Steve Buechele of Servite High Is Trying to Replace a Legend at Third Base for Texas, So It’s No Wonder He Finds Himself in a Hot Spot

Steve Buechele, Texas Ranger third baseman, was enjoying his first breakfast in the Dallas suburb he hopes to call his summertime home.

The 23-year-old Fullerton resident had polished off a Texan-sized order of steak, eggs and wheat toast, with a cinnamon roll on the side. Now it was time to digest both newspapers--or at least the pertinent matters in each sports section.

In the first paper, he came across a column about him, and read aloud:

Steve Buechele is in a hard spot. The subject of the column responded with a drawl, “Aw, sh-u-u-u-t up.” It was the way kids talk on Southern California beaches, the way Buechele still sounds.

He continued reading:

He has blond hair and John Elway is his former Stanford roommate . Buechele smiled and made as if to complain, “This is getting old .”

Four days in the big leagues, and already the cynical veteran. But underneath, Buechele with his newspapers was more like a swimmer testing the water with his big toe.

The question was not how would Steve Buechele like Texas, but, would Texas open its big heart to Steve Buechele?

Or was the heart of Texas still too bruised by the recent exit of All-Star third baseman Buddy Bell to extend a hearty welcome to his successor?

Bell’s act, which ran for 6 1/2 good years in Arlington Stadium, would be a tricky one for anybody to follow, and especially for a rookie called up from the minors with hardly time to unpack his bags.

Bell, the longtime Lone Star of Texas, left the Rangers 13 days ago in favor of the Cincinnati Reds after pressing for a trade. The Rangers received reserve outfielder Duane Walker and a minor league pitcher in return.

That left a vacuum at third base, the one territory the Rangers had never before worried about, because it had been amply protected by their six-time Golden Glove player.

Bell’s most obvious replacement, Toby Harrah, already is prospering at second base. The regular backup third baseman is Bill Stein, 38.

Larry Parrish, who starred at third with the Montreal Expos and whose bat would be of value anyplace in the lineup, will be on the disabled list for another month following knee surgery.

So Bobby Valentine, Texas’ youthful manager, took the opportunity to fuel the Ranger baby boom. He made Buechele the 10th player called up this season from the Oklahoma 89ers, leaders of the Triple-A American Assn.

Buechele awoke July 19 in Oklahoma City and was summoned by 89er Manager Dave Oliver, who looked at the .295 hitter, one of his most valuable defensive players, and said, “Hi, Bu . . . Bye, Bu.”

That was all. The next thing Buechele knew, he was leaving with his few belongings for Detroit.

As soon as Buechele became a Ranger, the comparisons to the departed Bell flew thick and fast.

John Dittrich, assistant to the Ranger farm director, described Buechele as “a junior Buddy Bell,” and he wasn’t the only one to perceive a resemblance.

After all, if Ranger fans squinted a little at Buechele playing third, it was easy to mistake him for the tall, blond, square-jawed Bell. The two are not only the same height and weight, 6-foot 2-inches and 190 pounds, but the resemblance is close enough to think of them as brothers.

“There are more similarities between them than if Steve hit left-handed and had a dark beard,” Valentine said. “It’s (the comparisons) going to happen. It’s part of the reality of Steve Buechele’s situation. But I think Steve is his own player.

“If I didn’t believe he was the type of young man who was not only mature enough, but confident enough to handle these situations, I wouldn’t have ever considered him. I would have taken the easy way out.”

Buechele seemed more resigned than flattered in the face of the comparisons to Bell. He was not eager to be considered a clone of anybody, not even one of the greats.

“Anytime someone compares you with Buddy Bell, it’s got to be a compliment,” he said. “I’ve seen him play and he’s one of the best in the business.

“But I don’t really want to be compared to Buddy Bell because I’m not Buddy Bell . . . But if people want to say nice things, I’ll let them.”

Buechele’s performance on the road went far to pave the way for his acceptance by the Ranger fans before he ever set a cleat in Arlington Stadium.

After joining the team in Detroit, Buechele had five hits, an RBI and a stolen base in three games as the Rangers beat the Tigers in three of four games, losing the other in extra innings.

“It is nerve-wracking,” Buechele said after his major league series debut, which included two hits off Detroit ace Jack Morris. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous.

“But the pressure you put yourself under is the only pressure that matters. I have to not let the press and the fans bother me.

