Go Figure : As Athletics’ Mark McGwire Keeps Slugging, His Batting Average Continues to Fade

“Interesting, isn’t it? He may hit 40 home runs and drive in 100 runs , and the only thing anyone asks me is, ‘What’s wrong with Mark McGwire?’ ”

--Merv Rettenmund, Oakland batting coach

At 26, Mark McGwire’s red hair hasn’t turned gray or fallen out. He hasn’t run to the Athletics’ psychologist, Harvey Dorfman, for counseling. He isn’t losing weight. He doesn’t sit at his locker and mope. He hasn’t asked his renowned Bash Brother, Jose Canseco, to take him for a fast ride on a dead-end road.

There is nothing seriously wrong with the first baseman from USC and Damien High in Claremont.

The evidence:

--He has 33 home runs and 87 runs batted in--each third best in the American League.

--He became the first player in major league history to hit 30 or more homers in each of his first four full seasons, and his 1990 home run and RBI ratios of one every 12.9 and 5.15 at-bats are superior to last year’s.

--Last year, he hit 33 homers, drove in 95 runs, led the league with a home run ratio of 14.8 and was second to Bo Jackson with an RBI ratio of 5.2. He also reached 100 homers--he now has 150--faster than any player except Ralph Kiner.

So, what is wrong with McGwire, and why are people pestering Rettenmund for answers?

It has to do with a batting average that has spiraled downward since McGwire’s spectacular rookie-of-the-year season in 1987, when his 49 home runs and 118 RBIs were accompanied by a .289 batting average.

The average slipped to .260 in 1988, .231 last year and, with just a month left in the 1990 season, to .222. No one expects a 6-foot-5, 225-pounder to be another Wade Boggs or Tony Gwynn, but what would be wrong, Rettenmund is asked, with his being the McGwire of ‘87? Put another way:

“If McGwire can hit 33 homers and drive in 87 runs batting below his weight, what would his productivity be if he hit .289 again?”

Said Rettenmund: “I don’t think he’d hit that many more home runs, but how many more doubles would he hit and how many more runs would he drive in? I mean, considering how many men we put on base and how they pitch around Canseco, he would be a cinch to lead the league in RBIs.”

So, should he be hitting for a higher average?

“With his stroke, much higher,” Rettenmund said. “Even taking into consideration that he doesn’t ever get an infield hit (because of his lack of speed), I think he could hit .280 without pushing it.”

Could? Should?

There are varying opinions on that and on what

difference it makes as long as his productivity is high.

Even McGwire has mixed feelings.

“I’ve hit for a respectable average every year except the last two and take too much pride in what I do to be satisfied hitting .220. No one should,” McGwire said. “I know I can hit .270 to .280 and won’t be satisfied until I’m doing it again, but it’s not like I haven’t contributed or produced.

“I do take satisfaction in my power stats, and it’s like Reggie (Jackson) said, ‘Damage. People remember the damage and who did it.’ Home runs and RBIs make the money.”

Said Canseco, never at a loss for words: “Who do you want? The guy who goes three for three with no RBIs or the guy who wins the game with a three-run homer in the ninth? You’d like to have it all, but if it’s an either-or, I’ll take home runs and RBIs, and I don’t think I have to talk to Mark or sell him on that. It’s common sense. He’s a big power hitter, and big power hitters get paid a lot these days. I know.”

Seymour Siwoff, who heads the Elias Sports Bureau, thinks McGwire’s numbers, much like Joe Carter’s in the National League, are illustrative of a changing breed.

“Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams may have been embarrassed by those batting averages, but now there’s a breed of player that doesn’t care how often he strikes out or what his average is if he’s productive and hits home runs,” Siwoff said. “It’s amazing.”

McGwire insists that he does care, but how many films can you watch? How much extra batting practice can you take? He’s past the point of carrying it home with him and losing sleep, he said. Mention ’87 or ask him about the batting average again and there probably will be a flash of uncharacteristic annoyance and a gentle reminder that you can’t live in the past.

“I get real irritated, sure,” he said, referring to the questions about his average. “The point is that I have so many at-bats now it’s almost impossible to make my average respectable. I’m so far in the hole that I’d have to hit 1.000 (during the rest of the season) just to get to .250.

