Dave McNally was remembered by former Orioles teammates yesterday as an unyielding competitor who was stoic and focused on the field, but easygoing and friendly away from it.

McNally, a four-time 20-game winner and the first pitcher inducted into the club's Hall of Fame, died of cancer late Sunday night in Billings, Mont., at age 60.

"He was one tough pitcher," former Orioles third baseman Brooks Robinson said from Florida. "If there was one guy you wanted to get three outs in the bottom of the ninth, it was him."

"He helped make our great clubs go," added former outfielder Don Buford, the team's current director of minor-league operations. "You knew every time he went out there you'd get a complete game or close to it."

As he did during his baseball career, McNally fought to the end. His death did not come as a shock after five years of battling the disease.

"He had just gotten a new report and it didn't look good," Robinson said. "He hung in there for years with this thing."

His closest friend on the team, longtime roommate Andy Etchebarren, took the news hardest while trying to divert his itinerary from Tennessee (where he planned to visit his daughter en route to Florida) to Montana for Thursday's funeral.

"He was my roommate for a long time before everybody had single rooms," the Orioles' former catcher said from California. "Our families were always close and we would spend four or five days at his place in Palm Springs, playing golf.

"He could have died three or four years ago, but he never gave up. I talked to him two weeks ago and he sounded great, told me he might try a completely different treatment. He told me he couldn't get to Palm Springs now, but he'd be back in February."

Etchebarren said he was musing about all the stories from their association - from the time both arrived in the major leagues in September of 1962 at age 19.

"I got to catch his first start. He pitched a shutout against Kansas City [3-0] in an hour and 32 minutes. That is still the shortest game in the history of the Baltimore Orioles," Etchebarren said.

McNally was on the mound when the Orioles clinched their four-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers for their first world championship in 1966. The photo of Robinson leaping high into his arms and Etchebarren running toward the pair is etched in Orioles lore.

'That was my very happiest moment with him," Robinson said.

McNally set a club record with 17 straight wins from Sept. 22, 1968, to Aug. 3, 1969.

"Even when he lost, it was like nothing," said Orioles coach and former catcher Elrod Hendricks. "He said, 'What the hell, I had a good run,' That's the way he approached things. We called him McLucky during that period."

Former reliever Dick Hall said there was nothing flamboyant about McNally, whom he described as "quiet but very persistent."

Pitchers hit in the American League in those days, and Hall said during batting practice there was one "area from the middle to the inside" where McNally could feast on a fastball. "In the World Series, he got one there, and wham."

In 1970, McNally became the only pitcher ever to hit a grand slam in the Series, connecting in the sixth inning of Game 3 off Cincinnati's Wayne Granger in a 9-3 Orioles victory.

"I was the next batter, and I told him, 'Whatever you do, don't hit into a double play,' " Buford said.

"Mac never let us forget that," said Robinson, who dominated the Reds with his glove work. "It was a crazy Series."

Expressionless when he pitched, McNally was not overwhelming with his pitches, but he was smart and gritty.

"I caught a lot of 20-game winners - Nolan Ryan, Frank Tanana when he first came up, and Jim [Palmer] is going to be mad at me - but I always say Dave McNally is absolutely the best pitcher I ever caught," Etchebarren said.

"He was just a tremendous individual, a peach of a guy," Buford said.

Said Hendricks: "I had a really bad day catching him one day, went out there and he made light of it. He was really happy-go-lucky. He took the game very seriously; he was a battling fool, fearless. But he never took himself or life too seriously."