He Doesn’t Act the Part of a Celebrity

Orel Hershiser is the hottest property, the highest-paid player in the annals of big league baseball. He had the kind of year only the great ones have--Cy Young Award, Sports Illustrated’s sportsman of the year, the Sporting News player of the year, AP male athlete of the year, World Series hero. A Frank Merriwell come to life.

You would expect to find a haughty, aloof, semi-disdainful, profane superstar swaggering about the precincts of the training camp here, attended by an entourage, maybe a press secretary, appointments clerk, governess for the children, a go-fer or two, driver.

If he smoked, three people would jump up to light his cigarette, two more would open car doors for him. After all, he makes more money than the czar in his heyday. Sports stars are royalty in this country and none is bigger than Orel Hershiser IV, America’s pitcher.

Before he became the $7-Million Man, Orel had all the airs of a guy who had come to do the windows. I mean, it was, “Hey, Orel, as long as you’re up, would you mind bringing me another coffee?” Or, “Hey, Orel, get that phone, will you? I’m kind of busy here.” Or, “Say, Orel, go out and get us a cab, will you? We’ll be along as soon as we finish this drink?”

He looked a little bit like Ichabod Crane. His complexion was white on white. He made Larry Bird look swarthy. If it weren’t for his Adam’s apple, he wouldn’t have any profile at all. The Dodgers found him on a Saturday Evening Post cover, was the word. When he put his granny glasses on, he looked like something out of the Coolidge Administration. No one ever heard him swear or saw him drink. He was as obliging as a headwaiter.

But that was before he won 23 games in the regular season, before he threw an astonishing five shutouts in a row and 59 consecutive scoreless innings for a big league record and then completely took over the postseason, pitching in six games and posting an earned-run average of just above 1. It was the kind of season you expect to find only in a pulp magazine: “Tom Swift and His Electric Curveball.”

As you could imagine, he would be in great demand. Every guy with a microphone, camera or deadline wants to get on his dance card. Agents are backed up clear to the Mississippi River. His phone looks like the White House switchboard.

He would have to eat in his room, wear whiskers in public. He would have to cultivate a sneer, practice saying, “Can’t you see we’re trying to eat here?” Learn to repulse the press with, “I’m sorry, you’ll have to check through my secretary. We’re booked through June.”

He is a Celebrity now, not the boy next door.

Only, Orel’s not having any. He’s as approachable as a traffic cop. There are a lot of guys who never won a World Series or scored a run or even made an out or threw a curve for the Dodgers who keep themselves as remote as a monk, but Hershiser isn’t one of them.

He doesn’t go around picking up towels but he doesn’t act like a guy who expects to be served breakfast in bed, either. He opens his own doors, he’s as chatty as a ladies’ bridge club. You want to see Orel? Just ask him. He never mastered the art of the brushoff. He knows that his business, like all show business, is founded on hype. Orel will do his part.

It isn’t as if he doesn’t understand the situation. Orel knows where he stands in baseball’s pecking order--right at the top.

“I can see the people in a restaurant,” he says, laughing. “They try to screw up their courage to ask for an autograph. When they do, there goes the rest of the meal. Everyone starts to come over.

“I wouldn’t wish this (celebrity status) on anyone. I’m not trying to bring tears to anyone’s eyes but it’s the death of privacy. Of course, if you want privacy, you don’t become a baseball player in the first place. You join a monastery.”

Part of the problem is, Hershiser doesn’t see himself as The Great American Hero.

“I’m not a star,” he insists. “I don’t see myself as one. A star is someone who’s got this great big explosive fastball, this intimidating pitch or pitches. Nolan Ryan is a star. Roger Clemens. Dwight Gooden.

“I’m not the kind of pitcher who, where the guys in the other dugout find out he’s pitching, they groan and say, ‘Oh, no! Hershiser’s pitching tonight!’ And they get a headache. Or their back hurts.

“With me, they can’t believe they can’t hit me. Jose Canseco stands there in amazement. ‘I know I can hit a fastball, and I know I can hit his fastball,’ he’s thinking. But I get him out on a fastball.

“It’s hard work, the way I do it. The trick is to get the pitch the batter isn’t expecting, or to get the pitch he’s expecting where and how he’s not expecting it. My fastball is in the range of 88 to 91 m.p.h. But it sinks. And I have other pitches with several speeds. I throw a cut fastball with four or five different velocities. You can get the batter off balance even if he knows what’s coming if you throw it at a speed he’s not expecting.”

Hershiser admits he has the No. 1 weapon in the pitcher’s arsenal--control.

“Eight out of 10 times, I can hit the (catcher’s) glove,” he says. “That’s what leads to good pitching.”

What it doesn’t lead to is swagger. Ego. Hershiser takes the position that he’s a working stiff out there.

So don’t be afraid to ask him to pass the salt. Or make the bed. And if you’re out of coffee, get Orel to run down to the supermarket for you. He’s not doing anything.