The Years and Ordeals Have Desensitized DeCinces : HAVING FUN FINALLY

You are Doug DeCinces and for a change of pace, you are happy.

For instance, your back hasn’t done that dreaded spasm dance for a while. Those were the days when your wife would literally drag you to the shower, when you thought only a surgeon’s scalpel would relieve the pain.

You are having a productive year, too. You end up with 96 runs batted in and 512 at-bats, which means you played a lot. You sort of carried your team, the Angels, in the second half of the season. You had only 13 errors at third base. And while you hit an unspectacular .256, at least you’re not part of a statistical trivia question anymore. (Only two active players have had a decline of 10 or more points in each of the last three seasons--minimum 200 at-bats: Milwaukee’s Robin Yount and DeCinces.) Stick that in your disc drive, you say.

You are in the playoffs--again. No one has broken your nose lately; that would make seven times if they did. You haven’t been platooned in months and get this, you might even win that Gold Glove you want so much. Good offensive numbers . . . Gold Glove . . . you figure that’s enough to convince the Angels you’re worth keeping come contract time.

You dig into your Italian entree. Good, you say. Your Mercedes, the one with the license plate that reads, GRT PLAY , is parked outside. Life is fine, indeed. You have overcome a first-half slump and, surprise, many of your own insecurities.

It’s just like old times when your old manager, Earl Weaver, would yell at you about something or other. Or remember when you had to replace Brooks Robinson in the lineup and the Baltimore Oriole fans booed? Or the strike season when you served as the American League player representative--what a pain.

Now you have this contract to worry about. You’d rather stay with the Angels than become a free agent, but you’ll leave if you must.

For the moment, though, you’re enjoying lunch. The owner stops by your table, and in an Italian accent, he tells you what a good man you are. Your eyes dart downward, you’re embarrassed, you thank him. A waitress stops by and asks you to autograph a sales check. You do it, smiling.

Later, you start answering more questions about yourself. Someone reminds you of all these annual struggles. The Brooks Robinson debacle one year, Earl Weaver the next. Position changes, slumps, the back (always the back) and now the contract uncertainties.

“Reggie (Jackson) has come up to me and said, ‘I really admire your ability to deal with all that negative stuff and come out on top.’ ” you say. “I’m proud of that. I mean, when I got that Player of the Month award, I knew there were only six guys who got that. To be able to come from where I was . . . I knew I could do it, it was just a matter of everything getting together.”

Guess what? You’re winning.

DeCinces says he can block life’s little distractions from his mind. He should; he’s had plenty of practice and distractions. Here they are, the Big Five:

DeCINCES AND DeCONTRACT

Here’s a popular story line:

Veteran Angel third baseman nears end of contract. Third baseman is eligible for free agency at season’s end. Third baseman wants negotiations settled before contract expires. Management says to go stick head in bucket of pine tar; no talks until off-season.

“It seems to me the time for loyalty is now, not after the season. Let’s face it, I’m a free agent then and would be foolish not to talk to everyone who might be interested. I mean, I’d like to stay here, but I also have to look out for myself and my family. I don’t want to say anything that would jeopardize my chances of staying, but . . . “

Sound vaguely familiar? It should. DeCinces said it in April 1983, as he waited for Angel management to decide his fate.

Now he waits once more. And the same uncertainty and frustration finds its way into his voice.

DeCinces, 36, says he would prefer to remain an Angel. He was born in Burbank, played at Monroe High in Sepulveda, later at Pierce College. He is comfortable here. But ask him what he would think about, say, returning to the Baltimore Orioles, where third basemen are paid by the hour these days, and DeCinces grins slightly. “That would be tampering,” he says. Pressed on the subject, DeCinces will only answer, “That’s definitely an option.”

There is talk that DeCinces and his agent, Ron Shapiro, might consider a deadline for negotiations with the Angels to begin. “At some point that might be said,” Shapiro said. “But there’s no reason to be confrontational until we have to be confrontational.”

Meaning what?

“I really can’t say,” Shapiro said. “I think the club is interesting. I think the odds are favorable (he will stay), but I wouldn’t predict in this new age of free agency.”

DeCinces also offers no predictions. He quit doing that a long time ago. But on occasion, he lets his mind wander to the old days, when lessons were taught.

