A Change of Place Is Big Hit

Tired of the old grind, are you? Had it up to here with the pressures of the job? Dread going to the office every day? Afraid of what will happen next?

Everyone knows what you need. A change of scenery. A new outlook on life. New companions. A fresh venue.

Usually this calls for a trip to Hawaii. A long ocean voyage. A visit to the great cities of Europe. The South Seas. At least, Palm Springs or Scottsdale, or maybe flying down to Rio to bask under Sugar Loaf. Certainly, a geographical change.

So, that’s what Pedro Guerrero undertook.

Except, he didn’t have to change climates or time zones. No change of planes. He didn’t need a new wardrobe, passport, golf clubs, a matched set of luggage. He didn’t even need Dramamine. In fact, he could throw it away.

Pedro only had to move about 90 feet to get his new lease on life. But it was the most important hunk of real estate this side of Fifth Avenue for Pedro. It was like going from Devil’s Island to the Bois de Boulogne, from Hudson’s Bay to Miami.

It was like lifting a 100-pound anvil from his back. Pedro didn’t have to go to a time-share condo where palm trees are waving and the surf is lapping. Pedro just went to left field.

Now, some people might not think of the outfield as a paradise on earth. It’s not to be ranked with the moonrise over Cladah or the Greek Isles at sunset. It’s not even Pismo Beach. But, to Pedro, it looked like the Garden of Eden. Or one of the great tourist stopovers of the South Seas. Rodgers and Hammerstein should write a song about it.

Now, Pedro’s old position was not exactly like catching hot rivets in a pail or walking girders 80 stories up. But, third base is not exactly the executive suite, either.

It’s the baseball equivalent of answering three phones at once, of being on 24-hour call, of having dinner with the boss. At third base, you, so to speak, sleep with your clothes on. You’re never more than 90 feet away from breaking your nose, losing your teeth, even cracking your skull. It’s a hard-hat position.

Baseballs come out there at velocities up to 140 m.p.h., and they’re dipping and sliding. Even the slow ones can make you turn your ankle, pop your knee or jerk your elbow loose. It’s the boiler room of baseball.

The outfield, on the other hand, is a place where you can hear the birds sing, watch the grass grow. There’s very little traffic, you can check out the pretty women, enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. There are days you could bring a book.

Third base clutters up the mind. You never know when that sly sneak at the plate is going to try to make a fool of you by dropping one down the foul line at the last instant after faking hitting away. Yet, if you sneak in, cheat a step or two, you may find him hitting away after all and the ball sailing right through your prize molars.

Guerrero remembers his days at third the way Red Adair remembers oil-well fires at sea. It became a matter of pride to him to get good at it and, Pedro remembers, it required hours away from the activity which he really excelled at--striking a moving baseball with a bat, not a glove.

The precious time when Pedro should have been solving the slants of the batting practice pitcher, he was solving the slants of hard fungoes hit at him by Monty Basgall, the Dodger infield coach.

The record shows Pedro Guerrero became a quite skilled third baseman. And Napoleon might have made a good ribbon clerk. And Babe Ruth was a great pitcher.

But it was chipping away at the thing he really did best. Pedro Guerrero is one of the great strikers of the ball in baseball, maybe in history. But the Dodgers were spending more time trying to make Pie Traynor out of him than Henry Aaron. It was like casting John Wayne as a faithful old Indian scout.

There’s a punch line in an old football joke that goes, “If Calhoun ain’t got the ball, you done made your first big mistake.” Well, if Pedro Guerrero ain’t hitting a ball, instead of trying to learn to catch it, the team done made its big mistake.

As it occurred to Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda one day at the end of May when he realized that one of the best hitters in baseball, Guerrero, was batting .268 with 4 home runs, 16 runs batted in and 18 runs scored, at a time when the team was leaving so many men on base that the infield looked like a bus stop.

Lasorda called his third baseman and sent him on a short voyage to a romantic location. “I need your bat more than I need your glove,” he told Guerrero. And, an outfielder was born. To say nothing of a pennant drive.

“It’s a funny thing,” Lasorda recalls. “Last year, he was begging me to take him off third base. But, this year, he was beginning to get the hang of it, he didn’t want to move, he wanted the challenge.”

Fortunately, hotter heads prevailed, and Guerrero was given the historic change of scenery every overworked employee should get.

Characteristically, Pedro insists it was not a case of burnout. “If the team wants me to go back to third, they pay me to play where they want me and that’s where I’d go,” he insisted stubbornly in the locker room Sunday when someone suggested it would take an act of Congress and a company of Marines to get him back to third.

But, in the month of June, Pedro Guerrero, outfielder, has broken the Los Angeles Dodger mark set by Frank Howard for most home runs in a month, 12. Guerrero hit his 13th Monday night, and Willie Mays’ league record of 17 in a month is not entirely out of the question even in a short month. Mays set his in August, 1965.

Guerrero is batting .300, has 17 home runs, 39 RBIs, and 40 runs scored. He is batting .375 in June.

Putting him on third base is like putting Liz Taylor in a nunnery. In fact, I’m wondering whether I should get off this hot corner and onto the society pages myself. If that’s far enough, that is.