Taste of the Big Leagues Just Whets Joe Redmond’s Appetite for More

It may sound curious, but Joe Redfield is looking for a little more bad news--sort of like the bad news he received two months ago.

At that time, early in June, Redfield, a Rancho Palos Verdes boy who has slung his spikes around a variety of minor league outposts, was playing for the Edmonton Trappers, a California Angels farm team in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League.

The team had just split a double-header with the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, and Edmonton Manager Tom Kotchman summoned third baseman Redfield, who was hitting .281 without a home run, into his office. Kotchman slammed the door, and this conversation followed:

Kotchman: “Sit down, Joe.”

Redfield: “What’s up, Skip? Is it bad news?”

Kotchman: “Yeah. Are you sure you can handle this?”

Redfield: “Sure.”

Kotchman: “OK. Here it is. You’re going to the major leagues tomorrow.”

“I didn’t hear too much he said after that,” Redfield said.

What Kotchman said was that Angels infielder Gus Polidor, on the mend from a muscle pull, was going down to Edmonton, and Redfield was taking his place. The next day, June 4, Redfield hooked up with the parent club in Milwaukee for a Saturday night game against the Brewers. A set of Angels road grays was hanging in his locker with a red No. 6 and his name stitched across the back.

Redfield was up for the proverbial cup of coffee in the big leagues.

Ten days and two at-bats later, Redfield was back in Edmonton, walking into a hailstorm of questions from his fellow Trappers about what things were like in “The Show”--questions about everything from major league pitching to major league meal money.

He could have hung his head or hung up his spikes when he was sent back down. Instead, Redfield started splattering the alleys of Edmonton’s John Ducey Park with line drives. He put together a 16-game hitting streak that was finally snapped July 4 in Portland. As of Friday, he was hitting .308 and had an 8-game hitting streak. And he’s looking for a little more bad news.

If Redfield could find a way to get past second base (32 of his 34 extra-base hits this year have been doubles), Kotchman might deliver some.

Kotchman feels that a Triple-A manager almost has to be a psychiatrist to handle the moods of players moving up, down and out of baseball.

“It’s fun to put on a game face and act serious or upset when you’re telling a player he’s going up to the big leagues,” Kotchman said. “But I couldn’t mess with Joe too much because he’s a little high-strung to begin with. He might have had a coronary right there in his chair. As it was, I thought his eyes were going to pop right out of his head anyway.”

Redfield’s eyes were still as big as baseballs when he stepped onto the field at Milwaukee County Stadium for his major league debut.

“I got there early just to look at the field,” Redfield said. “It was so big there that it was easy to get nervous.”

Angels Manager Cookie Rojas penciled Redfield into the ninth spot in the batting order to give starting third baseman Jack Howell a night off against Milwaukee southpaw Ted Higuera. The Angels didn’t take batting or infield practice, so Redfield had plenty of time to settle his nerves before the game. In the clubhouse, he tried to relax by playing a card game called “pluck” with Howell, reliever Greg Minton and bullpen catcher Rick Ragazzo.

Then Redfield got a big league briefing from veterans Chili Davis, Bob Boone and George Hendrick. They told him expect fastballs down and away from Higuera, a winner of 38 games over the last two years.

“Those are some of the saltiest veterans in the big leagues,” Redfield said. “With their help, it felt like just another ballgame. I knew what was coming.”

Redfield chased Higuera’s first pitch, a fastball, and drove it the opposite way, but Brewer right fielder Glenn Braggs caught it in his tracks. On his second at-bat, Redfield went after the first pitch again, with the same result: a pop-up to Braggs. Redfield’s two major league at-bats were over with two pitches.

In the fourth inning, with Milwaukee’s Paul Molitor on first, Robin Yount smashed a belt-high chopper to Redfield at third. Redfield gloved the ball and fired to second baseman Johnny Ray, who whipped it to Wally Joyner for an inning-ending, around-the-horn double play.

In the dugout, former Edmonton teammate Jim Eppard gave Redfield a “thataboy” and a pat on the back.

