THE KANSAS CITY KID : Kurt Stillwell Finds His Comfort Zone With the Royals

Kurt Stillwell pushes through the doors into the spacious home clubhouse at Royals Stadium and sidles, with a smile as bright as his future, to his dressing stall near the corner of the room.

It is 3 p.m., more than four hours before the Kansas City Royals’ game against the Cleveland Indians. Rain has been falling most of the day, but the gray sky and menacing weather have not dampened the spirit of Stillwell, the boyish-turned-brutish shortstop who has taken the American League by storm since arriving in town as part of a four-player deal with the Cincinnati Reds.

“Being here is new life for me,” Stillwell said. “Great does not cover it. This is where I’m supposed to be. I really feel like I fit in and belong here.”

Many general managers agree that Stillwell has found his niche--but they wish he belonged to their teams.

“We went to the winter meetings and people kept coming up to us all the time,” Royals Manager John Wathan said. “It got to be a joke. Before we opened our mouths, people were asking, ‘How did you get Stillwell?’ ”

Baseball executives who thought Stillwell would be a good pickup before the season began are even more convinced at this juncture. Because, based on Stillwell’s performance this season, stardom is within his range.

Stillwell, who played at Thousand Oaks High, is batting .266 with six home runs and 26 runs batted in. He was named the American League Player of the Week for May 16-22 when, in seven games, he was 9 for 23 (.391), including home runs in three consecutive games at Minnesota, with nine runs and 10 RBIs.

In just 53 games, Stillwell already has surpassed last season’s combined totals for home runs (3) and is nearing the combined total for runs batted in (28) of Royals shortstops Buddy Biancalana and Angel Salazar.

“We thought when we got him that we were getting a young guy who still had some growing time left and that we could give him that with everyday play,” Royals General Manager John Schuerholz said. “Quite candidly, he has been more than we had hoped for. I think he has a chance to be an all-star shortstop in the American League in a few years.”

Since the retirement of two-time All-Star Fred Patek in 1979, U. L. Washington, Onix Concepcion, Biancalana, Ross Jones and Salazar all have played shortstop for the Royals.

Stillwell, 23, is expected to hold onto his position for years. He has impressed Wathan with his bat control and instincts and has been moved from ninth to leadoff in the batting order.

“Kurt has given us something we haven’t had since U. L. Washington--a two-way player,” relief pitcher Dan Quisenberry said. “We’ve had some guys who could play good defense but we haven’t had a guy who could also hit.”

And take a hit. Stillwell, 5 feet, 11 inches and 175 pounds, has demonstrated resiliency around second base where he and gold glove second baseman Frank White have had few problems coordinating on double plays.

“He’s a little guy, but he’s probably the toughest shortstop I’ve seen, pound for pound,” outfielder Bo Jackson said.

Perhaps the most unheralded aspect of Stillwell’s performance thus far has been his defense: He has committed just four errors.

“Everyone is talking about his offense, but his defense has been absolutely incredible,” catcher Jamie Quirk said. “Nobody has played a better shortstop in the American League than Kurt Stillwell.”

Stillwell, whose father Ron played for the Washington Senators, thought he was going to exhibit his skills in the National League. He learned about his trade to the Royals on Nov. 6 when he received an 8 a.m. phone call from Cincinnati General Manager Murray Cook, who informed him that he and pitcher Ted Power were being sent to Kansas City in exchange for pitcher Danny Jackson and Salazar.

“When he said it, I didn’t want to sound too excited,” said Stillwell, whose name had surfaced regularly in trade rumors last season. “There are some good people in the Cincinnati organization that helped me and I have some good fans there. But I was excited about the opportunity because I heard through friends in the Royals organization that there was need for an everyday shortstop. That’s what I’ve worked all my life to become.”

Stillwell appeared to be well on his way to achieving his goal in Cincinnati when the Reds made him their No. 1 pick and the second player selected overall in the 1983 June draft. Billed as the heir to Dave Concepcion and the team’s shortstop for the next decade, Stillwell quickly advanced through the Reds’ minor league system, playing rookie ball at Billings in 1983 and Class A at Cedar Rapids the following year before making the jump to triple A at Denver in 1985.

