Dante Recalls Unhappy Days Under a Halo

Squinting beneath the gleaming blue plastic of a Milwaukee Brewers batting helmet, Dante Bichette peers into a future that will have to proceed without him.

“The Angels have put themselves in a situation where they’ve got to win it pretty soon,” Bichette says. “I don’t see any emphasis on the future there. They’ve put themselves in a situation where they better win a pennant in the next couple years.”

Bichette believes the Angels have arrived in Now-Or-Never City because he has studied the road map as drawn by Rand-McNally-Rader-Port-Brown. They could have circumvented the place by taking the scenic route, which is tried and true but also slow and sometimes boring. The Angels opted instead for the shortcut, which is treacherous and requires traveling light, which meant some excess baggage had to go.

Bichette was one of those left behind--replaced in right field by a 38-year-old and then traded two weeks ago for a 39-year-old.

Out there on the horizon, Bichette can spot a few scattered young faces--Lee Stevens, John Orton--still trying to hitch a ride. He bids them well.

“I wouldn’t wish what I went through on nobody,” Bichette says. “I felt three years ago that I should have been the everyday right fielder. Then they got Chili Davis. And the next year, Claudell Washington. And the next year, Dave Winfield.

“It was three years of battling, of always having to prove I can play. . . . I felt like there was nothing more I could have done to win an everyday job. I felt like I won it straight out--and they didn’t give it to me.

“If they expected more, well, they must have been expecting an awful lot.”

The only time Bichette truly had right field to himself as an Angel came last year during April and most of May. In his first 35 at-bats, he had three home runs, nine runs batted in and a .343 average. After two months, he was still hitting .281 with six home runs and 25 RBIs.

But on May 17, Winfield debuted as an Angel, and soon after, as Bichette puts it, “they took my job away.”

“I was leading the league in (outfield) assists, and I was second in the league in doubles when they took me out,” he says. “I was leading the team in almost every offensive category.

“That’s why, during the off-season, I had my agent request either a chance to play every day or a trade. I wanted to play every day, but I couldn’t trust the Angels to give me anything.

“Just a chance is all I wanted. Last year, I had it, but they took it away from me.”

Bichette figured he had called the Angels’ bluff. The Dante Bichette Fan Club starts at home, and the president never believed the Angels could ever tear themselves away from what he was--a star for the ‘90s.

“I didn’t think they’d let me go,” Bichette says. “Obviously, we weren’t looking at the same things.”

To Bichette’s utter disbelief, the Angels convened in Mesa, Ariz., for spring training without Chili Davis, without Brian Downing, without Devon White--and without a spot for Bichette in the starting lineup.

“I thought this was going to be the year for sure,” Bichette says. “But they started talking about platooning me. They knew I wouldn’t stand for that.

“(Doug) Rader told me I’d be doing a lot of DH-ing and moving around in the outfield. He didn’t think I’d like that. He was right. I’m a right fielder. I’m very good at it. And they already had Dave Winfield out there.

“What they needed was a designated hitter. So they went out and got one.”

That is why the Brewers tried to dish off jersey No. 39 to Bichette--the number that used to belong to Dave Parker, the man the Angels got. “I said no, because it’s twice my size,” Bichette says. The Brewers also said no to Bichette’s old number, 19, which belongs to another old guy named Robin Yount, so Bichette is temporarily outfitted in a no-respect No. 70.

By Opening Day, they will compromise on No. 3.

Babe Ruth’s old number.

Looking back, Bichette insists his Angel career was undermined by “rumors--rumors that I’m always showing up late, that I fell asleep in the clubhouse.”

Well, what about them?

Well, they were true.

“I was late a few times,” Bichette notes. “But there’s a lot of guys on that team that were late, too. I wasn’t the only one.”

And that siesta on the sofa?

“That was after a day game,” Bichette says. Oh. “It was after the game, and I fell asleep on the couch.

“If I’d been out there, playing, I wouldn’t have had a chance to fall asleep. It can be very tough, being a guy who’s excitable as I am, sitting on the bench all the time.”

Still, late arrivals and early nod-offs create the impression of a ballplayer who doesn’t care, do they not?

“That’s the farthest thing from the truth,” Bichette argues. “I didn’t dream from the time I was 10 years old about becoming a pro ballplayer and then get here and not care.

“Way too many people in the Angel organization know how hard I work. Lance (Parrish), Jack (Howell), Brian (Downing)--the guys I work out with in the gym. I came to camp with 6.6% body fat. That’s 2% lower than anybody else in camp.

“I didn’t get that way by sitting around eating hot dogs in the off-season. I worked my butt off.”

As usual, that has spelled a horrible fate for Cactus League baseballs. In his first eight games with the Brewers, Bichette is batting .464, already leads the team in home runs with three and is second in RBIs with seven.

He joined an equally congested outfield when he switched camps, but the difference is that the Brewers are taking pains to accommodate Bichette. Manager Tom Treblehorn has moved one outfielder (Franklin Stubbs) to first base and another (Greg Vaughn) to the bench, leaving right field, for the moment, to Bichette.

Now he has to keep it.

“This is nothing to get excited about,” Bichette says. “Everybody knows I can play in spring training. It’ll be five to 10 years down the road until we’ll see what really happened here.

“Right now, this is just me playing with a lot of confidence and motivation to do well.”

That was the trade, then: Mr. March for Mr. December.

The Angels only win if they’re still playing in late October.