“At times, when I go back (to Baltimore) now, I hear so many positive things about how I played and all that stuff,” DeCinces said. “When I was there, it wasn’t always that way. I overcame it and it really took a lot of mental toughness. But honestly, it let me deal with this situation this year. I went through so many mentally stressful things that it made me that much stronger inside, making me able to deal with these things and get through adverse conditions. I mean, there was Brooks Robinson, my back, dealing with Earl Weaver. I think that’s why I never folded under the pressures of the strike (season). Hey, somebody had to do it.”

HOT PADS HOT CORNER

The ritual begins hours before the game.

First, DeCinces has Angel trainers apply moist, hot pads to his lower back for a minimum of 10 minutes. DeCinces describes the pads as small canvas bags with a mud, sand combination that retain heat. After dressing, he stretches his back and leg muscles. Then he will jog slowly in the outfield grass. Next come sprints. “I don’t pick up a ball before I do this,” he said.

When the time comes to throw, DeCinces has learned not to hurry. He tosses the ball gently, slowly increasing the distance. Later, he’ll take his place at third, fielding ground balls, concentrating on his footwork, and always throwing to first.

“Look at him,” Manager Gene Mauch has said, looking out at DeCinces from the dugout. “He almost plays a game before the game.”

He has to; the back condition has seen to that. Given a chance to change one thing in his life, DeCinces answers quickly and without hesitation. “Never having a back problem,” he says.

DeCinces first injured his back in a high school basketball game. As he jumped toward the basket, another player hit DeCinces’ legs, causing him to land flat on his back. Seven years later, the injury was diagnosed as a compression fracture. Hardly a day passes when his back doesn’t remind DeCinces of that fall.

“It consumes you, it consumes your everyday life,” DeCinces said. “You have to adjust it.”

And so he has. But on occasion, his back refuses to cooperate.

During a game in 1979, DeCinces bent down to field a ground ball. And that’s where he stayed.

Team physicians predicted a 14-week absence. DeCinces returned in six, but would never be the same that season. By the end of 1980, DeCinces had had enough. “I thought, ‘How much more of this can I take?’

He considered surgery, but later chose a program that strengthened his back with weight training and flexibility exercises.

“I’m not the only player who has physical problems, where he gets out of bed and has trouble walking late in the season,” he said. “It’s been that way for eight years for me. There have been times when my back’s been hurting that the concern comes for the rest of my life.”

For now, his back causes little trouble. “But if you’re not careful in what you do, it can destroy a lot of happiness,” he said.

DeCINCES AND THE HUMAN VACUUM MACHINE

The year was 1970 and DeCinces had just returned home from his first season of professional baseball. Waiting for him was a draft notice. DeCinces didn’t open the envelope.

“Two days later, I was in the California Air National Guard,” he said.

It was in boot camp in San Antonio, Tex., that DeCinces first learned of the World Series exploits of one Brooks Calbert Robinson, Jr.--third baseman, Baltimore Orioles. Robinson’s fielding plays against the Cincinnati Reds are legendary: diving, instinctive, acrobatic plays that robbed Reds of hits and helped the Orioles to a World Series victory. It was no accident that Robinson won the Series MVP award that year.

“I remember my drill sergeant always telling me what happened,” DeCinces said. “I only got to see a couple of games here and there.”

DeCinces was invited to the Oriole camp in 1973. He arrived as an all-star shortstop and left soon after.

“Every position I came to take was a Gold Glove when I first came up: Boog Powell at first, Bobby Grich at second, Mark Belanger at short and Brooks at third,” he said. “I came up as a second baseman, as a shortstop. They sent me down to be a third baseman obviously because Belanger, Grich were going to play a lot longer than Brooks because of the age difference. I didn’t hit with enough power to play first. I was a utility player for two years waiting for my chance.

“The first time, Jim Frey was a coach then. He said, ‘We want you to go down and play third.’ I said, ‘Whoa, that’s where Brooksie plays.’ Frey explained it to me that Belanger and Grich were going to be there for a long time. He said, ‘We already know you can play short or second. We want you to learn third.’ I really had mixed emotions at that time. But they said it would be the quickest way to get to the big leagues. So I played the other positions when I came back up.”

