Here’s a Fan Club That’s Blooming in the Desert

Apache Junction, Ariz., is a canyon community with a 4-figure population, not far from towns with names such as Desert Wells and Tortilla Flat, where Mickey Hatcher makes his home. The Hatcher family actually lives on a 3 1/3-acre lot in an Ansel Adams-esque landscape outside Apache Junction, completely surrounded by mountains and desert--isolated, Mickey says, to the extent that “the stagecoach still comes through here.”

From his front window, Hatcher can spot no more than four or five other houses, and automobile traffic on his block is understandably light. Yet, every day or so during the last couple of months, a car pulls up in front of Hatcher’s dwelling. The adults in the front seat do not leave the vehicle. The children in the back seat invariably get out by themselves, brave the walk, and ring Mickey’s doorbell.

“The kids come right up to the door while their parents stay in the car, probably with their doors and windows locked,” Hatcher says. “I end up walking out to the car to meet them. It’s a crack-up.”

Even in the middle of semi-nowhere, fame has found Mickey Hatcher. Children clamor for his autograph. Friends and strangers hone or drop by. All the guys down at his buddy’s tire shop in Mesa look forward to the Dodger hero’s occasional visits into town, so they can sit around and chew the fat about baseball as though they were good ol’ boys around a country store’s cracker barrel.

Schools, meanwhile, keep having Mickey over to speak at student assemblies. A golf tournament bearing Mickey’s name has been organized at Joe Garagiola’s golf course for early February, to benefit the Ronald McDonald charity houses. The famed Diamond Dinner baseball banquet in Chicago has invited Mickey as an honored guest.

The Mickey Hatcher Club is growing the way the Mickey Mouse Club once did. Next thing you know, fans will start coming to Dodger Stadium dressed as Hatchkateers.

“I love it, but I can still hardly believe it,” Hatcher said Tuesday from stagecoach country. “I never thought anything like this could happen my whole life. For all the years I been playing baseball, I knew I’d never be a superstar, never be one of those Hall of Fame idols of baseball everybody looks up to so much.

“What’s happened to me the last couple of months has been amazing. I get stopped in the street. I’m the kind of guy who usually walks around in sweat suits and stuff and could go for months without being recognized. Soon as I got back here after the World Series and the parade and the White House and everything, everybody started coming up to me, slapping my back, saying, ‘If it wasn’t for Orel (Hershiser), you’d have been MVP of the World Series!’ and stuff like that.

“I stopped back in Los Angeles for a short time, and picked up some of my stuff at the stadium. There was a box of letters for me, I mean thousands of ‘em, and not just from the United States. It’s really touching, because I don’t know how much longer I’ve got in baseball. I’m the last guy I ever expected to have this happen to.”

Baseball happens to be in the air again, what with the Hall of Fame voting announced and with the defending champions beginning voluntary workouts this morning at Dodger Stadium. Seemed like a decent enough time to check in with Hatcher, who batted .368 in the World Series, with more hits than Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire and Dave Parker had combined.

We half expected to hear that the ever-ready Hatcher would be hauling tail up from Arizona for the voluntary workouts.

“No way,” he said. “I’d like to see how many guys show up for that one. Now, if they’d called for voluntary vacation, I’d sure sign up.”

Hatcher, who will report to Vero Beach for spring training Feb. 15 and will be 34 by the time the next season begins, might have won over half the country last October with his hustle, his humor and his hilarious home run trot, the non-trot that would have placed him a stride behind Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis in South Korea.

“Like I said before, I ran fast because I was afraid somebody’d change their mind and take it away from me,” Hatcher said.

“I’ve had some time to think back on everything, me and my wife both, and the thing that tickles us most is that we both figured the parade had passed us by. The Twins released me (in 1985), and then they won the World Series. And that was after the Dodgers traded me (in 1981) and went on to win the World Series that year. It was like I was a jinx. You know, soon as you get rid of Mickey Hatcher, you win the World Series. That sort of thing.

“When I got back to the Dodgers in ‘87, they had a terrible year. I said, ‘My gosh, I’m rebuilding from scratch again. I’m never gonna be with a winner.’ Then, after the first half of last season, I knew we had a chance to win it all. So, week after week, I waited for something bad to happen, waited for them to get rid of me right before winning the World Series.

“I’m a lucky guy. Not only did I finally get to the Series, I got to play. And then the cards and letters started coming in, and after a while I even had to ask myself: ‘Did I really play that good?’ ”

Hatcher was so pumped up during the Series, he hardly knew what was happening to himself. He says now that he was functioning on 2 hours’ sleep a night, because he was too excited to conk out. Instead of watching from the bench, he was batting third in the starting lineup and playing left field in place of Kirk Gibson. The Dodgers asked a lot of Mickey Hatcher, and he gave it to them.

“I can walk away from it now, if I absolutely have to,” he said. “The thing I’d like people to remember about Mickey Hatcher is that he always played the same, whether it was the first inning or the 27th inning, whether it was the World Series or a spring-training game. That’d please me if people thought of me that way.”

Just then, Mickey’s dog started barking. Somebody was at the door.

“Probably another kid looking for an autograph,” it was suggested.

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Hatcher said. “I love it. I’ll sign till my hand falls off, if they ask me to.”

His club is growing. M-I-C. See you real soon. K-E-Y. Why? Because we like you.