league players' strike) -- and he returns home around 10 p.m. "People who play softball, they think you get {to the ballpark} at 6:30 for a 7 o'clock game, work for two or three hours and then go drink beer," Myers said. "I've always treated what I do as a job."

Mets officials, in fact, told Myers when they traded him to the Cincinnati Reds following the 1989 season -- in a deal that sent fellow closer John Franco to New York -- that they were afraid he was going to injure himself or wear himself out in the weight room. Myers says he became an in-season weight-training fanatic during the '87 season, when he was a long reliever for the Mets and perhaps went 12 or 13 days between appearances.

"You had to do something during the 13 days when you weren't on the mound," Myers said. "{But} nine years ago, it was unheard of for a pitcher to be working out and lifting."

Still, Myers says he wasn't bitter at the Mets for trading him for Franco, a New York native. "I didn't think anything negative about that," Myers said. "When I think negative is when teams make excuses."

And that, Myers said, happened last winter -- when the Chicago Cubs allowed him to depart via free agency following a 1995 season in which he led the National League with 38 saves but had a 5.61 earned run average after the all-star break. Myers says he accepts the fact that the Cubs offered him only a one-year contract -- "I accept the business part," he said -- but has problems with the reasons the club gave him.

"The Cubs were saying I had a high ERA after the all-star break," Myers said. "They didn't say I had a sore arm at the end of the year. They didn't say I had four different catchers. They didn't say my high ERA came from only a few bad games. You look at a whole year, not half a year. I was pitching a lot in the eighth inning. Those are justifications they come up with if they don't want to keep you."

Myers also left Chicago, he says, with a strained shoulder, courtesy of holding down the fan who ran onto the field and charged Myers on the mound after he surrendered a homer on Sept. 28 at Wrigley Field. Myers had to rehabilitate that injury during the offseason, he said. But he says his relationship with the fans hasn't changed since that incident, and he doesn't lobby for increased security at ballparks.

"I don't consider him a fan," Myers said. "A fan wouldn't have been out there. . . . You can only do so much without making the ballpark a prison."

The Orioles signed Myers to a two-year, $6.3 million contract in December. And, after a 1995 season in Baltimore in which no lead was safe around soft-tossing closer Doug Jones, Myers has been just what the Orioles needed. He is 9 for 10 in save chances this year. He has yielded 14 hits, 11 walks and four runs over 15 2/3 innings in 16 outings, with 18 strikeouts. He has 252 career saves, tying him with Dave Righetti for ninth place all time. He's also tied with Righetti for second among lefties, behind only Franco.

Myers squandered his first save opportunity as an Oriole last Friday in Milwaukee. On Saturday, Johnson looked up and saw Myers -- who hadn't been told to warm up -- throwing in the bullpen late in the game, with a sweat shirt pulled over his jersey. Myers worked a three-up, three-down bottom of the 10th inning that day to save a 5-3 victory over the Brewers.

He has been reunited with Orosco and McDowell. Myers says that McDowell taught him how to have fun in baseball, and Orosco taught him how to approach his job seriously.

"We all got along really well," Orosco said. "We talked all the time: What does this guy like to hit? What does that guy like to hit?' I think it helped out. . . . {Myers} always calls me his mentor. I'll take credit for the baseball part, but not the rest. He and I are opposites. I've never been a crazy guy. {But} he has the perfect makeup for what he does."

Said McDowell: "He's one of the premier closers in baseball, and he's made himself into that. . . . Closers have to have a different mind-set. You can go about it different ways. But it's like a golf swing -- no matter how you do it, it comes down to one point where it has to be solid. When you blow a game, you have to come back and be ready to save one the next day. To do it every day for seven months a year for 10 years, that's a pretty tough mental grind."

When he's on the mound, Myers likes to wave his fielders to where he wants them to play -- which reminds Johnson of his former Orioles teammate, Hall of Famer Jim Palmer. "We used to move when Palmer motioned just to humor him," Johnson said earlier this season.

Those Orioles who didn't know Myers were wary when the club acquired him, Orosco says. But all has worked out just fine so far. "Some of our guys were scared when he came over," Orosco said. "They'd heard all the stories. {But} he's just having fun. He has his own way of doing things, and he gets the job done." CAPTION: Of Randy Myers, Oriole Roger McDowell says, "Other than carrying a switch blade to the mound, he's a pretty normal guy." CAPTION: Randy Myers is a top closer also known for eccentricities: His locker contains a stun gun and gas mask. (Photo ran in an earlier edition)

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