Burleson Is Battling to Return to the Roost : Despite Past Shoulder Injuries, He’ll Be in Angel Camp With Eye on Second Base

The sign above the baseball scoreboard read Santa Ana College. The sun was out again after a week of rain. A dozen professional players who have been using the Santa Ana field as a winter training base were out again, too.

Among the major leaguers participating in last Friday’s workout were Angel third baseman Doug DeCinces, Milwaukee Brewer relief pitcher Mark Clear, Boston Red Sox shortstop Glenn Hoffman, Oakland A’s pitcher Vern Ruhle and a veteran infielder named Rick Burleson, whose challenging comeback from a series of shoulder injuries will take him to the Angel training camp at Mesa, Ariz., Thursday.

Then?

A former All-Star shortstop who has appeared in only 51 games since 1981 and none since 1984, the 34-year-old Burleson now seems convinced that he will return as a full-time player in April.

Shortstop may be out, but Burleson has his eye on second base, a position he considers open despite the presence of:

--A potential platoon in Bobby Grich and Rob Wilfong.

--A promising rookie in Mark McLemore, who is expected to spend the summer in triple-A.

“I feel that second base can be won if I show that I can play every day,” Burleson said after the Santa Ana workout the other day.

“I’m going to camp with the idea of being in the lineup, rather than sitting and filling a utility role. I’m throwing better than I have at any time since the (shoulder) surgery (in April, 1982). I’m throwing good enough to play shortstop, but I have to feel they’re happy with the way Dick Schofield has played defensively.

“I mean, I have no idea where they want me to play, but I feel I have a chance to play every day at second base. I feel they’re looking at Grich as insurance, someone who can play at first, second, third and platoon as the DH against left-handed pitching. I feel like I’ve got to go out and win a job, but I feel like I can. I’m excited. I’m ready for the challenge.”

Manager Gene Mauch, who is already supervising the workouts of his pitchers and catchers at Mesa, agreed with Burleson’s view that second base is an open proposition, but was otherwise noncommittal.

He said that his infield, which may include rookies Wally Joyner and Jack Howell at first and third base, respectively, figures to boast amazing flexibility, then added: “Anyone who counts Burleson out would have to be crazy.”

Some began counting Burleson out on April 17, 1982, in his second season with the Angels.

Once the unsung heart of a Boston team that had taken on the New York Yankees in a series of tough American League Eastern Division races, Burleson was available to the Angels because of his nearing free agency.

He was obtained in a five-player trade in December, 1980, signed a six-year contract in spring training, then hit .293 during the strike-abbreviated 1981 season, earning selection to the Sporting News all-star team, among others.

The Angels finally seemed to have a bona fide heir to longtime shortstop Jim Fregosi, the club’s manager at the time of Burleson’s acquisition and a leading proponent of the trade.

Fregosi knew what Burleson represented in the way of talent, temperament and tenacity, knew he had a leader on and off the field, a shortstop who was willing to attack management, if needed, with the same courage he brought to the double play.

A junior high school principal in Downey had seen that in Burleson many years before. Frustrated by the bullying tactics of a playground gang, the principal asked the younger, smaller Burleson to serve as a solitary enforcement agency. Burleson had soon dismantled the gang.

A waitress in Boston saw another side of it several years later. Her slow service on the morning of a season opener prompted the wound-up Burleson to clear the table of plates and silverware before leaving the coffee shop in a rage.

Those who were in Detroit when Burleson made a rare, late-season error, costing the Red Sox a game, say they will never forget the sight of Burleson remaining at his position long after his teammates had left the field, simply staring down at the ball in disbelief before finally kicking it into the outfield.

At 5 feet 10 inches and 170 pounds, a tuft of hair shooting skyward, he was known as the Rooster, a nickname perpetuated by that tenacity and spirit.

Burleson brought it all to the Angels--and ultimately to the comeback that became necessary when he tore the rotator cuff in his right shoulder while making a pair of off-balance throws in the 11th game of the 1982 season.

