For Shelby, Baseball Is Matter of Fact

It was the eighth inning of a tie game. Two men were on, and two were out. Mike Marshall was at bat for the Dodgers.

In the on-deck circle, John Shelby watched impassively as the St. Louis pitcher, John Tudor, intentionally walked Marshall to get at him.

Shelby calmly walked up there and stroked the game-winning hit to left-center. The dugout went bonkers, the manager threw his hands up in the air and did a little dance, but John Shelby just stood there, peeling off a batting glove and looking for all the world like a man who has just fixed a plumbing leak or filled a gas tank.

John Shelby makes “matter of fact” seem too weak a description for his outlook on life. He makes Calvin Coolidge look as if he were having a nervous breakdown.

You cannot tell by looking at John Shelby whether he has just struck out or hit a grand slam, whether he’s on a roll or in a slump. You’d hate to get in a card game with him. You’d never know whether he was looking at four aces--or a busted straight. “He could put coffee to sleep,” explains teammate Rick Dempsey. “I played four years with him him at Baltimore before I knew he could talk.”

John Shelby stood in the locker room after his game-winning hit and patiently answered questions. Was it a thrill getting the, so to speak, service ace at match point? Shelby shrugged. “A hit with the bases loaded is always good news. The bad news is this.” And he swept a hand around at the crowd of reporters, microphones, tape recorders and cameras.

Was he annoyed that the pitcher, Tudor, elected to walk Marshall and pitch to him? Was he insulted? John Shelby shook his head. “I would have walked him, too,” he admitted. Because Tudor had gotten him out twice? “I got myself out twice,” quickly corrected John Shelby. “I kept going for his changeup.”

John Shelby, you get the feeling, would almost rather play the game under an assumed name. You sense that it would be perfectly all right with him if the newspapers printed “And then, No. 31 came to bat with the bases loaded and stroked a single to left-center field to score the winning runs in the Dodgers’ 5-3 victory over the Cardinals.”

No. 31 on the Dodgers is 6 feet 1 inch, 175 pounds, as quiet as a night in the Arctic, and is a better player than anybody realizes because he has no capacity for self-promotion. He’s not Ty Cobb or Mickey Mantle, but he might be Paul Blair if someone would just give him the glove and the position. The best thing he does is blend in the scenery. He’s as unnoticeable as a good waiter. He’s not Wade Boggs, either, but he never seems to make the damaging out or the poor play. He’s nobody’s “out” man, and it’s never advisable to hit anything to center field when Shelby is out there. And if it does fall in, it’s not a good idea to try for an extra base. He is an armed man.

In another era, on another team, he’d probably be “Old Reliable” or “Mr. Dependable.” But John Shelby doesn’t inspire poetry, just prose. His approach to baseball is, it’s just another 40-hours-a-week job. Some people drive trucks for a living, some people hit singles with the bases loaded. Ho-hum. You get what you pay for with John Shelby. He’s always ready to play.

Still, he hasn’t had a career so much as a road trip. The labels on his trunk read things like “Bluefield,” “Charlotte,” “Miami,” “Rochester.” Periodically, they used to read “Baltimore.”

There was the rub. When John Shelby was a prospect, he was up and down and in and out of a Baltimore lineup like the Metroliner. It was a lineup that included the likes of Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken, Al Bumbry, Ken Singleton, John Lowenstein, Gary Roenicke and, finally, Fred Lynn. Shelby acquired the label “journeyman player” in that company, but there were nights when even Roberto Clemente might have batted sixth in that cast.

It’s hard to say John Shelby never got a chance in that elite chorus. Typically, he’s not one of the ones to say it. “Earl Weaver (Baltimore skipper) was a good manager,” Shelby tells you. “He played me when he thought he could win.”

The facts were that Shelby was a spot player. And, when Lynn came along, he was a Rochester player.

When you trade for a guy and he’s in the minor leagues--and the trader is a rookie like the Dodgers’ Fred Claire--there’s a credibility gap. You don’t need a trade to get a minor leaguer, you just need a bus ticket.

Well, getting John Shelby out of the bus leagues was like getting the Kohinoor diamond out of a coal bin. Even if he’s back in Rochester by 1989, John Shelby has already paid his fare back to the big leagues. He kept the demoralized Dodgers respectable last year and in a position to regroup for a pennant drive this year when he hit 21 homers, 26 doubles, 69 runs batted in and stole 16 bases for them in only about three-quarters of a season. They can’t get him out of the lineup this season where he’s hitting .311 with 18 doubles, 3 triples and 5 home runs and 12 stolen bases.

If he has a fault, it’s that he’s a Will Rogers hitter: he never met a pitch he didn’t like. You need a court order to walk him. He once went to bat 560 times and walked 22 of them. He was only marginally more selective last year, walking 31 times in 486 at-bats.

But, if he starts waiting for strikes and keeps making contact, he probably should get a press agent, business agent, a set of gold chains and start making noise. That way, when a manager wants a pitcher to walk Mike Marshall (or anyone else) in front of him, the pitcher will really balk “Wait a minute! That’s John (Two Run) Shelby up there! I read about him. I wouldn’t walk Babe Ruth to get to him in this situation. Are you nuts?”