A SECRET NO MORE : Cardinals’ Milt Thompson Gets Chance to Prove Self, and Makes Most of It

It’s not exactly Wally Pip/Lou Gehrig, but the St. Louis Cardinals might have their own story of succesion.

Longtime platooner, pinch-hitter, bench-warmer Milt Thompson is batting .326 in Willie McGee’s place. Poor Willie, out 23 games because of a “muscle irritation,” might never recover his spot in the St. Louis batting order.

“Well,” says Thompson, “not until he’s healthy, anyway.”

When McGee is healthy, of course, Thompson goes back to what he historically has done best, which is very little. “When he’s ready, what can you say,” Thompson said of McGee. “Batting champion, gold glove--I’ll go back to being the fourth outfielder.”

You might expect Thompson, 30, to be somewhat more worried about his position, now that he finally has one. But after 11 seasons in baseball, he’s by his own admission “a realist.” Even if he does get benched with what is thus far is the ninth-best average in the National League, he knows he’s had what amounts to his best shot.

“Hopefully, I’ll keep it as long as possible,” Thompson said of his starting spot in center field. “When you get a break, you make the best of it.”

You’d think that in 11 seasons, a proven .288 hitter would get more in the way of breaks than Thompson has. Like one, anyway. But he came along in the Atlanta organization at a time when Dale Murphy had a lock on center field. There was no waiting him out and he bounced back and forth between Savannah and Richmond. He was brought up in 1984 and hit .303 subbing for the injured Claudell Washington. In 73 games the next season, he hit .302, and as a pinch-hitter hit .433.

On to Philadelphia, where they got it in their heads that Thompson couldn’t hit left-handers. “Well,” Thompson said, “I did go one for 16 against lefties. So that’s why they said I couldn’t hit lefties.” That’s not a very good scientific sampling. These are probably the same people who jumped the gun on nuclear fusion.

Still, he managed to hit .302--”My good year, first time I ever had 500 at-bats”--and .288 the last two seasons before St. Louis traded for him.

“It’s frustrating,” he says, “but it was never a situation where I thought about quitting. You’ve just got to be a realist.”

But St. Louis has proved to be a kind of fantasy camp for Thompson. McGee has not come back from a mysterious stiffness since he warmed up on a wet night in New York and has been strictly a pinch-hitter. Thompson has fielded with aplomb--important in Busch Stadium--run the bases and been a slashing hitter in Manager Whitey Herzog’s “move-’em along” offense. He has definitely been instrumental in getting the Cardinals into first place in the NL East.

Still, everybody knows reality is no more than a road trip away. “And I’ll go back to being the fourth outfielder,” he says.

Meanwhile, McGee is pretending not to be particularly concerned as he watches his replacement have a career spring. “What can I do?” says McGee. “Winning or losing, I can’t do anything about it.” He’s not upset, though. “It could be worse, like cocky and talking in the papers.”

For example, if Thompson said: “Let Willie get this job back?

“Yeah, like that.”

Actually the two are friends since the minor leagues. McGee professes to be mystified by the fact that Thompson does not have a higher profile in the game. “I never thought he got the recognition,” he says. “Maybe he never got the confidence.”

For the moment? “He’s a more-than-adaquate fielder,” says McGee, “make that a great fielder. He’s a dang-good hitter, has all the skills and is a good guy. He deserves to be doing well.”

So the league’s best kept secret has his day in the sun. “Amongst my peers,” Thompson is saying, “I’ve established myself as a major league player. I’ll never be a superstar, just an average player.” He is, in other words, “a realist.”