MINOR LEAGUE REPORT : Brothers Tatum Back Together With Brewers

The baseball careers of Jim and John Tatum are now harbored in the same port, but the tides that brought them there came from much different directions.

Jim was the player of the year at Santana in 1984 while leading the Sultans to the 3-A title.

John was a finalist for the same award at Grossmont while helping the Foothillers win the 2-A title in May.

With regards to Crawford’s Bob and Ray Boone and Hoover’s Mike and Mark Davis, the Tatums might be the finest baseball brothers in San Diego Section history.

Today, they find themselves playing minor league ball for the same organization--the Milwaukee Brewers--at the same position--third base.

Jim, 22, is hitting .278 with six home runs and 23 RBIs in 21 games for the Stockton Ports, a Class A team. John, who will turn 18 next Friday, is hitting .407 with nine RBIs in seven games for Peoria, Ariz., a rookie league club.

And in time? Well, you can only have one third baseman on the field at once.

“If it came down to that,” Jim said, “I’d be happy if he made it, or I’d be happy if I made it. I’m sure he feels the same way.”

At Santana, where he also starred in football (quarterback) and basketball, Jim was a notably fierce competitor.

He also could be outspoken and brutally honest at times and quiet, lonely and confused at others. Either way, he said, he was mostly misunderstood.

Their parents went through a divorce when Jim and John were 13 and 8. Jim said it affected him immensely.

“I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t work things out,” Jim said. “It was hard. There wasn’t much stability in my life then. I was basically by myself. I knew the only thing I could grasp hard was athletics.”

In doing so, he left behind quite a legacy when he graduated in 1985.

John, who used to go to all of Jim’s games with their father, grew up with the “big shoes” and “shadow” syndromes. People reminded him all the time what a great athlete Jim was. But John handled it amazingly well.

Moving and attending Grossmont helped. He was not really accepted at Santana, he says.

“I was compared with my brother all the time,” he said. “(But at Grossmont), the parents, the players, the coaches, they let me be me. They all took me for who I am.”

Both Jim and John, feared hitters and pitchers alike in high school, caused significant revisions in the section record book.

Jim is the only player in section history to hit four home runs in a game and is among four with nine runs batted in in a game. John, who twice hit two homers in one game (including two in the same inning), broke the record for saves in a single season with 13 and also equaled the career mark. In two years, he was 10-0. Both hit 11 home runs their senior years while batting in the high .400s.

Similar as their high school careers were, John is hoping his minor league years are more fortunate than Jim’s.

Jim, after four somewhat successful years in the Padre organization--he was a third-round draft choice in 1985--ran into off-field problems during the 1988-89 off-season.

He was divorced from his high school sweetheart after two years of marriage in December, stabbed in the arm by her new boyfriend during a fight on Christmas night and accused of vandalizing her car in March (he was arrested but says charges were never brought).

The timing of the latter incident--two days before spring training--led the Padres to suspend Jim and request that he go through a counseling program.

Jim says he tried the program but didn’t feel anything was wrong with him and didn’t understand what the team was trying to do.

“I felt insulted,” he said. “I didn’t mind talking to those guys. They had some great ideas, but then they all started to sound the same.”

He wasn’t getting paid but says what hurt him most was not being able to play baseball. Finally, after sitting out the year, Jim asked for his release, and the Padres obliged.

The year off, he said, gave him time to grow, and for the first time, watch John play ball.

“To go away for so many years, and then come back, all of a sudden, he was dominating. It was really neat,” Jim said.

John went 10 for 12 in a playoff drive that ended with a loss to Carlsbad in the 1989 2-A championship.

That summer, Jim starred on a National Baseball Congress team. In September, 1989, he signed with the Indians. He started this year in double-A at Canton-Akron (Ohio) but hit just .180 and was soon released.

The Brewers had been interested when he signed with Cleveland, so Jim made some calls.

John had been drafted in the 15th round by the Brewers.

Their signing dates were just days apart.

Said John jokingly, “At first, I said, ‘Oh my God. I thought I got away from him.’

“But then I thought, ‘All the better. We can work as a team now.’ I looked up to him for so long, then I competed (with his legacy) in high school.

“When we talked after we both had signed, he said, ‘John, you’re not my little brother any more. You’re my teammate.’ I was ecstatic. It made me feel great.”