Reviews on Stubbs Promising : He Went to Movies to Improve Himself

On his personal scale, the private screenings shown last winter in Woodland Hills would get the highest rating for action and excitement, if not plot construction.

And although none of the films that Dodger first baseman Franklin Stubbs studied during the off-season will be coming soon to a theater near you, he highly recommends them for any slumping left-handed power hitter.

The screenings took place at the home of former Dodger Dusty Baker, Stubbs’ neighbor. Baker dug into his video library and brought out tapes of the batting styles and strokes of such former stars as Willie McCovey, Roberto Clemente and Orlando Cepeda.

Fellini or Woody Allen, it wasn’t. But for Stubbs, whose first full major league season in 1986 began with promise but degenerated into a horror show, the insight gained from the viewings has translated into a critical success at the plate this season.

Stubbs, embracing his new role as the club’s regular first baseman, is one of the hottest Dodgers in the first month of the season.

Going into tonight’s game with the Pittsburgh Pirates, the first game of the Dodgers’ eight-day Eastern trip, Stubbs is hitting .297 with 6 home runs and 15 runs batted in through the first 20 games.

Now that Stubbs is a hit--temporarily, at least, since the complete reviews will not be in until season’s end--it’s time to roll the credits.

Stubbs says his hot start can be attributed to the direction he received from Baker and his videos, as well as to Manny Mota, Dodger hitting coach, and his special spring training drills. Stubbs also says he can concentrate more on hitting, now that he is the club’s regular first baseman.

Judging by a few of the long-distance home run shots Stubbs has launched, not to mention a towering near miss--it went foul--last week at Candlestick Park in San Francisco that conjured images of McCovey, it seems that Stubbs picked up quite a lot from the movies.

“You can’t imitate anybody, no matter how much you try,” Stubbs said. “You have to be yourself. But you can pick up on some things and learn things. Dusty knows a lot about the game. I told him that I was going to suck all the knowledge out of him until he doesn’t have any more in him.”

Stubbs said that Baker dispensed lots of hitting tips but that mostly they sat down and analyzed tapes.

“The key thing is, you watch their approach,” Stubbs said. “Their approach is balance. That’s what makes them such good hitters. When those guys are hitting well, they are waiting on the ball. They don’t jump at nothing. They have a nice and easy swing, and they wait for the ball to get to them.”

That, basically, is what the Dodgers have tried to tell Stubbs since 1984, when he got to the major leagues. Maybe a visual aid was needed to get the point across.

Much of the time during his first two years as a big leaguer, Stubbs’ hitting included few of the virtues he now espouses. Impatient and eager for home runs, Stubbs often swung at pitches that either were not in the strike zone or out of his preferred zone. He hardly ever tried to hit to the opposite field.

His statistics last season showed promise of sustained power--23 home runs and 58 RBIs--but his .226 average was obviously insufficient and he struck out 107 times.

In the first three months of the season, replacing Pedro Guerrero in left field and filling in for Greg Brock at first base, Stubbs had 15 home runs and was hitting in the mid-.200s. After that, though, he hit only .182 and suffered through 1-for-36 and 3-for-30 slumps. “We talked a lot about being more patient,” Mota said. “Franklin had a lot of problems, but it’s not that they can’t be worked out.

“He was trying to pull everything and hit it out of the park. We know he can hit home runs, but we want him to hit for average, too. He has the talent to do it over a whole season.”

Evidence to support Mota’s claim already has been submitted.

During a recent seven-game stretch, Stubbs, 26, showed his powerful side, hitting five home runs, two of them in one game at Candlestick Park. Two games later, against the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium, facing left-hander Craig Lefferts, Stubbs had an RBI single on a pitch he probably would have popped up in the past. His next time up, Stubbs laid down a two-out bunt single that scored a runner from third.

“I’ve got to be a hitter in the clutch who can drive in RBIs,” Stubbs said. “Home runs are nice and I like them because it excites the crowd, but I’ve got to hit for an average, too.

“It’s like what Tommy Davis (Dodger minor league hitting instructor) once told me. He said, ‘If you hit 35 (home runs) but don’t hit but .220, you better hit .220 every year. If you can mix in a single and double in there with a home run, it makes a difference.”

Hitting homers is still Stubbs’ specialty, as his performance in San Francisco a week ago tonight proved. Having already hit a home run in the fourth inning, Stubbs came up in the ninth inning with two out and two runners on base.

Stubbs, admittedly trying for a home run, hit the first pitch into the second deck down the right-field line, but the ball sailed a few feet right of the foul pole. He fouled off the next pitch and, with the count 0 and 2, consulted with Mota and was reminded to try to make contact.

Stubbs made contact, all right. He hit a line drive over the fence in right-center, temporarily giving the Dodgers the lead. The funny thing about it, Stubbs said, was that he wasn’t trying to hit a home run.

“I don’t have to try to hit the ball out of the park anymore,” Stubbs said. “I just made contact on that home run.”

Said Mota: “He’s very strong. He can hit the ball out of the park at any angle. When you are that strong, you don’t have to swing hard to hit home runs.”

For that to happen, Stubbs has to wait for good pitches. He hasn’t always done that.

To teach Stubbs the strike zone this spring, Mota made him stand at the plate against live pitching and call the pitches before they reached the catcher.

Mota says that age and experience will help Stubbs develop a good batting eye. “He was always too anxious,” Mota said. “He wanted to pull everything. He had problems against left-handers and curves, but he just wanted to (hit) so bad.”

In other years, Stubbs felt the need to prove himself in hopes of winning the job as the starting first baseman. That pressure is gone, now that Brock is in Milwaukee and Sid Bream in Pittsburgh.

“It takes away a lot of concentration, not knowing whether you’re going to be playing or where you’ll play,” Stubbs said. “I was hoping to someday play the position that I grew up playing. It’s a lot easier for me now.”

In 1982, when the Dodgers drafted Stubbs in the first round, he wondered where--or if--he would fit in. At the time, Steve Garvey was in his last season as the Dodgers’ first baseman, and Mike Marshall, Brock and Bream all were promising first basemen in the organization.

But Marshall was moved to right field and Bream and Brock eventually were traded.

“I remember sitting in my dormitory (room as a junior at Virginia Tech) with a cameraman and some writers and we were talking about how it would be ironic if the Dodgers drafted another first baseman,” Stubbs said. “Not five seconds later, the phone rang and that was it.

“Everything happens for a purpose, so maybe it had to work out that way. Right now, I’m just trying to keep hitting and doing the things that will keep me in the lineup.”