“Yount gave me the most perfect first ground ball you could ever ask for,” Redfield said. “I just made sure I caught it first and didn’t throw it into right field. Thankfully, Johnny Ray got it and turned it for me.”

For Redfield, the 5-4-3 twin killing turned out to be the highlight of the game. Angel right-hander Dan Petry pitched a marvelous game, but Higuera threw a 3-hitter. The Angels lost, 1-0.

Redfield traveled with the Angels into Texas for a 3-game series against the Rangers but didn’t see any action. In the meantime, the embattled Rojas tried to rally the mood in the Angel clubhouse--but when the Angels arrived home to face the Kansas City Royals on June 10, they were 16 games behind division-leading Oakland in the American League West and 14 games under .500.

That was the day Angel General Manager Mike Port gave Redfield the real bad news--he was going back to Edmonton, and outfielder Devon White was coming off the disabled list.

For Redfield, the timing couldn’t have been worse. When he was sent down, Kansas City’s starting pitcher was Charlie Leibrandt, another southpaw, and Rojas might have given the lefty-hitting Howell another night off. Redfield had a host of family and friends in the stands at Anaheim Stadium, including two former teammates from UC Santa Barbara who had flown from the Bay Area for the game.

A pair of Redfield’s baseball heroes, George Brett and Bill Buckner of the Royals, were also on hand that night. Redfield saw Buckner in the clubhouse that afternoon, but his bags were already packed for Edmonton. It was a long walk through Canadian customs on the return trip.

“Even still, being in the big leagues for 10 days made it all worthwhile,” Redfield said. “During the hard times in the minors, I’ve questioned whether or not I should stick with it.”

Redfield’s 7-year minor league career has been sprinkled with hard times. He shuttled between four teams in the New York Mets organization after being signed in 1982 out of UC Santa Barbara by Mets scout Bob Minor. By 1985, he had reached the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate at Tidewater, Va.--via Lynchburg, Va. and Jackson, Miss.--but his best average was the .286 mark he had posted at Little Falls, N.Y., in Rookie League.

The Mets gave up on him and traded him to the Baltimore Orioles. Redfield hit .268 for Double-A Charlotte in North Carolina, but the Orioles left him unprotected in the 1987 free-agent draft, and the Atlanta Braves picked him up.

Redfield felt like a hot potato. In April of that year, the Braves bundled him off to the Angels for minor league catcher Stan Cliburn.

But for Redfield, the trade to the Angels was like a call from heaven, in more than one way.

He was joining an organization he had watched at home while he was growing up--and he’d get a chance to launch line drives through the gossamer skies of Midland, Tex., home of the Angels’ Double-A affiliate.

In Texas’ dry, light air, Redfield hit .321, smashed 30 homers and batted in 108 runs.

Suddenly, the Angels were looking at Redfield--who had hit a total of 43 homers in five previous minor league campaigns--as if he’d turned into Arnold Schwarzenegger. After the 1987 season ended, Bill Bavasi, the Angels’ director of minor league services, told Redfield that he would be Howell’s backup in Anaheim if he had a good year in winter ball.

So Redfield, armed with high-school Spanish and a suitcase full of thick books, wintered in the tropics. He played for Navajoa, Mexico (Fernando Valenzuela’s hometown), and La Romana in the Dominican Republic.

“I didn’t do too well, though,” Redfield said. “Most of the time I wouldn’t feel good because the food down there just kills you.”

The food wasn’t Redfield’s only curse. The Latin pitchers baffled him with breaking stuff: “Forkballs, screwballs, knuckleballs, palm balls.”

After struggling for much of the winter, Redfield started out this spring in Edmonton.

