Samuel Thrown a Curve

For the past week, early evenings at Dodger Stadium have been painted in the usual placid tones of players leisurely taking batting practice and fans happily filling the seats.

Apart from it all, though, a battle has been raging.

In the left-field corner, at the end of a tunnel that runs below those seats, in a small area surrounded by nets and bathed in florescent lights, Juan Samuel has been seeing curveballs.

Pitch after pitch, Dodger coach Manny Mota has been standing at one end of the netted area and throwing curves to Samuel at the other end. Mota throws high curves, low curves, curves that seem to move to the accompanying Latin music blaring from a radio.

It would be a normal batting exercise, except Samuel is not hitting the curveballs. He is not even swinging at them.

He is in a crouch, catching them. When you are hitless in your last 30 at-bats, you start from scratch.

“At this point, we just want Juan to see the ball,” Mota said.

Said Samuel later, “At this point, I am just glad I’m alive.”

It has been a long week for the Dodgers’ second baseman, who had spent it on the bench, five consecutive games, the longest such stretch of his career.

He hopes--and the Dodgers are hinting--that he will return to the starting lineup today for the first game of a three-game series at Cincinnati.

But he doesn’t know. And the Dodgers don’t know. The only thing they agree upon is that they are totally confused by each other.

Samuel is losing patience because the Dodgers won’t let him play through his slump. The Dodgers are losing patience because Samuel shows no patience at the plate, a trait they feel can cause such slumps.

Samuel is losing patience because the Dodgers don’t understand that he has been a two-time All-Star by not being a patient hitter. The Dodgers are losing patience because Samuel is right--they don’t understand.

With nearly one-half of the season completed and their projected leadoff man and catalyst batting only .207 with 75 strikeouts in 232 at-bats, Samuel is sure of only one thing.

“I’m alive, I’ve got my family, I’ve got my money, so everything is fine,” he said. “Right now, that is the only way I can look at it.”

He sighed. “It isn’t like I’m going to go running and begging to play,” he said. “I know I will always be able to play somewhere.”

Beneath that bravado, though, has been frustration and pain.

Although known as one of the calmest players in baseball, after his benching last week Samuel was seen rushing out of Manager Tom Lasorda’s office and slamming the door behind him. And although known as one of the most congenial players in baseball, Samuel has also tried not talking with reporters.

Now, he said, he is thinking about doing something as foreign to him as failing to run out a grounder. He is thinking about becoming selfish. He is thinking about complaining when he is asked to change positions in the field or places in the batting order or even batting stances.

“Why not? It works for a lot of other people in this game,” Samuel said. “There’s a lot of other guys who don’t give a damn and play only for their numbers and their money, and they seem to do fine.

“Maybe if I stop trying to be a team player, like I always am, maybe if I just care for myself . . . maybe then the sun will shine.”

Maybe the Dodgers wouldn’t care, as long as he started hitting again. They have a huge interest in him, and not just because they traded career Dodgers Mike Marshall and Alejandro Pena to get him. They care also because of what the time invested in him since he arrived.

The Dodger coaches have been working with him since the start of spring training on shortening his long and wild swing. The tutoring finally appeared to work several weeks ago, when Samuel broke out of a slump and raised his average to .232.

But then his fortunes turned. Beginning June 6 against Atlanta pitcher John Smoltz, he went into a slide that still has not stopped. Since then, in 30 at-bats, he has struck out 12 times, flied out 12 times and grounded out six times.

Of concern to the Dodgers, he only drew two unintentional walks during that time. They feel if he doesn’t walk, he won’t hit.

“I try to tell him, a walk is good ,” Mota said. “A walk means more stolen bases. I tell him, ‘Sammy, if you hit .260, can you imagine how many bases you will steal?’ ”

But the way Samuel views it, he hit more than .260 for four consecutive years, from 1984 through 1987 for Philadelphia. And only once during that time did he draw more than 39 walks per season.

“They don’t understand, being impatient at the plate is the way I am, it is the way all Dominican players are,” said Samuel, a native of San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic. “We are always aggressive. We are always swinging. Look at George Bell of Toronto or Julio Franco of Texas. We are all the same.

“And I am too old to change.”

Samuel also says he is too old to be hearing so many batting theories from so many different people.

“I have heard a lot of things, and it makes it difficult,” he said. “I am the kind of guy who goes up there, sees the ball and hits it. When you think too much, you have problems.

“It’s like if I am up there, thinking about my shoulder flying open on my swing . . . by the time I know it, the ball is halfway there.”

Samuel said he feels the same way about tinkering with his spot in the starting lineup.

“I could have used a few days off, sure,” he said. “But after that, I want to be in there. I want to play through this. You have to play through it.”

The Dodgers would like to just leave Samuel alone. Except during the eight games in his slump, they lost six times. Since he was benched in favor of Lenny Harris, the Dodgers won five in a row.

“Sammy is a tremendous athlete, and he always busts his rear end for us, and there is no telling what he can accomplish,” batting coach Ben Hines said. “And we all know he is going to break out of it, and get back in there.

“But like with any athlete, when they aren’t performing to their capabilities, it bothers me. And he knows he’s not.”

Don’t worry, Samuel assured. He is not going to start smashing bats into trash cans or making a habit of slamming doors. At least not yet.

“Just the other night, I thought, ‘This is good for me,’ ” he said, shaking his head. “Maybe I’m learning some things. I’m learning a lot of things.”