By 1977, DeCinces had a full-time job at third. By 1978, he had confusion.

“In ’78 my wife miscarried the first day of spring training,” DeCinces said. “I didn’t get there until, well, I missed about four days. On my first workout, I took a few swings, walked out on the field and asked Frey, ‘How’s the ground out here?’ He said, ‘I don’t know, nobody’s been taking any ground balls.’

“He hit the first ground ball I took that spring and it took a bad hop and broke my nose extremely bad. It was one of those late bounces that came straight up.

“I came back--I had surgery and all that--and all of the sudden they come up to me with about 10 days of spring training left, and say, ‘We want you to play second.’ I said, ‘Excuse me? You just put me through three years of an unbelievable experience of replacing a living legend (Robinson), the guy’s still in uniform and the first year he’s not going to be in uniform, you want me to go back to second base?’ ”

DeCinces says the Orioles told him he could make more money by moving to second, that they could get another third baseman, but that power-hitting second basemen were more difficult to find.

“They talked me into it,” he said. “They tried to play Eddie Murray at third. The experiment lasted about four days, five days, then I went back to third. Then they tried someone else and I went back and forth. I was playing second base, third base, second base, third base. My hitting started to fail, my defense started failing. I got benched and had a major blowout with Earl. I turned around after that and had my best second half. I made one error the rest of the year and told (Weaver) to leave me alone and let me play third.”

DeCinces is weary and sensitive of comparisons made between him and Robinson. He is proud of his relationship with Robinson, but more proud of surviving and even prospering from the ordeal.

“Earl did everything possible to let (Robinson) continue playing,” he said. “I mean, he was hitting .200, .190, the last part of his career and he was still playing. Somebody would get hurt and he would go to third and I would go to the other position.

“(Robinson) still had a lot of pride, wanted to play, and people wanted to see him play,” he said. “He was such a respected individual as a player and as a person. Nobody had anything bad to say about Brooks Robinson.”

Instead, the Memorial Stadium audiences saved their worst for DeCinces.

“They were cruel,” he said. “It was the California Kid coming in to replace their loving veteran. The guy could have run for mayor and governor at the same time and won both races. I vividly remember the times being announced to go on the field because I was starting instead of Brooks, and the boos were there, just when they heard my name. I remember diving and knocking down a ball and if I didn’t complete the play I got booed.”

In the Orioles’ 30-year history, only two players have played 200 or more games at third base: Robinson and DeCinces. Since DeCinces came to the Angels in 1982, the Orioles have tried nearly 20 players at the position. Still, no suitable replacement.

DeCinces has followed the Orioles’ plight with interest and amusement. Did he convert Baltimore fans with his play?

“I think I did,” he said. “I think there are some that I never will win over. Now I think they really realize that. I feel like the artist that died and his paintings, all of the sudden they’re famous, but he wasn’t around to enjoy his success. Now I’m enjoying my success, but I’m elsewhere.”

And for the historians, DeCinces offers a final assessment of the dreaded comparison question.

“Honestly, I think I’ve got more range than he does,” he said. “That’s how I feel. Maybe people will disagree. The things I learned from him--his quick footwork, his ability to charge the ball. He had an unbelievable knack of knocking the ball down and keeping it in front of him. As a young player, I could never do that. At third, you’ve got to knock balls down. I guess I had harder body than he did and because they’d bounce farther away. Brooks’ hands will always rank as one the greatest. I think I have a better arm than he did and I think I could make that charging play as he did. And I think I get the ball to second (for the double play) as quick or quicker than anybody else.”

So noted.

PANNING FOR GOLD

DeCinces never has won a Gold Glove. You can hear the hair rise on the back of his neck when the subject is raised.

“I would hope I get it, but once again, I don’t vote,” he said. “Ever since I replaced Brooks Robinson, it’s something I’ve always wanted. But there’s always been (Graig) Nettles, (Buddy) Bell, (Aurelio) Rodriguez . . . those guys who have waited in the the wings for Brooks’ retirement.”

DeCinces has 12 errors playing almost an entire season. Oakland’s Carney Lansford has 4 in just 95 games and Rance Mulliniks has 6 in 109 games. Of those who play regularly, Wade Boggs of Boston has 19. All that should make DeCinces the logical favorite. Then again, DeCinces was the favorite in 1982. He didn’t get it.