“I’m just trying to stay positive and take it a day at a time, to contribute the best I can. I’m tired of talking about it and analyzing it. I’ll start from scratch when the season’s over. In the meantime I obviously feel I’m doing something right. There’s a smile on my face, and I’m in the lineup every day.”

The A’s aren’t pressing him. They point to:

--His 85 walks, third in the league, and a .350 on-base percentage that is third among A’s regulars behind Rickey Henderson and Canseco.

--His 91 strikeouts in 428 at-bats, not nearly comparable to the strikeout levels of power hitters Rob Deer and Bo Jackson.

--His defense. With Yankee Don Mattingly sidelined because of a back injury, he is the league’s top defensive first baseman.

Then there are those 33 homers and 87 RBIs.

“He’s doing plenty to help us,” Manager Tony La Russa said. “Could he do more? Sure. But batting average is the wrong way to measure Mark.”

Which is not to say, La Russa added, that he wants McGwire to accept an image of a guy who hits 30 homers and bats .220.

“He’s better than that,” La Russa said. “In a bad year he ought to hit .250.”

McGwire is being paid $1.5 million this season. General Manager Sandy Alderson said he has talked with McGwire to set the record straight on how his performance relates to salary.

“I told Mark he would be judged on run production and on-base percentage, not batting average,” Alderson said. “When you throw in a heavy measure of defense, I think he’s had a very good year.

“We all would like to have his batting average higher, but I don’t think he has any reason to apologize. I look at a guy driving in 100 runs and getting on base often enough to score 70 as doing his job and creating opportunities for other people in the lineup. It would be counter-productive if his on-base percentage dropped to .290 so that he could get his batting average to .260.”

How did the .289 of 1987 slide to .222? There are several theories.

Some say that a 1988 divorce--he and Kathy had met when she was a bat girl for the USC baseball team--drove him out of a mental groove and onto a course of readjustments that others insist all young hitters experience.

Others say he has lost aggressiveness and is walking too often; that he is too often trying to pull the ball rather than hitting up the middle or to right-center; that he is slow to commit at times and doesn’t use the same swing in batting practice that he does in the game.

McGwire smiled, said he has heard it all, but didn’t accept any one theory.

“The point is, if you add just 10 hits to what I’m hitting now I’d have a decent average and we wouldn’t be talking about any of this,” he said. “And every year I’ve hit at least 10 balls hard that were caught.”

Two things are certain:

--Hurt by the size of the Oakland Coliseum, as Canseco has been, McGwire is a more productive hitter on the road.

--Having worn glasses or contact lenses since he was 8, McGwire estimates that he has gone through 100 pairs of lenses, attempting to correct astigmatism and nearsightedness. He acknowledged that there are times when he has trouble picking up pitches, most often at night.

He went into the 1990 season with a .290 average for day games and .209 at night. He had averaged one home run every 10 at-bats during the day and one every 16 at night.

“If I could get him to 20-10 he’d hit 50 homers a year,” his optometrist, Stephen Johnson, said recently.

“I don’t think I need an excuse, and it’s not one,” McGwire said of the vision problem. “It’s not an everyday thing. I’ve lived with it, can’t change it, and done pretty well considering it.

“I mean, with all the great power hitters, it’s pretty amazing to have done something (30 or more homers in each of his first four seasons) that no one else ever did.”

Amazing, too, because at USC it was once thought McGwire’s major league future might be as a pitcher. Times change, though, and so do families.

McGwire’s parents, Ginger and John, still live in Claremont, but the five sons are scattered.

Mike is a clinical psychologist, Bob builds custom staircases, J.J. (John Joseph) works for a carpet-cleaning firm, Dan is a quarterback for San Diego State and Mark lives quietly in the Alameda area, probably seeing more of his Bash Brother than his real brothers.

Among the theorists, there are even some who analyze the deterioration of McGwire’s batting average and say that he might benefit by displaying a little more of Canseco’s aggressiveness, a measure of his flamboyance.

McGwire shook his head and said he doesn’t care if the sweep of Canseco’s spotlight eludes him.

“I’ve always been the kind who liked to sit in the back of the room and just blend in,” he said. “We’re two different people, two different hitters, and I don’t think I’d ever want to be in the position he’s in or could ever enjoy it. It’s fine if I don’t get the recognition because I’m playing the game I always wanted to play.”