Robin Yount, 30, Facing Changes : Ex-Boy Wonder at Short Tries to Adjust in Center

He’s been a great shortstop, and he’ll be a great center fielder. He’s such a great athlete that I’m sure if I said “pitch,” he could pitch.

--GEORGE BAMBERGER, Brewer manager

The chronology is found on Page 52 of the Milwaukee Brewers’ media guide. The statistics confirm the resolute march of time, the passage from 18-year-old boy wonder to 30-year-old veteran preparing for his 13th major league season.

Robin Yount, who required only one minor league season as he jumped from All-Everything at Taft High School in Woodland Hills to the starting shortstop position with the Brewers, is also experiencing a passage of another type.

Described by former manager Harvey Kuenn as the quintessential shortstop, the greatest at the position he had seen, Yount is now moving to center field--at least for the present.

It’s not really what Yount wants, but he knows there is a question about his arm, the result of two shoulder operations in the last 1 1/2 years.

Amid continuing discomfort, Yount began the outfield transition last year.

Earnest Riles, a product of the Brewers’ farm system, became the shortstop and ultimately finished third in the baseball writers’ balloting for American League Rookie of the Year.

The 25-year-old Riles batted .286 in 116 games. It is generally conceded that his fielding failed to reach Yount’s plateau, but Bamberger believes he needs both players’ bats if the 1982 American League champions are to rise from the ashes of injuries and age to become his latter-day Bambi’s Bombers.

Yount was the American League’s Most Valuable Player in 1982, playing what General Manager Harry Dalton said the other day was a “classic year from start to finish.”

Now he is on the comeback trail at an alien position. He has been a shortstop since the age of 9, when he made his debut in the Sunrise Little League in Woodland Hills.

Had he ever thought that he might play another position? “Not really,” he said, waiting to swing against the automatic pitching machine the other day at the Brewer spring training camp here. “Oh, I guess I’ve thought that I might move to another infield position late in my career, but I never thought about the outfield.”

Does that mean he is still thinking about shortstop?

“They had me set to play center field before camp opened, so I came here prepared to play center field,” Yount said.

“I expect to be 100% by opening day and would like to think I could still play shortstop, but whether I will or not I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t completely given up on it. But if it were to happen, it would mean that something bad would have to happen to Earnest, and in that respect, no, I hope I don’t play shortstop.”

Patient now and seemingly more relaxed with the media than during the October crush of ‘82, Yount is still basically private, reticent, diplomatic.

Said a teammate: “Robin has never had an ego problem because he doesn’t have an ego.”

Or, as Ted Simmons said before being traded the other day: “I once said that Robin has no pretenses, that what you see is what you get. He hasn’t changed.”

Yount’s 36-year-old brother, Larry, said: “We’re a private family and we’re comfortable with that. There’s no question but that he’s more relaxed with the media now, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to fill you with a bunch of quotes.”

Larry Yount, who once pitched in the Milwaukee and Houston organizations, is a real estate developer who handled the negotiations on Robin’s six-year, $5,500,000 contract, which was signed during the 1983 season.

He has since secured his brother’s future via real estate investments in Texas and Arizona. Robin, wife Michele and their three children live in Arizona, providing Yount with a backyard desert on which to navigate his three-wheel vehicles, a favorite outlet.

Asked if Robin still desired to play shortstop, Larry Yount left no doubt about it.

“If his arm is healthy,” he said, “he would plan on playing shortstop.”

Requiring Riles to move?

“I’m not the manager,” Larry Yount said.

Said the manager, Bamberger: “Earnest Riles is an average major league shortstop defensively, but he’s a hell of a hitter who’s got to be in the lineup.

“If Robin Yount shows that he’s 100% and can make the off-balance throws, I may feel otherwise (about his move to center), but I’m not planning on it. We’re doing what’s best for the club and for Robin, and I know he realizes that.”

It’s the company line. General Manager Harry Dalton put it this way:

“Deep down in his heart, Robin wants to play shortstop. He’ll never give up the idea, but he knows he can be a fine center fielder and has the best interest of the club at heart. He gives us a hell of a leg up on making it a good outfield.”

There’s no way of knowing yet whose legs will be found in left and right field. Yount will not be idle in his new role.

The choice seems to be from among veteran Ben Oglivie, who hit .290 but is now 37; David Green, obtained in a December deal with San Francisco after hitting .248 with only 20 runs batted in; Rob Deer, obtained in another December deal with the Giants after hitting .185 with 71 strikeouts in 162 at-bats, and rookie Glenn Braggs, who would be making the jump from double-A El Paso, where he drove in 103 runs and batted .310.

The unsettled outfield and uncertainty over a replacement for Rollie Fingers, who was not asked to remain in the Brewer bullpen, are key questions as Milwaukee bids to rebound from fifth-, seventh- and sixth-place finishes in the aftermath of the ’82 pennant.

