THE NEW AND IMPROVED MIKE SCHMIDT : His Swing Is Downward, but His Average Is Upward

Gone are Greg Luzinski, Gary Matthews, Garry Maddox, Larry Bowa, Joe Morgan, Pete Rose, Bob Boone, Steve Carlton and Tug McGraw.

At 36, and preparing to retire after the 1987 season, third baseman Mike Schmidt is the last link to the Philadelphia Phillies’ teams that won five Eastern Division titles and two National League pennants during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

In his 15th season, Schmidt also remains baseball’s preeminent power hitter of the last 10 years, the conclusive statistics enhanced by the fact that he is currently tied for the league lead in home runs and is tied for second in runs batted in.

Now, too, Schmidt has become something more than a survivor and a slugger. He has become a threat to bat .300 and is a better hitter than he has ever been--in his own view, at least.

“No question about it,” Schmidt said by phone recently.

In addition to his 80 RBIs and league-leading 24 home runs, Schmidt has appeared in all of his team’s 108 games and is hitting .291, which is 23 points more than his career average.

Since June 1 of last year, when he was batting .215 and losing a battle with his confidence, Schmidt has hit .296, based on 229 hits in 774 at-bats.

That’s an eight-month stretch--a normal season lasts six months--in which he has also hit 51 home runs, raising his total to 482, 15th on the all-time list.

Although he has consistently combined power with respectable averages such as .280, .286 and .277, the two-time winner of the league’s Most Valuable Player award has hit over .300 only once, in the strike-shortened season of 1981 when he batted .316.

Said Schmidt in a 1977 interview: “If I’m healthy and playing every day, there’s no category that I couldn’t lead the league in.”

A decade later, the new and improved Schmidt does not consider himself a candidate for the batting crown, since he lacks the legs to bunt-and-run his way on base, but he says he has become a more selective hitter, tougher to retire, particularly with two outs or runners in scoring position.

It all begins with the .215 average and six home runs that Schmidt took into June of last year. Burdened by minor injuries, Schmidt said he simply did not get out of the chute in ‘85, failing to get his first hit until his 26th at-bat.

“You keep telling yourself that it’s early, but at the same time your confidence is going,” Schmidt said. “This year I hit a home run in my first at-bat. That can change your outlook real fast.”

The most significant change occurred amid that .215 struggle, when Schmidt altered his swing, leveling it out. Those towering drives that fell short of the fence turned into ground balls or line drives. He hit .300 and 27 homers over the final four months, salvaging the season.

“Great hitters should know when to change and how to change,” Schmidt said. “Last June, I felt the need to change. I felt that I needed to get a lot of hits and that I only had four months to get them.

“I didn’t know how many home runs or RBIs I’d end up with (after making the change), but I knew I wouldn’t stay at .200. I learned a lot about hitting the ball on the ground. Now when I hit it out of the park, I don’t mind telling you that I was trying to hit it on the ground.

“There was a time I could rationalize a fly ball to the left fielder with two out and a runner on third by saying, ‘Geez, I just missed a two-run homer.’ Now my goal is a ground ball up the middle.”

Schmidt said he has always believed in a level swing, in hitting through the ball, and that he frequently achieved it with a variety of techniques. “But at the point where I made the change last year, those techniques weren’t working for me,” he said. “I couldn’t keep my shoulder in or my swing level. I didn’t change physically, only mentally. I’m trying to drive the ball down.

“I mean, think about it. Most hits are either ground balls or line drives. The more times you attempt to hit it on a line, the more hits you’re apt to get. I’ve had more of a level swing the last seven months than at any time in my career, and I’d say it’s the difference in why I now have 80 RBIs instead of just 60.”

There is one other factor behind the new philosophy.

“We used to have two or three guys who could hit 25 or 30 home runs,” Schmidt said. “I could afford to go for (the home run) a little more. Now we have no one (else) who’ll even hit 20. I have to blend in, adapt my style to the ballclub. I have to try to spray the ball, hit it in the gaps, keep it out of the air.