In 1986, three years out of high school, Stillwell was on the Reds’ opening day roster. He was optioned to Denver in late June but was recalled less than two weeks later and finished the season batting .229 in 104 games.

Last season, however, Stillwell went from being the Reds shortstop-for-the-next-decade to middle-infield reserve to second-baseman-for-the-next-decade when Barry Larkin--a Cincinnati native, member of the 1984 U. S. Olympic team and the Reds’ No. 1 pick in the 1985 draft--became the everyday shortstop shortly after the All-Star break.

“I really can’t say anything bad about the organization because there are some good people over there and they did give me a chance to play in the big leagues at a young age,” said Stillwell, who batted .258 last year. “But it was frustrating. . . . There was a lack of communication and I think for the younger players that was a big thing that was missing. Here it’s a whole different story.”

Power, more than anyone else, has witnessed the impact the change of setting and managers has had on Stillwell.

“It’s real easy to talk to Duke whereas it wasn’t very easy to talk to Pete,” Power said in comparing Wathan to Reds Manager Pete Rose. “Plus, this team is a lot lower keyed than Cincinnati. It was loud over there with Dave Parker, Dave Concepcion and even myself.

“The guys over here are easy to get along with and they all seem to have picked up the tendencies of the Midwest. I mean, it’s like they’re all from Kansas. In Cincinnati you had more of a metropolitan type of player.”

Stillwell, characterized by several teammates as “more of a Midwestern kid than a California kid,” is visibly relaxed in his new surroundings and seems a perfect fit with the Royals, who have worked diligently to present a clean-cut, wholesome image.

Take, for example, the scenic stadium where a grounds crew sweeps the immaculate artificial turf and changes the bases every 2 1/2 innings . . . where waterfalls cascade and fountains spout beyond the outfield wall . . . where organ music fills the stadium between innings and pitches. How many teams make nightly announcements offering fans free road maps showing the best routes from the stadium to their homes?

“I listen to country music and the whole bit,” Stillwell said. “And I love to fish. We have a lot of guys like that on this team.

“There’s just a different feeling around the clubhouse than there was in Cincinnati. People don’t strut around here. They just take it day to day. We’ve got some superstars that could strut around, but they don’t. That’s nice to see.”

Just as he did in 1984 when Bret Saberhagen and Mark Gubicza came up from the minors and again in 1987 when Kevin Seitzer joined the major league team, George Brett has given advice--and home furnishings--to help ease Stillwell’s transition to the Royals.

“He’s going to be a great, great player,” Brett said. “There is no doubt in my mind. He’s real good now and he’s only going to get better.”

Stillwell’s emergence at the plate began in spring training when Royals hitting coach Mike Lum began to rework the swing that Stillwell had fashioned under former Cincinnati hitting coach Billy DeMars.

“I could see on videotapes of him in Cincinnati that he was trying to pull everything so he ended up hitting a lot of fly balls,” Lum said. “We worked on getting him to lay off the high fastball and use the whole field. He’s learned and it’s given him use of 100% of the field instead of 50%.”

If there is a knock against Stillwell it is that he sometimes works too hard for his own good.

“I just hope he doesn’t throw his arm out,” Royals pitcher Charlie Leibrandt said. “He throws the ball 100 miles an hour in infield practice every day. As soon as he learns to save a little bit, he’ll be better off.”

The Royals expect Stillwell to play 155 games or more if the team launches a successful drive to the playoffs. To that end, Wathan has attempted to curb the shortstop’s zeal for extra practice.

“He comes to the park wanting to hit and take ground balls all day long,” Wathan said. “We have to back him off sometimes. I’ve talked to him several times about skipping infield one day and not throwing as much during batting practice.”

Stillwell, however, is stubborn.

“It’s a crazy game and one day you have it, the next day you don’t,” Stillwell said. “I’m not as fortunate as others who can stick their feet and their hands in the same spot every day. It takes me a while, but I like to get that feel every day.”

Most of the players in the Royals clubhouse feel Stillwell will be the club’s shortstop for the next 10 years. Stillwell has heard that before.

“It’s nice to hear it from fellow players,” Stillwell said. “Before I heard it from the brass. It’s a great feeling and I hope I can just earn the job every year and help this team for a long time. I’d like to play here my whole career.”