The potential dynasty died quickly, undermined by a series of injuries. Fingers and 1982 Cy Young Award winner Pete Vuckovich, now in the fourth year of his attempted comeback from a torn rotator cuff, missed most of the 1983 season; third baseman and leadoff hitter Paul Molitor missed most of ‘84, and Yount battled shoulder pain through the second half of ’84 and all of ’85.

The once dreaded Bambi’s Bombers and Harvey Wall Bangers were last in the league in home runs and next to last in runs scored last year. The power may remain off for a while, but there seems to be a return of optimism.

Some of it stems from last year’s arrival of Riles, allowing Yount to fill a hole in center. Some of it stems from the expected addition of three touted rookies: first baseman Joe Robidoux, who hit .342 with 123 RBIs at El Paso, and starting pitchers Juan Nieves, a combined 16-5 at El Paso and Vancouver, and Bill Wegman, 10-11 at Vancouver and 2-0 in three September starts with the Brewers.

This is a team with hopes seemingly hinging on the ability to win 3-2 instead of 10-9, a team with a farm system that in 1985 included five pennant winners and was named the game’s best by the the publication Baseball America.

“We’re starting to improve now,” Yount said. “Over the next five or six years, I expect to see us develop into a real solid club again.”

Where is there another 12-year veteran who can talk about the expectancy, the certainty, of remaining part of it for five or six more years? Where is there another 30-year-old who has appeared in 1,671 major league games and may ultimately challenge records for appearances and longevity?

Yount’s continuing participation hasn’t seemed quite so certain over the last 1 1/2 years.

Arthroscopic surgery in November of ’84 failed to eradicate the pain that had begun to develop in midseason. Conventional surgery on Sept. 3 of last year resulted in the removal of bone spurs and calcium deposits.

Yount reflected and said it was a mistake not to have had the conventional surgery initially, “but no one really knew what to expect or what they’d find.”

The soreness lingered through spring training and the opening weeks of the 1985 season. Yount’s throws took on the arc of a rainbow. He opened the season in left field and moved to center in July.

“I wasn’t crazy about being in left field because I had never played the outfield at any time anywhere,” he said, “but at least I was in the lineup. I’d rather be in the lineup than on the bench, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to play shortstop on a regular basis.

“The arm got better every now and then, but never for any length of time. Under the circumstances, with what was left of the season and where we were (in the standings), having the operation in September made sense. It gave me an extra three or four weeks to get ready for this year.”

Yount began throwing again in early January. He now estimates that he’s 85% and improving.

“This time last year,” he said, “I couldn’t throw 30 or 40 feet. I can let it go now.”

He said the move to center is a major adjustment, however, in that “it’s almost like learning to play all over. I mean, judging a fly ball is nothing like fielding a ground ball. The only similarity between shortstop and center field is that you’re in the center of the field and can tell if a pitch is inside or out, which helps in getting a jump.”

Yount has a foundation, having spent parts of six weeks in center last year, but he said that he still has a long way to go.

“I have to learn the ballparks,” he said. “I have to learn the difference between AstroTurf and grass. I have to get a feel for the angles.

“I know I can cover the ground, and in that way center field is better suited for me. I mean, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t like left field. It’s as if there are too many gimmicks. You have to cope with the corners (of the outfield fence), and the ball is almost always hooking on you.

“Center field is easier because usually the ball comes straight at you. It’s easier to read off the bat. You’re also the boss in center, just like a shortstop is boss of the infield.”

Yount appeared in only 122 games last year but still drove in 68 runs with 15 homers and a .277 batting average. He has averaged 18 homers and 80 RBIs over the last six seasons. His career average is .285.

All of it pales compared to 1982, his MVP season. Yount established career highs for hits, 210; batting average, .331; doubles, 46; home runs, 29, and RBIs, 114. It was nirvana, but also something of an albatross. Yount was now expected to do it every year. Unfair, he said the other day.

“I can’t put those kind of numbers together without help from the people around me,” he said. “It was a combination of me having a good year and the people around me having good years.

“You play your whole career to have one year like that, but realistically, those numbers aren’t natural for me. I consider it a good year if I hit 15 to 20 homers and drive in 80 to 100 runs. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen again, but it would take the same combination.”

The Brewers haven’t had the same combination since. And this year it will be different again. Only seven players remain from the 1982 pennant winner. The shortstop will be in center field on an apparently fulltime basis. The heart of the infield is moving to the perimeter. Is there pride at stake here? Is this a blow to his pride?

Robin Yount smiled and shook his head. This isn’t the Sunrise Little League anymore. He’s 30 now, the grizzled veteran. The wisp of a mustache is full grown.

“Pride,” he said, “is in playing the game itself. The game is the motivation.

“A player should have pride no matter what position he plays.”