“If they think I’m going to play perfectly, they’re wrong. There are going to be games when I stink and I’ll probably get chewed up by the fans and the press. But it doesn’t matter. I know the adjustment I have to make and the only pressure I have is my own.”

Besides, if they boo him, Buechele, like Bob Boone of the Angels, could always choose to interpret it as a form of encouragement.

“They’ll be yelling ‘Boooooo,’ and I’ll think they’re calling my name,” Buechele said. “That’s fine. Everyone calls me Bu, or Boo-Boo.”

The question of the fans’ reaction to their new third baseman was answered last Monday when Buechele played his first game in Arlington, and each of his appearances at the plate produced a round of applause.

Apparently Texans haven’t figured out his nickname yet, or haven’t had cause to use it.

“We’re all kind of breathing a sigh of relief,” said Jim Small, the Rangers’ assistant media relations director.

Said Joe Klein, the Cleveland Indian general manager who drafted Buechele while working for the Rangers: “I don’t think there will be a Buddy Bell tag on the guy.

“He’s Steve Buechele and he’s going to play the way he plays, which I think will be very good. He’s a winner.

“I guess you got to give credit to the Rangers and the way they handled the Buddy Bell trade. I’m sure that had something to do with the fans’ acceptance. They didn’t put Steve in the hot seat.”

Even so, Buechele knows his rookie season probably won’t be easy, but he does have the advantage of breaking in when the team’s fortunes are on a decided upswing.

Although Buechele did make his first big league fielding error July 22 and later was hitless in three of four games, the Rangers were having their best week of the season.

Since the All-Star break, Texas, which was 20 1/2 games out of first place in the American League West when Buechele arrived, compiled a 7-5 record against Detroit, Cleveland, New York and Milwaukee.

“These have been some of the most thrilling times in my life this last week,” said Buechele, hitting .231. “It’s hard to convey in words. It’s a wild, incredible experience.

“When I’m out there, I’m playing against guys I looked up to and respected when I was a little kid playing with a Nerf ball. It’s a neat experience playing on the same field with these guys.”

This is not Buechele’s first acquaintance with celebrity, however. Angel pitcher Mike Witt was his teammate at Servite High School in Anaheim when the Friars won the Southern Section 4-A baseball title in 1978. Back then, Buechele pitched and played shortstop.

The two also played together for two years on Servite’s basketball team, where Buechele averaged more than 20 points a game as the Friars went to the section playoffs.

“He was such a great all-around athlete that he probably could have gotten a (college) scholarship as the quarterback on the football team, if he’d wanted,” Witt said. “He’s a big-play guy. He has a good head on him and was always really mature.”

Buechele has had so many opportunities and alternatives since high school that it was never clear where his career might lead . . . until recently.

“Baseball as an occupation is a crazy concept, if you look at what you’re doing,” Buechele said. “We’re grown men playing a game to entertain people and getting paid for it. It’s wild. For me, it’ll always be exciting.”

But in the professional realm, it could easily have been otherwise. A good student in high school and an economics major at Stanford, Buechele says if baseball didn’t exist he would probably be “one of the fast-rising young executives at Fluor Corp. or someplace.”

Instead, as Buechele pursued baseball, baseball began to pursue Buechele.

At age 17, he was the country’s ninth player selected in the major league draft. The White Sox took him in the first round, but he couldn’t agree on a signing bonus for several months.

The final figure offered was $105,000, and Buechele decided to reject it. Like all things in baseball, it was a matter of timing, and the White Sox didn’t use it to their advantage.

“That’s a pretty crazy story,” Buechele said. “It was a lot of money to turn down, but considering the circumstances and the way things went during the talks, it wasn’t that hard.

“We were too far apart for much too long before the difference was made up. I knew what I wanted, and it was late in the summer before I got it. By then, I was ready to go away to school (on scholarship to Stanford). If I’d gotten the money earlier, I would’ve signed right away.

“Considering the money I signed for (with Texas) in ‘82, plus three years of education at Stanford, I came out well ahead. Well ahead.

“Being a first-round draft choice was a real eye-opening experience. I knew I was talented, but I didn’t look at myself as the No. 9 pick. At that point, I was really more concerned with how the weather was down at Newport than with where I was going to be playing baseball the next year.”

In fact, after getting off to a promising start as a freshman at Stanford, he wound up playing very little baseball his first two seasons because he suffered a partially separated shoulder and subsequent bursitis.