“I assume it’s working, since we’re second or third in the league in offense and I’m now a better hitter than I’ve ever been.”

Capable of hitting .300?

“Absolutely,” Schmidt said. “I think that the last two months teams (involved in a pennant race) will be very selective in how they pitch to me. There’ll be a concerted effort to keep me from beating them. It’s no different for a Jack Clark or Pedro Guerrero. I’ve had six or seven walks in the last four or five games alone.

“The easiest way to raise a batting average or keep it up is to walk a lot so that you’re getting only one or two official at-bats a game.”

In only two of his previous 14 seasons did Schmidt total more walks than strikeouts. He now has 57 walks and 56 strikeouts. The strikeout total--a tribute to the level swing--projects to 86, a career-low aside from the 71 in the strike season of ’81.

Complementing his offensive consistency, Schmidt, who played most of 1985 at first base, has returned to third base and made only eight errors, giving him a shot at another Gold Glove. He already holds the league record for third basemen, having won nine.

Schmidt set his sights on this type of season in spring training, vowing to Manager John Felske that he would produce after reportedly talking Felske out of a plan to move the proud cleanup hitter from fourth to third in the batting order.

Schmidt said he is likely to quit when his six-year contract expires after the 1987 season. “These last couple years are of upmost importance to me,” he said. “People tend to evaluate your career on how you bow out. I don’t want to leave a sour taste. One of my goals is to continue to perform as one of the best players in the game right up until I retire.”

He added that virtually nothing can dissuade him from retiring after that ’87 season. Neither money, nor the development of a pennant contender in Philadelphia, nor the move to a new venue would do it, he said.

“At this point, the only way I can see myself continuing to play is if my physical condition suddenly started to improve and reached a point where it was again 100%,” he said.

“I don’t think that will happen, because my knees are deteriorating faster than at any time in my career. I mean, this is the first year I’ve had to fight my way through games. They even lock on me going down the dugout steps, and that isn’t good.

“I’ve played 17 or 18 years of pro ball now, a lot of it on that lousy, hard AstroTurf. That’s a heavy toll on a set of knees that I never thought would reach the majors to start with.”

Each of Schmidt’s knees was operated on before he left high school. He has had surgery on the right knee three times since, and it is now virtually devoid of cartilage.

“I’d be half scared to see what it looks like in there,” he said, adding that no one will get another look, that he will not permit more surgery.

“I want to be able to play basketball with my kids, walk 18 holes of golf and climb the stairs at my house,” he said.

“I might still end up in a wheelchair when I’m 50, but I don’t want it to happen at 45 just because I decided to play another year or two.

“I want to get on with my life and accept other options and challenges.”

It would be different, perhaps, if Schmidt didn’t feel the need to play every day. He has been in every game this year despite the deteriorating knees and a cracked rib suffered when David Palmer hit him with a pitch May 2.

“A day off here or there won’t make my knees any better,” he said. “I’m the type of athlete who wants to play every day. There’s no way I can exist in the game without being able to play up to my capabilities. I have a strong desire to excel, a strong desire to be No. 1, and I feel that desire daily.

“When I get up in the morning, if I can walk, I know I’m going to get my four or five at-bats and that I’m going to do well. And I know that if I don’t do well today, I’ll do well tomorrow. I just go at it a little harder than most guys.”

A perfectionist, Schmidt’s dedication has earned him one of baseball’s top five salaries. He is guaranteed $1.903 million this year and $2.094 million in 1987. He has been in that neighborhood for five years now, which has helped put him in another, the posh suburb of Media, not far from Philadelphia’s elegant Main Line.

Schmidt’s economic solvency is the primary reason he won’t be forced to play beyond 1987. From the time he signed his current contract in 1981, he has had a program of conservative investments.

“I’ve invested wisely,” Schmidt said. “I’ve had very good advisers who projected the retirement option. I’m in a situation where I can give full consideration to the physical aspect, where if someone were to say, ‘We’ll give you one or two million dollars to play another year,’ I can say, ‘Thanks, but my health is more important.’ ”

What will he do in the future?

