AMAZING GRACE: : Former Aztec Now a Popular and Productive Cub

They call him “kid,” as in, “Hey, kid, how many hits you got in this ballpark?” knowing full well that Mark Grace has never played there. Or, “Hey, kid, your shoelaces are on fire,” as small flames leap from his feet. Or, “Hey, kid, hold this cup of water for me,” the same cup with the trick hole that shoots water on any rookie naive enough to fall for the prank.

And guess what? Grace, whose pre-professional career included a year at San Diego State, loves every second of it. The ribbing on the Chicago Cubs’ team plane. The hotfoots. The stupid jokes. The way he figures it, it beats life in Peoria, Ill., or Pittsfield, Mass., or Des Moines, Iowa, all recent mailing addresses for Grace during his move through the Cubs’ minor league system.

So if Grace smells smoke, he smiles. Some water on the jersey? He shrugs--it will dry. When you have confounded the odds as Grace has done, you don’t mind a practical joke or two.

“If you would have told me five years ago I’d be playing for the Chicago Cubs, I’d have said, ‘You’re crazy, get on out of here with that kind of talk.’ But now that it’s happened, sometimes I’m just overwhelmed by all these things. Sometimes I still wonder how the heck I got here.”

Here’s how: He hit .342, drove in 95 runs, struck out just 28 times and won the 1986 league batting title at Class-A Peoria. Then he moved up to double-A Pittsfield and won the Eastern League’s most valuable player award with a .333 average, 101 RBIs and only 24 strikeouts. He began this season in Iowa with the Cubs’ triple-A team but wasn’t there for long.

What the Cubs have here is a first baseman with talent and manners who is good enough to send two-time National League all-star Leon Durham packing and polite enough to thank him for all of his advice. He is Beaver Cleaver in cleats, a “Gee, Wally” personality in a game/business that is short on innocence.

Just the other night at Dodger Stadium, Grace was interviewed again and again. The theme was familiar enough: Local boy makes good. What was different is that the local boy was having the time of his life. No swagger. No signs of self-importance. He was enjoying the moment and nothing more.

Later, he enjoyed Dodger pitching. He hit a third-inning single off Fernando Valenzuela that brought home two runs. What made it especially sweet was that the Dodgers decided to walk Jody Davis and load the bases in order to face the rookie.

In the ninth inning, Grace hit a three-run homer off reliever Tim Crews. For someone who doesn’t have a reputation for prodigious home runs, this one certainly departed the playing field fast enough.

All in all, a nice homecoming: 5 RBIs, 3 hits, a run scored. By game’s end, Grace’s average had climbed to .307.

Entering tonight’s game at San Diego against the Padres, Grace is batting .306 with 26 RBIs and an on-base percentage of .373, highest on the team.

Don’t think the Cubs haven’t noticed. They like Grace. They like the way he acts like a rookie and hits like a veteran. They like the way he shows up early at the ballpark. They like his willingness to learn, his knack for rolling with a gag.

“I try to just keep my mouth shut and smile a lot,” Grace said.

When told of Grace’s major league philosophy, Rick Sutcliffe, a veteran Cub pitcher and Cy Young Award winner, nodded approvingly.

“Yeah, he may have done that, but he also brought his bat and glove with him,” Sutcliffe said. “I could tell right from spring training, the first time I met him, that he had a good head on his shoulders. There was a lot of talk about him being our first baseman in spring training, being a starter. But all this kid could talk about was how he was just happy to be invited early.”

About that starting position. In simple terms, Grace was the phenom, Durham the veteran fighting to keep his job. But when it came time to leave Mesa, Ariz., for the beginning of the season, the Cubs chose Durham to accompany them.

So what does Grace do? Well, Sutcliffe still can’t believe this one. Rather than trash parts of the spring training clubhouse or sulk or invent new adjective combinations to describe Cub management, Grace told reporters how excited he was about his triple-A assignment in Des Moines. Des Moines.

And that wasn’t all.

Said Sutcliffe: “This is the thing I remember most: When he got sent down, well, I’ve seen a lot of kids tear up things, cry, seen all kinds of reactions. He went around shaking hands, thanking people for all they’d done for him in spring training. He said, ‘Thanks, I had a great time.’

“I didn’t react that way. Probably 99% of the people I’ve seen didn’t react that way. It’s almost like you want to stay away from someone when they get sent down. You tell them you’re sorry, and then you want to get away because nothing you say is going to help. This kid came up and thanked people. It left an impression.”

There’s a reason for that. Grace wasn’t supposed to get to triple-A, or any sort of A, for that matter. Baseball was an afterthought at Tustin High School. Grace played on the junior varsity until his senior year, and even then, basketball was his better sport.

Only Saddleback College offered him a chance to play baseball. Convinced that the world didn’t need another 6-foot 2-inch guard, Grace accepted. Two seasons later, he was named to the all-conference team. Then San Diego State came calling, and Grace went there for a year. The Cubs chose him in the 24th round of the June 1985 draft. A bonus baby he wasn’t.

Now this. Now Sutcliffe looking after him. Now a starting position on a team that is in the thick of the division race. And no Durham to worry about, either. The Cubs traded him to the Cincinnati Reds.

Not that it would have been a problem, Durham and Grace on the same team. When Grace hit his first major league homer, Durham presented him with a bottle of Dom Perignon. You don’t make enemies with Grace, you embrace him.

That’s what the Cubs have done, and he them.

“Only time will tell how good a player he’s going to be,” Sutcliffe said. “But it didn’t take long to figure out he’s a good person.”

And, at least for now, he has a batting average to match.