He Might Stop Short of the Hall of Fame

I t’s possible no one ever went after a baseball the way Os borne Earl Smith does, just as it’s possible no one ever went after a high C the way a Caruso did or a Bruch concerto the way Heifetz did.

With Ozzie Smith, shortstop isn’t a position, it’s an art. A yellow-brick road. You watch Ozzie for a while and you figure he came in with a flying dog. You want to ask him where the Tin Man went.

God made Ozzie Smith a shortstop the way he made Tracy an actor or Kelly a dancer. I mean to say, if you had a license to construct a shortstop, when you got through putting all the pieces together, it would come out like Ozzie Smith. The grace, the speed, the leaps, the rhythmical sweeping motions--Baryshnikov in cleats. Tchaikovsky would have set music to him. You get the feeling he’s going to turn into a swan any minute.

He propels his body through the air like a rubber band. He used to back-flip his way out to his position. You get the feeling, with Ozzie they shouldn’t just let him field ground balls like every other human being, they should make him catch them upside-down while standing on his head and playing “Stars and Stripes Forever” on a flute. You feel he could field a ground ball while juggling three oranges and get the guy out without dropping a one. Asking Ozzie to make a routine out is like asking Horowitz to play Chopsticks. Or Hillary to climb Bunker Hill.

One of the mysteries of baseball is how come he hasn’t won an MVP? On the other hand, it’s not such an enigma. It’s been 25 years since a shortstop has won an MVP in the National League.

There are 153 players in the Hall of Fame. Of those voted in, only five are shortstops.

Shortstop may be the most overlooked position in the whole fabric of baseball--with the possible exception of groundskeeper. Last year, Ozzie Smith led all National League shortstops in fielding and in chances accepted for the fifth time in his career and the fourth out of the last six seasons. And he finished 18th in the MVP balloting (one guy picked him as the eighth most valuable player, and another the ninth).

“Baseball is offense-oriented,” says Ozzie Smith. “If you don’t do it with the stick, you don’t do it.”

That may be. But there probably isn’t a pitcher in the game who would vote for Babe Ruth over Ozzie Smith as MVP. Pitchers, you see, don’t like home runs no matter who hits them. Pitchers like guys who catch or stop three-base hits, not guys who hit them. “When I throw a ground ball,” the great Warren Spahn used to say sternly, “I expect it to be an out--maybe two.” Tommy John, who never threw anything but ground balls, once jumped one club for another because it had a better third baseman. Geography wasn’t as important to Tommy as geometry.

Still, Ozzie Smith is troubled. Once, years ago, a scribe complained to the coach, Bob Zuppke, that all the footballer Red Grange could do was run. “Yeah,” Zuppke is supposed to have retorted, “and all Galli-Curci could do was sing.”

Shortstops are like Grange and Galli-Curci. What they do is supposed to be enough. For years, the only player in the Hall of Fame with a batting average under .300 was a shortstop--Rabbit Maranville (.258). The St. Louis Cardinals cheerfully pay Ozzie Smith millions to win championships with his glove. Since he joined the club they have won two pennants and one world championship.

Shortstop is an error position. The record is 95 in a season. The man held to be the greatest shortstop who ever played, Honus Wagner, made 676 in his career. Ozzie Smith made 12 errors in 1984. He made only 14 the next year. And he almost annually leads the league in chances accepted.

There is a theory that shortstops don’t hit because the position demands full concentration. A right fielder has nothing else to think about but his next at-bat. With the shortstop the hitting is an afterthought.

Ozzie has decided to rearrange his priorities. He wants to be a .300 hitter and is programming himself to do just that.

There is a risk involved in muscling up to be a better hitter. Do you lift weights to get stronger at the plate but end up clumsier in the field?

Hall of Fame balloters have been hard to please, anyway. Even a player they nicknamed “Mr. Shortstop” they failed to vote into the Hall. Couldn’t hit, they said of Marty Marion (.263). Then, they got a shortstop who could hit (Arky Vaughan, .385 one season, .318 lifetime) and they wouldn’t vote him in either. Couldn’t field, they said. (Probably not true, but the evidence was devastating--.385. How could a guy who could do that have time for fielding?)

Jack Clark of the Cardinals hit the most famous home run of 1985. But it would have been less famous if Ozzie Smith hadn’t hit a more astonishing one the game before. Ozzie hit the only home run he has ever hit batting left-handed off Tom Niedenfuer in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the playoffs to give the Cardinals a 3-2 edge in the series and set up Clark’s homer.

Ozzie is still 701 homers behind Babe Ruth (and 742 behind Henry Aaron) but he did bat .276 last year, about 40 points above his previous average. And, this year, he is batting right around .300. He has become a super contact hitter--he only struck out 27 times last year.

There is danger in this. The wizard who tied a major league record for most seasons over 500 assists and who got his sixth consecutive gold glove for top-fielding shortstop may find he is turning off the Hall of Fame electorate. If he starts to hit .300, when the time comes to vote on him for the Hall of Fame, they may reject him. “Couldn’t field,” they may explain. “How can a guy who hits .300 be a good shortstop? Besides, didn’t he win a pennant with a home run once? Call that a shortstop? Rabbit Maranville would be ashamed.”