“I’m like anyone else,” he said. “I’d like to fulfill some of my desires. I’d like to manage. I’d like to be a general manager. I’d like to be a hitting coach. I’d like to be a broadcaster. But you don’t create those jobs. I mean, I can turn in a resume, but the job has to be there.

“There’s the possibility of expansion. There’s the possibility I’ll leave the game until the game finds a need for me. Maybe I’ll put up a (satellite) dish and just sit back and watch for a while.”

Could he step in and manage at the major league level?

“I’m not sure and I don’t want to get too heavy on the managing possibility at this point,” he said. “I believe I could step in and command the respect of 25 players who were familiar with the way I went about my career. I believe I could handle it in the way Pete Rose has to this point, with a man next to him in the dugout (George Scherger, in Rose’s case) to help in the running of the game.

“I’ll say this: I don’t buy the theory that great players don’t make great managers. Most great players don’t have the desire to manage. I don’t know that I will down the line, but it’s a possibility. And I think I could handle it pretty quickly after hanging ‘em up.”

Schmidt, in the meantime, continues a statistical climb that will eventually drop him off in Cooperstown:

--He needs only 11 home runs to surpass Eddie Mathews as the all-time leader among National League third basemen.

--Another home run title would be his eighth, breaking a tie with Ralph Kiner for the National League lead. An outright title would be Schmidt’s seventh, only two shy of major league leader Babe Ruth.

--Another season of 30 or more homers would be his 12th, a total surpassed only by Ruth (with 13), and Henry Aaron (15).

Of Schmidt’s 482 homers, 389 have been hit in the last 10 years, 71 more than Boston’s Jim Rice, who is the major league runner-up for that period.

Schmidt also remains among the all-time leaders in ratio of home runs to at-bats and in percentage of home runs among his hits.

For the most part, Schmidt said, the numbers are familiar to him only when he comes across them in a newspaper or magazine. They aren’t a continuing source of motivation, he said. They don’t stay with him.

“Maybe I should put more significance on them, but I don’t,” he said. “I’m not trying to sound overly modest, it’s just the way I am. I mean, once I get the 500th home run I don’t think any of the other numbers will seem too important, anyway.”

A realistic expectation, he said, would be a total of 525 to 530 homers, which would put him ninth on the all-time list. He figures to get his 500th in the first month of what he expects to be his last season.

“I’m sure that I’ll look back on it as the highlight of my career just as anyone who has ever hit 500 does,” he said. “It’ll be one ball that will stay in my trophy case. It’ll be one ball they won’t get for an auction. I’ll have to make sure that I don’t hit it in the upper deck or somewhere where it can’t be found.”

Whenever and wherever Schmidt hits it, he will have been trying to hit it on the ground. He’s on the level about that.

THE SCHMIDT PROFILE

B-T: R-R

Ht: 6-2; Wt: 203

Age: 36

Born: Sept. 27, 1949

Birthplace: Dayton, Ohio

Contract status: Signed through the 1987 season.

How obtained: Phillies’second-round pick in the June 1971 free-agent draft.

Personal: Married Donna Wightman; two children, Jessica Ray (12/19/78) and Jonathan Michael (7/14/80). Graduate of Fairview (Dayton) High School. Earned a B.A. in Business Administration from Ohio University in 1971.

SCHMIDT BY NUMBERS

Year G Avg. HR RBI 1972 13 .206 1 3 1973 132 .196 18 52 1974 162 .282 36 116 1975 158 .249 38 95 1976 160 .262 38 107 1977 154 .274 38 101 1978 145 .251 21 78 1979 160 .253 45 114 1980 150 .286 48 121 1981 102 .316 31 91 1982 148 .280 35 87 1983 154 .255 40 109 1984 151 .277 36 106 1985 158 .277 33 93 1986 108 .291 24 80 Totals 2055 .268 482 1353