UCI’s Brady Anderson Learning With Red Sox

Here’s a story of a man named Brady:

Opening day, April 4, 1988. Detroit at Boston. The starting center fielder for the Red Sox is 24-year-old rookie Brady Anderson, who played for UC Irvine from 1982-85. Anderson is the first rookie to make his debut on opening day for the Red Sox since Joe Lahoud in 1968.

Jack Morris is pitching for Detroit. And Anderson, hitting leadoff, gets three singles in five at-bats.

When a rookie gets his first major league hit, a baseball tradition is for an umpire to toss the ball out of play, and April 4 was no exception. The ball would be given to Anderson as a memento.

After the game, Red Sox pitcher Bruce Hurst approached Anderson.

“He said, ‘Hey, Brady, way to go--your first major league hit,’ ” Anderson said. “He said, ‘Here, here’s the ball.’ And then he dropped it in the mud.”

So Anderson picked it up, and started to read the inscription: “Bradi Anderson, First Hit Off Jake Morris.”

“He really butchered it,” Anderson said.

His teammates were watching with interest.

“They were waiting for me to get mad,” he said. “But I didn’t care. I just wanted the hit rather than the ball.”

Anderson got both. Turned out to be a setup--the mudball Hurst gave him wasn’t the one he stroked for a single. So Anderson got his first major league hit and first major league prank in the same day.

“It was a pretty good one,” he said.

Dwight Evans, a 15-year veteran, has seen plenty of stars emerge in Boston, including Fred Lynn, Jim Rice and Wade Boggs. Could Anderson be next?

“He’s an aggressive player,” Evans said. “I like his style. Someday, he’s going to be a real fine ballplayer. His fundamentals in the outfield are exceptional.”

Said Manager John McNamara: “Brady Anderson is a fine young talent. He has a tremendous future.”

The fact that Anderson, who bats and throws left-handed, is with Boston this year is somewhat of a surprise. Most people figured he would get another year in the minors. After graduating from Carlsbad High School in 1982, he enrolled at Irvine. Anderson led the Anteaters in average (.345) in 1984 and runs-batted in (49) in 1985. He was Boston’s 10th-round pick in the June 1985 draft. And in his 2 1/2-year minor league career, he played in just 23 games at the triple-A level. But he made the most of those games, batting .380 at Pawtucket.

Still, a year ago he was playing double-A ball at New Britain (Conn.). How did he make the jump from Pittsfield and Reading to facing New York and Oakland so quickly? Luck, some say, is when preparation meets opportunity. If that’s true, then Anderson was lucky.

He was promoted to Boston’s major league roster in November and received a good look in center field during spring training when Ellis Burks, the regular, had a bone chip removed from his right ankle.

Anderson quickly became the talk of the camp. By the end of spring training, his batting average was .326, and he had 11 runs batted in--including three game-winners.

When camp broke, Burks was still hurting, and Boston temporarily had a new center fielder.

Problem is, the season wasn’t freeze-framed after opening day.

In the season’s third game, Anderson began sloshing through an 0-for-20 slump. He hasn’t fully recovered. A brief hot streak, in which he went 8 for 17 at the end of April, improved his average to .277. But through Wednesday, he was hitting .238.

“He has some things to learn,” Evans said. “But this is a game of learning. I’m still learning, and I’m in my 16th year. Right now he’s learning the pitchers, learning how to play players in the outfield and learning different situations. But he’s a very intelligent kid, and he should have very little trouble learning. The best way to learn is to see things for yourself.

“He’s been really forced up through the system, but there’s a reason for it. Obviously, they think he can handle it.”

Anderson has not had much stability, either--offensively or defensively. As McNamara has searched for a winning combination, Anderson has been shuffled between the first and ninth spots in the batting order.

Burks came back on April 12, and Anderson, who spent most of his minor league career in center field, was moved to right. He remained there until April 30, when Burks jammed his left wrist, and Anderson returned to center. That lasted until May 8, when Anderson again shifted to right as Burks returned.

“In the beginning (switching to right field) was a little uncomfortable for me,” Anderson said. “But now, I’m starting to feel used to it, and I think I’m going to make the transition pretty easily.

“I prefer center field, but I understand why I have to play right field, and I’ll do whatever it takes to play--center field, right field, left field, whatever.”

Said McNamara: “People in our organization thought he’d be a better right fielder, with our having Burks in center. Plus, he goes to the line well, and being left-handed, he can throw to any position.”

There is a huge difference in Anderson’s batting average when he plays center. In games he has started there, he’s hitting .297. When he starts in right, he’s hitting .200.

“Just a coincidence,” Anderson said.

“Coincidence,” McNamara agreed.

Is there a concern that the Red Sox are pushing him too fast?

“Not on my part there isn’t,” McNamara said. “We did the same thing with Ellis Burks, and he’s one of the finest young players in the American League right now. We think Brady Anderson has the ability and the makeup to do the same thing.”

Toward the beginning of the season, when the hits stopped dropping, the threat of being sent back to the minor leagues haunted him. But one day in April, McNamara sat him down.

“He was real good about it,” Anderson said of McNamara. “He came up and said, ‘Look, you’re not going down to Pawtucket.’ That helped me out a lot.”

Now, there’s a different type of pressure.

“I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve started off a season in a slump since I’ve been in the majors. It’s not the best thing to happen at the beginning of a season.”

Despite the fact that he’s not hitting the ball as consistently as he would like, he has shown enough potential to impress others.

Said Evans: “He definitely has the talent, there’s no question in my mind. I think he can be a .300 hitter someday. He bunts, runs well, and hits from the left side . . . those are all pluses.”

Monday night, Anderson played for the first time as a major leaguer in Anaheim Stadium, 60 miles and six years up the road from Carlsbad High School. Some 75 friends and family members attended the game, including 50 in a block of seats his father purchased in right field. A white banner flapped in the wind above Anderson:

We Love You

5

The Brady Bunch

Although he was 0 for 5 Monday, he made a couple of important defensive plays and enjoyed performing for familiar faces.

It was almost enough to match his opening-day thrills.

“Getting three hits off Jack Morris is the highlight,” he said. “I was hoping by now it wouldn’t be, but it’s turned out that way.”