BOB BOONE : To Break the Record for Games Caught, 37-Year-Old Angel Says He Needs to Improve on the Batter’s Side of the Plate

Bob Boone, the man with a golden arm to match the Gold Gloves he has won, is closing in on the major-league record for games caught.

The key, paradoxically, may be his bat.

Now 37 and preparing for his 14th season, Boone caught 139 of the Angels’ 162 games last summer, leading the American League in that department.

He is 15th on the all-time list at 1,518, 400 games behind Al Lopez, who is No. 1.

Boone would catch Lopez late in the 1987 season if he maintains his three-year Angel average of 141 appearances a season. That would necessitate re-employment, however, since Boone’s contract runs only through the 1986 season.

“This isn’t something I’m dwelling on, but it would be important to me because durability has been a significant factor and motivation in my career,” Boone said of the milestone. “I’ll also be within striking distance when this contract is up, and it might help me keep my job.

“Physically I can do it, but I think it’s a matter of my bat. If I hit like last year I won’t make it.

“I know my defensive value is still there and that I can still divorce the two, but I don’t deserve to play if I can’t contribute with the bat.”

Boone batted .202 last year, 52 points below his major-league average and 54 below the .256 he had hit in each of his first two seasons with the Angels.

The Stanford graduate was embarrassed. He said that only the strike-marred 1981 season, when he had to deal with media pressure as National League player representative and union front man, had been longer.

Boone is not making excuses for last year’s average, though excuses might be justified.

It is not widely known, but Boone played the entire season with:

--Torn cartilage in his left knee.

--An eye problem that got worse as the seasons wore on. His contact lenses to correct an astigmatism checked out satisfactorily before the season began, but by September he needed a change in lenses.

“It wasn’t my knee and it wasn’t my eyes,” Boone said the other day. “I got into bad habits mechanically and became totally confused.”

The knee required periodic draining during the season and arthroscopic surgery in October.

“I caught 139 games with it, and I once had the best season of my career with a similar problem,” Boone said, dismissing his bad knee as a factor.

“If a factor at all, my eyes were more so than my knee. I had trouble seeing the ball all year. I still feel that if my mechanics had been good, I’d have seen well enough.”

Nevertheless, Boone admitted that the bad mechanics seemed to stem from his having trouble picking up pitches.

“I felt I had it together in spring training,” Boone said. “Then I had a terrible series against the Dodgers. Those were our first night games, and I came out of them thinking, ‘I can’t see the ball,’ which was then the attitude I carried into the season.”

Boone then overcompensated. Fearing that the flawed vision would reduce his reaction time, he became more aggressive at the plate. Instead of hitting the ball where it was pitched and driving it frequently to the opposite field, as had been his forte, he kept getting the bat out in front of the ball.

Suddenly, pitchers began working him away, throwing the ball outside and letting him try to pull it.

“And I didn’t adjust, which is what the big leagues are all about,” Boone said. “If you don’t adjust, you hit .202, which is what I did.”

Boone also lost sleep and peace of mind as he attempted to visualize his swing, often in the middle of the night.

“No one over the years has taken more batting practice than I have,” Boone said. “I feel I know the mechanics of the swing as well as anyone. But instead of just swinging the bat last year, instead of letting it be habit, I tried to force the habit. I started to think about where my hands were, where my hips were, where my legs were.

“I could leave some of it at the park. I could leave some of the upset and frustration behind me, but I’ve visualized the swing since I was a youngster and I couldn’t get the picture out of my mind.

“It wasn’t long before it was really weighing on me mentally, before I began wondering if I was simply slowing up and losing it. I kept reminding myself that the last thing to go is the ability to swing the bat. I still think it’s mechanics rather than age.”

Boone’s season high was .258 May 4. His low was .185 June 27. He continued to drive in runners from third base--12 of 18--with fewer than two outs, which has been a Boone trademark in his three American League seasons, but he finished with only 32 RBIs, 20 fewer than in 1983 and 26 fewer than in ’82.

There were again some impressive defensive statistics--he led the league in assists and threw out 43% of the potential base stealers, bringing his three-year record to a remarkable 48%--but it was a rare year when people talked about his offense and not his defense.