The career of a player who depends on his arm--and Burleson’s was considered among the strongest of all major league shortstops--normally ends with a rotator cuff injury.

Burleson had surgery April 27 and missed the remainder of the season while undertaking a therapy program that prompted him to attempt his first comeback after the All-Star break of 1983. He appeared in 33 games, seldom two in a row, and ultimately returned to the disabled list.

“I’d never had a serious injury, never really sat out for any length of time before,” he said in reflection the other day. “I thought I was OK at times (in ‘83), but I really wasn’t. I tried to come back too soon. If I had sat out all of ‘83, I’d have been in good shape for ’84.”

There was a period during the spring of ’84 when Burleson seemed to be in good shape, anyway. He was battling Schofield, then a rookie, for the starting shortstop job when a new, smaller tear was discovered in the right rotator cuff. A discouraged Burleson left camp a week before the season started, destined again to spend it all in rest and rehabilitation.

He ultimately appeared in seven September games as a pinch-hitter and pinch-runner, then began another winter of workouts, which ended in a Palm Springs gym on New Year’s Eve. This time, Burleson dislocated the right shoulder lifting weights. That injury was serious enough in itself, but it also caused a pinched nerve that diminished the strength and feeling in his right hand.

For the first time, Burleson said, he felt as if he might truly be finished. He missed all of the ’85 season, did some color commentary for a cable television network, began to throw hard again in mid-November and joined the group working out regularly at Santa Ana in January.

Said Hoffman, who replaced Burleson as the Boston shortstop when Burleson was traded to the Angels: “You can’t believe how far he’s come in the last two months. I’m convinced now that he’ll be back. If heart alone was the key, there’d be no doubt about it.”

Burleson said that his hand is about 96% and that his shoulder is also in the 90s. He said that he no longer has the feeling of a washcloth being twisted in the shoulder and no longer is concerned about his ability to play a succession of games.

“I may have lost a slight amount of velocity and endurance but I’ve built it up to a point where it’ll be fine,” he said. “I’m throwing as well as a lot of guys, even a high percentage of shortstops.

“I’m going to camp expecting to be tested, expecting to throw seven days a week. I’m not going to hold back.

“I’m not going to say anything unless the shoulder is killing me. I’ll play every game like it’s the seventh game of the World Series. If the shoulder goes, it goes, but I have to show them I can play.

“I’m at a point where I don’t feel anyone has an advantage on me. I feel that I’m healthy and that I can play for the Angels. All I ask is for a fair shake and a chance to play somewhere.”

Burleson, a graduate of Warren High in Downey and now a resident of Hacienda Heights, would seem to deserve that. Others might have taken the money and run. Burleson’s contract was guaranteed. He has been paid for each of the last five years. Now, in the last year of the contract, he remains determined to pay a dividend.

“It would be one of the highlights of my career to come back after this long,” he said.

“I mean, when I was traded here in ‘81, I was really excited about the opportunity to play in front of my family and friends. Then we had the strike, then I got hurt. Nobody has really seen me. I’d like to go out with the people here knowing how well I could play, rather than basing it on hearsay. Now they hear the name Burleson and say, ‘Oh, he’s retired, isn’t he?’ ”

Not yet, but Burleson knows he is still waging an uphill struggle. He knows he must prove that he can play a new position and play it regularly. He knows he must prove that now, after four years away from regular competition, he can maintain a career batting average of .275. He knows he must do all this at a time when the Angels plan to join an industry-wide economy move and carry 24 players rather than 25.

He knows, too, that he may ultimately complete his comeback, but not with the Angels.

“If I show that I can play every day, I know that I can help someone, but I don’t want to speculate on that (a possible trade) at this time,” he said.

“I’m working not only to come back this year, but a couple years down the line, too.

“The only way I’ll ever quit is if it isn’t fun, but the way I feel now is that it’s going to be fun again.”