ARMAS PLAYS HARD : He Wants Another Shot at Those Major League Walls

The story goes that when Tony Armas was little--was this guy ever little?--his father would hit him whenever he caught Tony playing the forbidden game--baseball.

Jose Armas, a practical man, worked for the electric company in Piritu, Venezuela, and considered baseball hazardous to his son’s body and a frivolous obstacle to Tony’s chances of finding a good job.

But Tony loved the game. Since the first grade, he had played it behind his father’s back. It wasn’t until he was 16 that Tony played in a league, but by the time he was 17 he was playing for Venezuela’s national team in an international tournament.

Also when he was 17, a man from the Pittsburgh Pirates showed up at the Armas home, offering Tony a lot of money to play the forbidden game.

Jose asked his son not to go. He feared that Tony would come back injured. But friends of Jose Armas reminded him that Tony had always been the strongest and fastest boy in town. He had excelled in volleyball and soccer as well as baseball. Jose relented. That was 1971.

In 1973, Tony spent almost two months on the disabled list after being hit on the wrist by a pitched ball. That started the painful pattern of his playing career, a pattern that has landed him him here in western Canada, attempting a comeback with the Angels’ Triple-A team.

Tony Armas, for now anyway, is an Edmonton Trapper.

In 10 major league seasons--starting in 1977 with the Oakland A’s and ending in 1986 with the Boston Red Sox--Armas was on the disabled list six times.

In that time, though, he managed to become something of a star. He had, by reputation, one of the strongest arms in baseball. He twice led the American League in home runs, once in RBIs.

But it seemed that he was forever hurting, even when he wasn’t on the disabled list. The trouble usually had something to do with his legs and usually was related to his running into outfield walls.

Jose Armas had been right. Baseball had hurt his son. And when he was released by the Red Sox in 1986, not one team was interested in signing him. The strongest boy in Piritu was 33, damaged goods and out of work.

The Angels signed Armas to a standard minor league contract June 30, hoping that he can become, in the words of Mike Port, Angel general manager, “the Tony Armas of three years ago.”

In 1984, Armas led the American League in home runs with 43 and RBIs with 123. He also led the league in striking out, 156 times in 157 games.

The next season, he spent more than a month on the disabled list with a torn calf muscle and played in only 103 games. His home runs dropped to 23, his RBIs to 64. In 1986, with leg injuries still bothering him, Armas played in 121 games but hit only 11 home runs and had 58 RBIs.

That convinced every other team in baseball that Armas was through. But Port heard from scouts Esuebio Perez and Pompyo Davillo, who had seen Armas play winter ball in Venezuela, that he still had something left.

How much is left is what Edmonton will gauge. If it’s enough, expect Tony Armas to appear in an Angel uniform soon.

“With a player the caliber of Tony Armas, you expect 25-30 home runs,” Port said. “We believe he still has the ability, and we believe Tony can get back to those type credentials. Right now, the most important thing is for him to get into shape and to make successful progress.”

Armas’ progress so far has not been startling. Going into Thursday night’s game with Albuquerque, he was batting .211 with 8 hits in 38 at-bats. He had no homers and three RBIs.

But Armas’ chest and arms are still massive, lending the impression that he is much taller than the reported 6 feet 1 inch. And in his fourth game as a Trapper, with his timing still off, Armas hit a 345-foot double with the power of his arms. Without striding into the ball, he basically threw the bat into the ball the way someone drives an ax into a tree.

“He can still hit the ball as far as anyone in baseball,” said DeWayne Buice, Angel relief pitcher who played winter ball with Armas in Venezuela. “He’s unbelievably strong.”

He also appears a bit wider in the hips. He is listed at 200 pounds on the Trapper score card but seems heavier than he was when he played for the Red Sox in ‘86, when he was listed at 220.

“I feel great,” Armas said. “My legs are great, my arm is good. Triple-A has been good for me. I think in two or three weeks I can be back to what Tony Armas was. I know I can still play every day and I’m going to go on until someone proves to me I can’t play anymore.”

One question is, why? Why can’t he be content to let the Tony Armas of three years ago rest on his merit.

Money isn’t a problem. Multimillion-dollar contracts have made him financially secure.

Is it history?

“I guess I don’t have to prove anything to anyone,” he said. “Why? I’m not sure myself why. But I know I can help some team. I think I might have two or three years left in me.”

Perhaps what drives Armas is the same force that sent him crashing head-first into outfield walls.

In 1980, Carney Lansford, then of the Angels, hit a ball into the gap at Anaheim Stadium. Armas, playing right field for Oakland, raced toward the ball and kept racing until he hit the wall.

Armas said he felt dizzy immediately afterward, but he finished the inning. When he went into the dugout, the Oakland trainer took one look at his eyes and told Armas that he was coming out of the game. Armas argued, and he kept arguing right up until he passed out in the dugout runway.

It was in Oakland during the early 1980s that Armas first achieved fame. He played in an outfield that was called by some the best defensive outfield of all time. Rickey Henderson was in left, Dwayne Murphy in center, Armas in right.

They were all fast and aggressive, played shallow and dared batters to hit the ball over them. Armas had the best arm of the three, throwing out 17 runners in 1980. Against the Boston Red Sox that year, he threw out runners attempting to go from first to third in consecutive innings.

“I had a lot of fun playing in that outfield,” Armas said. “I don’t know if it was the best, I’ll let someone else worry about that. What I loved about it was you could just go after the ball. Just go for it, that’s the way I like to play.”

Angel Manager Gene Mauch compared that Oakland outfield to a football secondary in aggressiveness and speed. Armas has been playing left field for the Trappers, and he still crouches in the stance of a defensive back before each pitch.

The arm, though not as powerful, is still strong. Throwing from first base, Armas, while warming up with Trapper center fielder Tack Wilson, backed Wilson to the left-center-field wall of Edmonton’s John Ducey Stadium, finally throwing a ball on a line over Wilson’s head to the wall.

To the wall, one way or another.

“Anyone who takes the game serious knows what this is about,” Armas said. “Baseball is my job. I love it, but it’s my job. I like to play hard. That’s the only way I know how to play. Maybe if I didn’t play so hard, I wouldn’t get hurt. But I can’t do that.”

The Angels’ acquisition of Armas has led to speculation that center fielder Gary Pettis, who is having a dismal season offensively, will be benched, Devon White moved to center and Armas moved into right field.

“I’m glad I read that in the papers, since I had no idea that’s what we were doing,” Port said. “Acquiring Tony Armas is in no way related to that (Pettis’ situation). We are judging Tony Armas on his own merit.”

Armas said the only thing he’s interested in is giving, not taking away.

“Gary Pettis is a great player,” he said. “I don’t want to take anyone’s job. I just want to get back.”

And then Tony Armas will once again regain the game that has been forbidden to him so many times.