Singles Are Fine, but Whitaker Has Become a Real Swinger This Season

Look elsewhere for glitter. Second base is for the fleet, the courageous, and the unsung.

The position demands attention to detail. Others will hit home runs, or make diving, eye-catching defensive plays. But the second baseman must be spectacularly unspectacular, a singles hitter who keeps a rally alive, an athlete who twists his body with ease to avoid the charge of runners.

“This has never been a glamour position,” Lou Whitaker of the Detroit Tigers says. “It’s a tough position. You need someone who can turn double plays. It all looks so simple. But you’re taking throws from the blind side. You’re covering a lot of ground. No one expects us to be productive on offense. If a second baseman can hit, well, everyone looks at that as a bonus.”

But this season, the mold is cracking in the American League. Look at the league leaders in hitting: Steve Sax of the New York Yankees and Julio Franco of the Texas Rangers are comfortably above the .300 level. And, the home-run derby is being crashed by the man nicknamed “Sweet Lou.”

The Detroit Tigers are enduring a nightmarish year, but Whitaker is enjoying the sweetest of summers. He has 25 home runs and is making a run at the American League record for homers hit in a season by a second baseman.

“Thirty-two,” Whitaker says. “It’s a nice number. It’s a record I’d like to get.”

Joe Gordon of the Cleveland Indians hit 32 home runs in the summer of 1948. The National League record is 42 held by Rogers Hornsby and Davey Johnson. Johnson added a pinch hit home run and finished with 43 for the 1973 Atlanta Braves.

Whitaker has displayed power in the past, stringing together seven consecutive seasons with 12 or more home runs. He hit 21 home runs in 1985 and had 121 spread through the first 12 seasons of his major-league career. But he was content to play co-star with shortstop Alan Trammell, giving the Tigers the most consistent double-play combination in baseball.

“I used to have the best range,” he said. “I always had some trouble going to my left, but I could always make the plays on my right. But range is for youngsters.”

Offensively, Whitaker provided support with singles and doubles, filling a role as a run-scorer, rather than a run-producer. The big men -- Kirk Gibson and Darrell Evans -- were the ones expected to sweep the bases clean and lift the Tigers to pennants and championships.

But this season is different. The Tigers, suddenly threadbare and desperate for power from the left side of the plate, are asking Whitaker to aim for the sea of blue seats at Tiger Stadium, instead of the thick and manicured outfield grass.

“It’s really hard to say where the power is coming from,” Whitaker said. “They asked me to hit homers, so I’m hitting homers. One year, they asked me to take pitches, so I took pitches. But I’m a hitter, not a taker. I’ve tried to become a productive No. 3 hitter.”

Whitaker’s average has declined to .262, well under the steady .279 pace he held for his first 12 seasons. But he has 67 RBI and only 40 strikeouts. Instead of sinking into the whirlpool that drowned the Tigers, Whitaker has thrived.

“You play baseball,” he says. “You do the best every day. That’s all I can think about. Sometimes, things work in reverse. I learned a lot one year when we were winning, and Larry Herndon was struggling. You could see his frustration. But he went out and played. Just because things aren’t working out for the team doesn’t mean you stop playing. We’ve won for so many seasons. We’ve been tough. Now, we get to see the opposite.”

Whitaker is 31 years old, a veteran who can help his team through a perilous period of rebuilding. Two days after the All-Star break, Whitaker signed a three-year, $6 million contract that will take him through the 1992 season.

“We have some players here,” Whitaker said. “We’ll improve. We’ve had injuries. We’ve been unfortunate. But that will change.”

For now, Whitaker’s sights are set on personal goals. This is a season for records, not pennants.

“There is no glamour in fielding,” Whitaker says. “People come to see pitching and hitting. This year, I’m hitting.”