From Socks to Whiffle Balls, Outfielder Gets Into the Swing : John Kruk: He’s Hitting It Off With the Padres

The first thing he can remember swinging at was a pair of rolled-up socks, and hitting them with a broomstick was as challenging--in its own way--as facing Fernando Valenzuela.

Later, when living in New Jersey, he advanced to stickball. Then it was on to swatting Styrofoam balls in the garage and finally backyard Wiffle Ball, using a couple of lawn chairs to mark the strike zone.

John Kruk of the Padres is still learning about hitting. He doesn’t pose as an expert who can see the rotation of the ball as it leaves the pitcher’s hand or offer fancy theories on the physics of hitting.

“I just do what comes natural,” said Kruk, 26, who hit .309 last year as a rookie. “I stay away from the scientific approach. If I tried to think too much, I couldn’t hit a lick.”

Pitchers often take the licking when Kruk grabs a thick-handled bat, moves slowly to the plate, then settles into his funny-looking upright stance. His rear foot nearly out of the batter’s box, his front foot aimed at first base, he holds the bat near his ear and waggles it as the pitcher begins his motion.

He usually can tell what is coming--fastball or breaking ball--by the position of the pitcher’s hand as he releases the baseball. He usually can follow the ball until it’s a foot or two away from impact with his 35-ounce bat.

He lacks power--only 11 homers in his best year in the minors and only four last year. His slumps come when he tries, in his phrase, to muscle up and pull the ball, so he prefers to slash the ball to left field.

But he has hit .300 for the past five years as he moved up from Class-A Reno, Nev., to Double-A Beaumont, Tex., to Triple-A Las Vegas to San Diego.

Kruk, who at 5-feet 10-inches and 195 pounds is sometimes called Tubs by his teammates, ranked among baseball’s best hitters last year in clutch situations. His batting average with runners on base and two out was .465. It was .484 with runners in scoring position and two out.

“Is that right? I wish I’d known that this winter,” he said with a show of mock disgust, thinking of the dollars he might have cost himself in contract negotiations.

He’s likely to make up the difference in the long run.

A silver bat, emblematic of leading the league in hitting, would seem within reach, though he is slow afoot and doesn’t get many infield hits.

“A batting title isn’t that important to me, but I think I could compete for one someday,” Kruk said. “But I’ll tell you what I really want, and that’s to throw champagne on Tim Flannery and Steve Garvey and Lance McCullers after we win a championship. And I want ‘em to throw us a parade, like they did for the Mets last fall.”

John Kruk the ballplayer isn’t much different from John Kruk the ordinary guy. Nothing artificial, nothing contrived. He just does what feels natural, the way folks back home in Keyser, W. Va., like him.

After a year in the big leagues, he doesn’t want to lose his instinct for the natural, but it took a trip home to remind him that he can’t take his old self for granted.

Kruk had three weeks off after playing winter ball and elected to spend them in Keyser. He visited old friends, had a few beers, caught up on old times and managed to offend a young woman he hadn’t seen in about six years.

When he went to a health club for a workout, Kruk didn’t recognize the woman in charge. When he didn’t speak, she chastised him.

“What’s the matter, John, you can’t speak to me now that you’re in the big leagues,” she said.

Put in his place, Kruk vowed not to let himself lose touch with what he’s always been.

“She told me people would kill me if I changed,” Kruk said. “She was right, too. My parents would kill me and so would my brothers. I’d probably kill myself.

“I feel comfortable in the big leagues. I don’t know if it’s ego, or what, but it gives you a feeling of pride knowing you’re one of the top players in the world. But I’m still just a normal, ordinary person too, and I want to stay one.”

If he hadn’t become a world-class hitter, Kruk probably would be working in a bottle factory, like his father, or perhaps toiling in the coal mines.

A baseball and basketball star in high school, he attended Allegheny Community College before being drafted by the Padres in 1981.

After hitting .351 at Las Vegas in 1985, he made the Padre roster last spring as a pinch-hitter. He played regularly in the second half of the season but realized that he would have to improve defensively to hold a starting position.

“I don’t think I’m that bad an outfielder,” Kruk said. “But I keep hearing I’m bad, so I’m working real hard this spring. I want to become a complete player so I don’t hear the rap, ‘He can hit, but we gotta hide him on defense.’

“I want to become good enough so they leave me in there in the eighth and ninth inning, not come out because of my defense in the sixth or seventh.”

Kruk has worked on his defense, throwing and fielding ground balls down the line and line drives right at him this spring. He’s also trying to improve his mental alertness, so he will know where to throw the ball when he gets it.

“I’m trying to think about situations,” he said. “In the past, I always thought if they hit it to me I’d just catch it and throw it in. I never worried about the little things.

“I’ve been listening to Tony Gwynn on playing the hitters and positioning, and I’m trying to get a better jump so I can reach balls I used to be a half step from getting. I used to think as long as I hit they’d find a place for me, but I was never so wrong about anything in my life.”

With an aggressive new manager, Larry Bowa, and a platoon of promising young outfielders pushing him, Kruk has discovered that he can’t be content with his defense. His future probably is at first base, once Steve Garvey retires, but for the next few seasons he’s going to be mostly playing in the outfield.

The thing he won’t change is his hitting style.

“There could be a world crisis going on, but as long as I have a bat in my hands I’m comfortable,” he said. “People can joke all they want about my stance, but I know I couldn’t hit any other way.”

General Manager Jack McKeon said Kruk might be capable of hitting as many as 12 to 15 home runs a year, once he acquires more knowledge of National League pitchers.

Kruk, however, would prefer not to listen to such talk.

“Whenever I try to hit a home run, I usually start pulling off the ball and get in a slump,” he said. “The home runs I’ve hit come when I’m just swinging nice and easy.

“Sometimes I go crazy and think I can hit the ball out, but I never seem to make contact when I muscle up. It gets oohs and aahs from the fans if you take a big swing, but what’s the use if you don’t make contact?”

There’s nothing harder to make contact with than the Wiffle Balls thrown by his brother in the fall, according to Kruk.

“He can make that thing sink a foot,” Kruk said. “Playing with him has helped my concentration and ability to stay with a pitch. You can’t give up on that Wiffle Ball.”

Kruk was struggling and thinking about giving up baseball early in his third season in the minor leagues, when he was playing in Beaumont. It took a call from his brother, Joe, to put him on the right course.

“If it’s too tough for you,” Joe Kruk said, “you can just come on back home and we can play Wiffle Ball.”

Almost immediately, Kruk started hitting and went from .250 to .341 by season’s end. He hasn’t been under .300 in any season since.