“I don’t have to be a star, but I do have to contribute some offensively for us to win,” Boone said. “I have to hit .250, drive in 50 runs and hit a few homers (he had three). I have to contribute with the bat if I’m personally going to have fun.

“It’s no fun going to the plate knowing you’re going to get beat. That’s what made it such a long and embarrassing year for me. I took all that extra batting practice and all it told me was that I didn’t have it.”

Now, in the early spring of a new year, Boone’s optimism has again blossomed. He has had a winter to relax and settle in to a new environment, having traded the chill of New Jersey for the warmth of full-time residency in Orange County.

He has talked about 1984 with his father, former major-league star Ray Boone, and with the club’s new hitting instructor, Moose Stubbing. He has made technical adjustments and has the confidence born of knowing that his knee is sound and his vision is 100%.

He has also been reunited with the thinking man’s manager, Gene Mauch. Only Mauch gets to the park earlier than Boone. Perhaps only Mauch probes the game’s nuances to the same depths as Boone.

They are constantly talking, sharing--from long before the others have arrived in the clubhouse to long after they have left.

“What makes the game fun for me is trying to know everything about it, and I haven’t played for anyone who knows it all like Gene does,” Boone said.

Boone enjoyed one of his finest seasons while operating under Mauch in 1982. He and Tim Foli, a close friend hitting just ahead of him in the No. 8 spot, formed a team within a team, playing what Mauch called Little Ball--the bunt, the squeeze, the hit and run.

Foli was traded after the 1983 season. That, too, had an effect on Boone in ’84.

“Timmy knew me and knew my swing,” Boone said. “We had similar approaches. I went to guys like Doug DeCinces and Rod Carew for help, but we’re different hitters. Timmy might have seen it early and helped me adjust.”

Now Mauch may help Boone adjust--if only from the standpoint that there may be a return to Little Ball. This time it will be played by Boone and Dick Schofield at the bottom of the order and Gary Pettis at the top, although Mauch said he has not decided on a batting order.

His goal is to nurse a 100-point improvement from Boone, Schofield, who hit .193, and Pettis, who hit .227.

Mauch, who got some media heat for the amount of Little Ball he played early in ‘82, reflected on the power in the middle of his order and said:

“I know how they like to play. They like to whale, and I like that, too, when it’s available to us. But I don’t want to be helpless when certain pitchers take it away. I mean, when a good pitcher doesn’t let you play the way you like to play, then you play any way you can.

“People tended to forget in ’82 that Boone and Foli were new to the American League, new to the pitching. While they were getting acquainted (by doing a lot of bunting), we were getting something out of it. What’s wrong with that?

“I think Boone will be stimulated again this year. Whether it’s because of the type baseball we’ll play or that he’s having more success, I’m confident he’ll have more fun.

“Last year he had some early success hitting doubles down the left-field line and tried so hard to stay with it that he quit using the whole field, which he does so well when he’s hitting good. It simply wasn’t fun for him. I mean, Boone gets a tremendous kick out of quarterbacking a game, but he also likes to get his hits.”

Boone is already having fun.

“This is the best camp I’ve ever been in as far as the ability of the young pitchers,” he said, agreeing with Mauch’s previous assessment. “I can see five or six guys who are definitely going to pitch in the big leagues. Whether it’s this year I don’t know, but they have the ability, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two of them do make it.”

Boone had just finished the team’s three-hour workout and would spend another hour lifting weights before concluding his physical activities with 30 minutes of Kung Fu training, a daily ritual that he began under Philadelphia strength coach Gus Hoefling in the mid-70s.

“It’s given me strength, flexibility, endurance and mental toughness,” he said. “It’s taught me what physical work is and the discipline of how to train. I think it’s the thing that’s kept me in the big leagues this long.”

Boone is aiming for at least three more years. He would like the record as testimony to his durability and dedication. The new season may be pivotal.

“A crossroads?” he said. “Possibly. I’d hate to put two bad years back to back at this point in my career, but I don’t think of it in terms of life and death. I simply think I have things to correct, and this is the time of the year to be doing it.”