Big League Chatter? Silence Is Deafening

Remember infield chatter? Remember standing in the heat of the afternoon sun, your cap bill flushed with sweat, your folks in the stands, the game moving quietly along when suddenly your manager yells, “All right, people, let’s hear a little infield chatter out there.”

Like crickets on a summer’s eve, you began to chirp.

“Heyyyy, batta, batta . . . swinggggg!”

Or: “Batta’s mother wears Army boots!”

Or: “Pitcher’s got a rag arm!”

It almost never worked. The batter rarely swung. His mother wore Keds, not boots. The pitcher’s arm was always good enough to throw--gasp--a Little Leaguer’s nightmare--the dreaded curveball.

You chattered because it seemed like the right thing to do. You chattered because it was the great equalizer. Anyone could chatter, from the kid hitting .800 to the kid wearing horn-rimmed glasses as thick as Porterhouse steaks. You chattered because you thought the guys in the big leagues chattered.

Well, they don’t. They’re quiet as a baby’s breath. I’m still stunned.

No big league chatter? C’mon.

Not that I was totally naive. I didn’t actually think Dick Schofield took his place at shortstop and started directing zingers at, say, Cleveland Indian slugger Joe Carter.

“Batta’s mother lives in Cleveland . . . swinggg.”

Nothing that childish. But I expected something. Anything.

“Nah,” said Schofield, trying to hide a smirk as he considered the question. “I haven’t heard chatter for a long time.”

What did Schofield know? He’s a quiet type to begin with. What I would do is approach other Angels--more talkative Angels--about the subject of infield chatter.

I figured they’d eat this sort of stuff up. I figured my notebook would be begging for mercy by day’s end. I even envisioned players competing for ink time. So many tales, so little time.

“It’s my turn to tell him a story,” Wally Joyner would say, interrupting a Bob Boone vignette.

“Go practice your bunts, bub. I’m talking,” Boone would answer.

Blows would be exchanged. It would get messy.

I’m still waiting.

I was hoping for “Bull Durham”-like wit, such as when the career minor league catcher approaches the rookie phenom pitcher after the kid has given up a particularly prodigious home run. Says the veteran to the rookie (and I paraphrase): “Gee, he hit that far. Usually something that travels that far has a stewardess on it.”

Or this, from the coach in the dugout: “Humm-babe-you-the-babe-humm-babe-you-the-babe-humm-babe-you-the-hummer.” But said much faster.

Instead, I get a Schofield smirk. Or Jack Howell’s half-mocking, “Heyyy, batta, batta.” Or reliever Donnie Moore trying hard to come up with a single instance of infield chatter. Slouched in his clubhouse chair, Moore gives up. “Man, that doesn’t happen here,” he says.

Now they tell me.

Maybe there’s a modern-day, big league version of chatter. Different times, different chatter. Rather than the conventional stuff, perhaps today’s big leaguer is more inventive.

“Batta has a crummy annuity plan.”

“Batta has a palimony suit waiting for him.”

“Pitcher is 0-for-rehab centers.”

Manager Cookie Rojas wasn’t much for infield chatter when he played. He yelled a lot, but never at the opposition. He’d tell an outfielder to move in or back, a third baseman or first baseman to guard the line, a pitcher to throw strikes, a shortstop to hold the cutoff throw. But never any idle talk.

“We’re in professional ball, you see,” he said.

Is that so? Then what about the story involving Ken Brett, a former major league pitcher who now works as an Angel radio broadcaster? OK, so it wasn’t pure infield chatter, but it was close.

Brett remembers a game in which Cesar Cedeno chattered away after an unexpected strikeout. “He should have hit the pitch nine miles,” Brett said. Instead, Cedeno stormed back to the dugout and began pointing his finger at Brett, vowing to do considerable harm to any future pitches when they met again.

“You are, huh?” thought Brett.

They didn’t face each other until the next season. And?

“I drilled him on the first pitch,” Brett said. “If a guy tries to show me up as a pitcher, I’m going to get even with him. That’s one of my weapons.”

Reliever Greg Minton has some theories on this chatter business. He said big leaguers don’t do much talking because it’s too noisy. Obviously, Greg hasn’t done much pitching in Atlanta lately.

Minton also thinks infielders would get tired of chattering, what with the 162-game season. “There’s not a whole lot Dicky Schofield can say to me as far as chattering, not unless you want a pitcher to fall down laughing,” Minton said.

About the closest Minton ever came to true chatter was when San Francisco Giant teammate Bill Laskey gave up a majestic homer that landed in the upper regions of Candlestick Park. Minton not only chided Laskey from the bullpen, but the next day asked the stadium’s engineering department to participate in a prank. Sure enough, Laskey was presented with an official bill requesting $384--the supposed amount needed for seat repairs from the homer.

Otherwise, Minton’s at a loss. Hotdogging by opposing players can rile a bench (“You can get into some family heritage stuff real fast,” Minton said), but that’s about it.

Of course, you can do what Rojas did. Deprived of managing his neighborhood’s Little League team because of his baseball schedule (first, as a player and later as a scout), Rojas did the next best thing: He sponsored a team.

“Optimist Club team in Miami,” he said proudly. “They’re called Cookie’s Angels. They won the whole damn league, went undefeated.”

And they chattered. Sweet, innocent chatter.