For Redfield, it was just another change of address. He’s played in Durham Athletic Park in North Carolina, recently immortalized in the movie “Bull Durham,” and at least 50 others between the coasts. In every town, he said, there’s something, good or bad, to look forward to. For example:

El Paso is the home of the Brewers’ Double-A affiliate, the Diablos. It’s also the lair of some of the Texas League’s most notorious fans. The stadium announcer stirs them up with evangelistic abandon, chanting, “Diablo fans, you gotta believe! “ And the fans respond with choruses of “Go, go, go, GO! “

“I could swear that the announcer hypnotizes me too,” Redfield said. “I’m standing out there at third base thinking: I believe, I believe! “

Redfield would also swear that El Paso’s ballpark is possessed. Befitting the team’s name, strange, diabolical things are commonplace. Pop-ups dissolve into the evening sky, and bad hops explode out of the infield dirt. One score between Midland and El Paso was 24-17.

In one game at El Paso, Redfield was steaming around third base for an inside-the-park homer when his spikes caught in the dirt. He sprawled on the base line and was tagged out.

In another game, Redfield smashed a rising line drive that ricocheted off the top of a high concrete wall in left field. El Paso’s left fielder, expecting a home run, glanced up casually, and the rebounding baseball caught him squarely in the eye.

“It stunned him, all right,” Redfield said. “He definitely got a black eye over that one. When you play defense in El Paso, each time you get an out it’s time for high fives.”

During another game, between Lynchburg and Carolina League rival Prince William at Woodbridge, Va., an outfielder raced back for a catch and got his foot stuck under the fence. “The ball was three feet away, and the guy couldn’t reach it,” Redfield said. “The batter got an inside-the-park grand slam.”

In Little Falls, another hapless outfielder slammed into the fence and was buried when a plywood advertisement on the wall toppled over him.

“He managed to throw the ball about 30 feet toward the infield and then collapsed,” Redfield said. “It was a pro effort.

“Weird things are always happening,” he said. “After seven years in the minors, you’d figure you’ve seen it all. But things still happen that just amaze you.”

Redfield will continue to be amazed as long as there’s a chance of returning to the big leagues. Redfield has already shown that he can handle Triple-A pitching, and Kotchman said he’s improved his defense to the point where he’s not a liability at third.

“The rap on Joe last year was that he couldn’t play defense,” Kotchman said. “But he’s made himself into a pretty good third baseman. He’s not a Jack Howell, but then again, Howell’s the best defensive third baseman I’ve ever seen.”

Kotchman is experimenting with Redfield at first base and occasionally in the outfield to increase his value as a potential utility man.

“If he performs well, there’s a chance he’ll be called up in September,” Kotchman said. “If you do well, you go up. If you don’t, you stay here, go down or go home.”

Redfield would rather not think about that final option. But at UC Santa Barbara, where he holds records in career hits, RBIs and stolen bases, Redfield needs just three more classes to finish his biology degree. If his baseball career fizzled out, he’d head straight into physical therapy school.

At Miraleste High School in Rancho Palos Verdes, Redfield didn’t consider himself good enough to play college baseball.

He almost gave up the game after what Miraleste athletic director Tom Graves, then the baseball coach, called an “atrocious” year.

“It was the kind of year where you wouldn’t even tell your friends you were on the team,” Graves said. “But he worked his way through it.”

In 1979, his senior year, Redfield came around. As a power-hitting second baseman, he helped Miraleste to the CIF semifinals with 11 home runs, which tied the Southern Section record.

That record has since been broken several times. But Graves remembers an opposite-field home run Redfield hit that year against Leuzinger High that cleared a maintenance shed in right-center.

“It must have gone at least 460 feet,” Graves said. “His best features as a hitter have always been his strong wrists and forearms.”

That’s why Redfield, who has learned to pull the inside pitch to left field, is lining so many doubles for Edmonton.

“His bat is going to be his ticket back to the big leagues,” Kotchman said.

Redfield wasn’t in a hitting groove in June when he made his short-lived major league debut. But he hopes the Angels are judging him by the progress he’s made since rejoining the Trappers.

“When I first got into pro ball, I said I’d give it three years,” Redfield said. “Well, I blew that deadline. If there’s the slightest chance that they’ll make the call, then I’ll be here. I’ll be ready when they do.”

And that will be some really bad news.