Barfield: He Has the Game, Not the Fame

If someone on the New York Mets or New York Yankees had hit 66 home runs in a little over a year and a half, and had driven in 108 runs the year before, he’d probably be the subject of three or more paperbacks.

He would have been on “The Today Show” a half a dozen times, been on subway cards advertising everything from shoe polish to chewing gum, and been a recognizable silhouette in every house that had a color TV set.

All right, so who is Jesse Lee Barfield, and--here comes the tough part--what does he look like and what does he do for a living?

I’ll give you a clue. He’s not a senator from North Carolina, a stock car driver or a famous Western outlaw.

He’s the reigning home run champion of the major leagues, is what he is. He’s the successor to Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, Hank Greenberg and all those legends. Tell me, you don’t know what those guys look like.

Jesse Barfield is a nice, pleasant young man with a nice smile, a swing you could set to music, and he forms one-half of the most potent offensive force in baseball today. If George Bell and Jesse Barfield played in the Big Apple, if they even played in their own country, they’d be known as B.& B. Or the B-Boys. The Killer Bees. As it is, they’re known as “Who?”

These Who Boys had 71 home runs and 216 runs batted in between them last season. This year, Bell is on the 40-homer target--he has 39--and Barfield should end in the high 30s.

They are part of the fastest, and maybe the best, outfield in baseball.

Their problem is, they don’t play in this country. They are part of baseball’s Canadian capers.

The Toronto Blue Jays will never be America’s team but they may be the American League’s team this year.

If they are, and they get into the World Series, will somebody suddenly wake up to the fact that a very good baseball team is operating north of the border, one that may belong to the ages and not just to those funny neighbors of ours who say, “Oot” for “out,” and live in places called Moose Jaw and Medicine Hat?

Will even a World Series strip away the galling anonymity of playing in another latitude? Will the world find out who Jesse Barfield is, to say nothing of the other star performers on this orphan of baseball that fate decreed should play so far from Madison Avenue and Hollywood and Vine?

The thought amuses Jesse Barfield. “The pitchers know who we are,” he says, smiling. “The outfielders who back up when we come to the plate know who we are. The true baseball fan knows who we are.”

But it was Bill Veeck, no less, who knew the grand old game as no one did, who said: “If you have to depend solely on people who know and love the game, you will be out of business by Mother’s Day.”

Where does this leave Jesse (Himself) Barfield, who sometimes comes to towns where they misspell his name on the scoreboard or you hear someone in the lobby saying, “What in the world is a Blue Jay?”

“We learn to live with it,” supplies Jesse. “Our fans grow with us. They were tentative at first but they get into it now. They know us and they know what to expect.”

Does this mean they have gone from polite silence to, “Call yourself a ballplayer, Barkfield?” in 10 short years?

Barfield laughs. “No. We’re not New York, yet. We’re more like L.A. If you win, it’s nice. If you don’t, it’s too bad.”

Winning is its own promotion. And the Blue Jays with Bell and Barfield do that very well. One pennant is worth a thousand helmet nights.

But you also need product identification. It’s hard to be the toast of Canada as long as Wayne Gretzky is in it.

Barfield has hit 154 home runs in little more than five years as a Toronto Blue Jay. That would seem to leave him well short of Aaron’s all-time homer pace--until you remember that Henry had only 140 homers after his first five years.

If 40 home runs and the leadership in the majors aren’t enough to make you a household word on the order of, say, Darryl Strawberry or Don Mattingly, what does Jesse Barfield have to do? Could he hit 60 home runs?

“I don’t set goals for myself,” says the real Jesse Barfield. “I figure my job is just to try to drive the ball someplace. I don’t set out to get 200 hits or 100 RBIs. They just happen. I don’t try for home runs. Home runs just happen, too.

“I’d like to get 60 home runs because that would help the team, maybe over the hump, but to get 60 home runs, you have to be a disciplined hitter. You have to make the pitcher come in with your pitch. You don’t get a gopher ball on an 0-and-2 count.”

Short of hitting 60 home runs, how can he make the world sit up and take notice that a pretty good ballplayer is in left field for the what’s-their-names from the northern provinces? “That’s easy!” Jesse Barfield says. “Get in the World Series and win it!”

When that happens--and this year it’s not impossible--fans will have no trouble remembering the names of a Jesse Barfield and the Toronto outfielders. It’s the ones in New York they may have trouble recalling.