“I don’t even know who won it in 1982 but if (DeCinces) didn’t, it’s terrible,” Mauch said. “He played as good a third base as a man can play. And he’s played it again the last couple of months like he did in ’82.”

Says Grich: “Just from what I’ve seen, I would think this is Doug’s year (to win a Gold Glove).”

PLAY ME OR TRADE ME, MAYBE

In this, the season of occasional discontent, DeCinces found himself in a dilemma. He wanted to play every day. He wasn’t sure if management felt the same way.

About halfway through the season, DeCinces was on the bench, replaced by Jack Howell at third. This didn’t please DeCinces.

“You could say that there was some discomfort,” said Shapiro, DeCinces’ agent. “The possibility of a trade was discussed (with Angel General Manager Mike Port). But that situation rapidly turned around.”

After 45 games, DeCinces was batting only .223 with 5 home runs and 24 runs-batted-in. But, in a 13-game stretch in June he hit 5 home runs, had 12 RBIs and 3 game-winning RBIs.

According to DeCinces, his ability to play on a full-time basis was questioned as early as spring training. He says he remembers one day in Toronto this season when Mauch “told me my approach to left-handers was so much better than my approach to right-handers. I looked at him and I said to myself, ‘Does he think that I am that dumb that I don’t understand that he is trying to tell me that I’m going to be platooned?’ Sure enough, that’s what started happening.

“Gene came up to me in spring training and told me I wasn’t moving that well at third base. I thought I was having one hell of a good defensive spring training. Was Gene trying to tell me something? I had made no errors through the middle of May. And after a long trip after Toronto, the next day I backed off from playing. That’s when (Mauch) jumped on me and my approach to the game. I asked him to tell me what balls I hadn’t got to. He couldn’t name any. All of the sudden I went out and made two errors that week. I was so (mad) that I let that negativeness get to me.

“I take a lot of pride in my play. I want to be a complete player. It goes back to being a platoon player, that did not sit with me at all. I don’t want to be a one-phase player. I mean, I don’t see Jack replacing me defensively at third right now. Nothing derogatory toward Jack, I just don’t see it in my eyes.”

You are Doug DeCinces and you have finished your meal. You have a game to play later that night so you sip on iced tea rather than a glass of wine. You don’t mind and so what if you didn’t win the team’s most valuable player award. You know what you did, and hey, Mike Witt had a great season.

You have pleasant memories of the regular season. Your back feels relatively fine and the statistics they will put on the back of your baseball card next year won’t bother you a bit. You have felt the sting of champagne in your eyes. Why, you even let your son Timmy take a swig or two from the bottle after the Angels won the division. Sopping wet you stood in the middle of the Angel clubhouse and smiled. What fun, and about time, too.

DOUGLAS VERNON DeCINCES Leaving Behind the many struggles. DeCINCES’ MAJOR LEAGUE PLAYING RECORD

Year Club AVG G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI 1973 Baltimore .111 10 18 2 2 0 0 0 3 1975 Baltimore .251 61 167 20 42 6 3 4 23 1976 Baltimore .234 129 440 36 103 17 2 11 42 1977 Baltimore .259 150 522 62 135 28 3 19 69 1978 Baltimore .286 142 511 72 146 37 1 28 80 1979 Baltimore .230 120 422 67 97 27 1 16 61 1980 Baltimore .249 145 489 64 122 23 2 16 64 1981 Baltimore .263 100 346 49 91 23 2 13 55 1982 California .301 153 575 94 173 42 5 30 97 1983 California .281 95 370 49 104 19 3 18 54 1984 California .259 146 547 77 147 23 3 20 82 1985 California .244 120 427 50 194 22 1 20 78 1986 California .256 140 512 69 131 20 3 26 96 Major Totals .261 1512 5347 712 1397 287 29 221 815

Year BB SO SB 1973 1 5 0 1975 13 32 0 1976 29 68 8 1977 64 86 8 1978 47 82 7 1979 54 68 5 1980 49 83 11 1981 41 32 0 1982 66 80 7 1983 32 56 2 1984 53 79 4 1985 47 71 1 1986 52 74 2 Major Totals 548 816 55