They Could Provide Some Major League Advice . . . Just Ask

It’s too late now, but perhaps the 1989 U.S. Olympic Festival baseball teams should have been required to visit All Sports Stadium and its summer occupants, the triple-A Oklahoma City 89ers.

There they would have found Todd Simmons, Pat Garman and Kevin Reimer--former Cal State Fullerton stars--as well as Anaheim’s Steve Lankard, who played at Cal State Long Beach. But the 89ers are long gone now, off on an eight-day trip that will take them to such exciting places as Indianapolis, Pawtucket and Buffalo. Glamorous, it isn’t.

Of course, that would have been the whole point of the field trip, to allow the country’s best 18-and-under baseball talent the chance to quiz the minds of former phenoms. It would have been an opportunity to put their dreams in perspective, to better gauge if baseball is merely a game or a future occupation.

Had they asked, Simmons would have lectured them on the subject of humility. It is a topic he knows well, what with an earned-run average that now sits at a dangerous 5.40. Back in 1984, Simmons was busy slipping his College World Series ring on his finger. The Titans had just won a championship and life was grand. Baseball came so easily for him.

Five seasons and four organizations later, Simmons, 25, understands all too well the differences between high school or college success and the demands of professional ball. He is no less enthusiastic or optimistic, just wiser.

“Unless you’re like Jim Abbott or one of those other guys, you’ll sign, get sent to A-ball in Butte, Montana, making something like $700 a month,” he said shortly before Sunday evening’s game against Nashville. “Now that’s fun to live off of.”

It is there, in the low minors, that players make deals with the calendar. Simmons promised himself that if he wasn’t in the big leagues by 1989, he would retire and return to school to complete his degree in physical education. The year of reckoning now here, Simmons is unsure of his plans.

“It was easy then to say it,” he said. “Now it’s five years and, well . . . It’s hard to get it out of your blood. I mean, there are guys who would give their left leg to do this.”

But by his own admission, Simmons hasn’t pitched well this season. He knows his 0-3 record with the 89ers puts him in a vulnerable position. “In the minor leagues, if you’re struggling or something, you hope that they’ll keep you around for the rest of the year,” he said. “I’m hoping they’ll let me stay, keep giving me a chance.”

Just in case they don’t, Simmons recently phoned the Chicago White Sox (the team that originally drafted him) to inquire about his first contract. Would the White Sox, he asked, still pay for his tuition were he to quit and return to school? No answer yet.

He glanced up at the clubhouse television set. The St. Louis Cardinals were playing the San Diego Padres, one of his former organizations. “You lose sleep over this game, believe me,” he said.

Simmons will get no argument from Lankard, a 19th-round draft choice who signed for $1,000, about 20 days’ worth of meal money for a big leaguer. Genetics didn’t provide Lankard, 26, with the game’s most gifted right arm. But as is often the case with overachievers, Lankard, 26, does own a certain tenacity. That may explain his recent promotion from double A to Oklahoma City.

“No way am I going to quit,” he said. “I can taste it now.”

Still, Lankard would tell the Festival stars, who begin play at All Sports Stadium on Tuesday, that it takes a certain mind-set to survive the minors. Physical talent isn’t always enough.

“I would say, ‘You’ve been told ever since you started playing the game, to have fun. If it’s not fun, then get out of the game,’ ” he said. “Work your butt off and strive for your goals.”

So Lankard works and, much like Simmons, tries to retain a sense of humility. “You’ve got to have that confidence, but not so much where you think you’re a god.”

A god? Reimer and Garman would settle for a hit. Reimer began Sunday night’s game zero for his last 15 at-bats, while Garman had one hit in his last nine tries. These are the sort of mini-slumps you have to live with in the minors, the kind of slumps that occasionally cause a player to question himself or, worse yet, look over his shoulder.

“It can be frustrating at times because you think you got what it takes,” Reimer said.

For five wonderful days last year, Reimer was a Texas Ranger. He was there long enough to know he didn’t want to come back to the minors. But that’s the one of the other lessons you learn: patience.

“You’re so close now,” he said. “Last year I had a shaky start. I thought I was going to be released. But then I turned it around.”

Reimer is hitting less than .260, but he does have 49 runs batted in and 28 doubles. He remains in the game because, like Simmons, his timetable says he should. “I said that when I turned 25, if I didn’t have a positive future in this game, I was gone. I think finally I am a prospect.”

Reimer would offer the Festival players little advice; he has his own worries. “But you’ve got to pursue it if you’ve got the talent,” he said. “If you don’t, you’re always going to say, ‘Should I have tried?’ ”

Garman, who is Reimer’s roommate, never thought twice about signing a pro contract. But since 1986, the infielder has missed one season because of back surgery and much of another because of a knee operation. “That’s when I realized a timetable was out of the question,” he said.

Instead, Garman, 23, concentrated on staying healthy, a message he would have passed on to the Festival stars.

“Knowing what I know, I’d tell them to do anything in their power to keep prepared, to keep themselves on the field,” he said. “An injury . . . it’s lost time. You have so many other guys fighting for your job, it’s really time that they’re gaining on you.”

Before his injuries, Garman considered himself invincible. He said he thought the minors would be a temporary place of employment. He was not alone.

“Even when I was at Cal State, guys would say, ‘I know I can go to A-ball and tear it up,”’ he said. “They’d say, ‘This is easy.’ But it’s not as close as being as easy as it looks. They think coming out of college that it will be a cakewalk. It’s not.”

If only the Festival players knew that.