But in his junior year, as a second baseman, he made an astonishing comeback. He had a 15-game hitting streak (.558), became the Most Valuable Player of the Western Regional tournament, and helped lead the Cardinal into the College World Series. The Rangers, undeterred by his shoulder injury, drafted him in the fifth round in 1982.

In the meantime, he and friends such as Elway, a fraternity brother and baseball teammate, had enjoyed Stanford to the fullest.

“I think I experienced college the way everyone should experience college,” Buechele said. “I was never one to compete to the hilt for an A or B.”

The only drawback of his educational philosophy was that receiving grade reports could be a harrowing experience.

“I figured I ain’t in college to spend 10 hours a day in the library, 10 hours a day sleeping, and the other 4 eating,” he said.

“I can tell you, those were the best days of my life. I learned discipline--I went to class every now and then,” he grinned. “No, you really do learn discipline. Education is one thing I really believe in.”

He has spent the past two winters back on campus. Although he is only about 15 units short of a degree, suddenly the Bert Blyleven curve is seeming a lot more important to his career than the Laffer curve. He doesn’t know if he will return to complete his education, he says.

“Maybe when I can’t play anymore, I’ll go back with my son and we can room together in a frat,” he said.

No matter how you measure success, Buechele already has come a long way from the kindergartener who spoke no English, and the boy who didn’t play Little League baseball until the age of 10.

Buechele’s parents immigrated to the United States from Europe. His father, Hans, was a machine tool technician when he went on a ski trip and met his wife, Hanny, then a housekeeper for ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his daughter Candice.

Since his German father and Swiss mother were more familiar with such athletic pastimes as track and field, skiing and soccer, Buechele “didn’t know anything about Little League,” but when he finally tried it, he made the all-star teams immediately, partly due to his exceptional size. By eighth grade, he had topped 5-foot 11-inches.

“It was really wild how I stumbled on it, and once I started playing, I always had a ball in my hand--a baseball, a basketball or a football,” he said.

Once a self-described “rambunctious kid,” Buechele also proved to be a rather rambunctious minor leaguer in his three years in the Ranger system. In the tradition of locker room pranks, Buechele was reportedly influential in such incidents as these:

- The day the 89ers got motivated by taking the field wearing black grease paint mustaches and side burns, to Oliver’s dismay.

- The night when an 89er infielder drank 15 shot glasses of liquor, under the boisterous encouragement of his teammates, who were enthusiastically tossing down shots that were, in fact, not Kamikazes at all, but water. Later that evening, the victim was discovered in the hallway of a hotel, somewhat worse for the drinking “contest” and lacking some vital pieces of clothing.

- The day one teammate received his long-awaited free glove from a manufacturer in the mail, only to find that it had been autographed by every player on the 89ers, and that he was obliged to use it in that condition.

- The time one player ended up perched on a toilet with singed leg hairs after someone poured a small river of rubbing alcohol around the stall, and lit it with a match.

These days, however, Buechele plays it conservative as befits the rookie on the big club. But the effects of three summers in Oklahoma and his new allegiance to Texas are discernible in his tastes, nonetheless.

There was a time when the closest Buechele had been to cowboys was at a Stanford fraternity party with a Western theme. Those days are gone.

Now that he has gotten a little raise in salary, the one-time beach boy is planning to sell his sports car and buy a four-wheel drive. He chews tobacco, and next to the cleats in his closet stand three pairs of cowboy boots.

“I grew up so beach-oriented that it’s really funny,” Buechele said. “Maybe Oklahoma got to me a little bit. But I’m a Californian, not a Texan.”

Nevertheless, the chances seem good that Buechele might return to his family’s home in Fullerton this winter under a 10-gallon hat.

“A cowboy hat? No way, that’s where I draw the line,” he joked. “I’m not playing a role.”

And yet even the pronunciation of his name already is undergoing a subtle Texan-ization.

As he lingers around the dugout after games to autograph gloves, caps, and programs--sometimes even giving away his batting glove and cracked bats--the fans reply gratefully, “Thank you, Mr. BOO-shell.” In California, the name’s boo-SHELL.

By whatever name, when Steve Buechele looks back on his life, all he feels is thankfulness, even if he can’t always fully raise the arm attached to his bad shoulder.

“I’ve been blessed with so much,” he said. “I look at the situation I’m in and I think what some people would do, what they would give, to be in the position I’m in, and that puts things in perspective.

“It’s funny how it all turned out. I still love to play basketball, but I wasn’t a basketball player deep down, and since I wasn’t interested in football, the next alternative was baseball . . . and here I am in the big leagues.”