Grich Has Never Been One to Stand by His Batting Stance

Some things never change . . . or at least shouldn’t. The people at Coca-Cola learned that lesson the hard way and decided to place their original formula on the market again.

That’s the way it is with a classic hitter, too. Start fooling around with a natural swing and you’re asking for trouble.

“Freddie Lynn had his locker right here, next to mine last year,” said Bobby Grich, Angel second baseman. “And he swears he has had the exact same stance since he was 8.

“And (Rod) Carew has had the same stance as long as I can remember. He says he makes small changes, but they’re so small you can’t see them.”

There are, of course, exceptions. After all, someone out there probably likes the new Coke. Bill Cosby at least says he does.

And Grich, a .273 lifetime hitter who has led the league in home runs (tied with 22 in strike-shortened 1981) and slugging percentage (.543 also in ‘81), is one hitter who likes to mess around with his stance--especially when things aren’t going too well.

Clearly, this 14-year veteran is a man who never met a stance he didn’t like.

“I’ve made adjustments throughout my career,” said Grich, who drove in his 500th run as an Angel on Thursday night. “Hell, I’ve experimented, searched, invented, read books, watched film, talked to other hitters . . . my career has been a constant state of adjustment.

“I’ve tried them all.”

Grich thinks he’s found The Real Thing this time, though. He has been copying the stance of teammate Juan Beniquez for almost a year now, and although he fell into some bad habits--and a resulting slump--for a while this year, he’s hitting the ball hard again. He has hit in 14 of his last 15 games and raised his average 38 points to .266 in the process.

When Grich was really struggling last year, it occurred to him that Beniquez seldom fell into a prolonged slump. So, in between games of a doubleheader in Detroit, he thought he’d try Beniquez’ stance.

Why not? It was one of the few with which he hadn’t already experimented.

“He saw how I was doing and thought, ‘I want to stand that way,’ ” Beniquez said. “I only talked to him about hitting the inside pitch. When you stand like me, they pitch you inside.”

So Grich widened his stance, put more of his weight on his back foot and crouched down a bit more. The results were so good he’s been using the stance ever since. He hit .383 for the last 13 days of August after making the change and .302 in September.

Then he spent last winter attempting to “implant the technique in my mind.”

Come spring, it appeared the implant had taken. Grich slapped the ball around the desert to the tune of a .481 average in spring training and got off to a .355 start in April. But baseball is a game of cycles and Grich was due for a downswing.

May arrived and down he went, all the way to .179 for the month. Things weren’t much better in June, and his overall average plummeted to .228.

This time, though, Grich didn’t start frequenting local little games in search of new trends in batter’s box poses. He did what most other good hitters do when they’re in a slump.

He went to the batting instructor for help.

“Moose (Stubing, Angel hitting coach) suggested we go down to the cage, and he started working on my swing by standing about 10 feet away and just lobbing the ball to me,” Grich said.

The drill, called “soft-toss,” is designed to improve balance and quickness.

“We used it a lot in the minors,” Stubing said. “It quickens the hands and keeps the swing compact. I stand off to the side and try to hit the batter in the front knee. They have to get their hands through the zone in a hurry and it keeps them squared up.”

Grich started working with Stubing on June 25. He’s had a hit in almost every game since and he hasn’t missed a day of soft-toss, either.

“Moose has helped me tremendously,” Grich said. “I’m still using Beniquez’s stance, but now I’m balanced again. For a while, my head, shoulders, everything was flying out when I swung. I’m much more comfortable now.”

Grich, 36, has been seeing a lot of action at designated hitter lately, but he’d be even more comfortable if he was in the field, too.

“Grich is our second baseman,” Angel Manager Gene Mauch said, “and if I keep fooling around with DHing him, I’m probably going to get into trouble in the late innings one of these nights, run out of infielders and lose my DH spot.

“Bobby’s been the DH the last few games because I want (backup second baseman Rob) Wilfong, (third baseman Doug) DeCinces and Grich all in the lineup, and I wanted to give Bobby a little rest.”

Grich, who also plays third and first on occasion, certainly isn’t slowing down in the field. In fact, the play he made June 22 in Chicago may have been the best of his career.

Grich went behind the bag to make a diving stab of a one-hopper by Ron Kittle, got the ball out of his glove while in mid-air and made a backhand flip to shortstop Dick Schofield for a force out--all before he crashed to the turf.

“It was definitely one of the top two plays of my career,” Grich said. “Probably the toughest in terms of what I had to do before I hit the ground. One time, in 1980, I made a similar play where I tossed the ball behind my back to (Fred) Patek for a force out. It was flashier, I guess.”

Grich says he is content to leave the offensive flash to Reggie Jackson, Ruppert Jones, Brian Downing and DeCinces, though.

“I don’t really feel the pressure to produce that those guys do,” he said. “I’ll chip in with my doubles, singles and walks, but I’m not the kind of offensive player who can carry a team.”

Right now, the Angels are getting offensive help from nearly every spot in the lineup almost every night. And Grich is doing more than his share.