Foster Is Trying a Second Career : Baseball: Former National League MVP serves as a volunteer college assistant with an eye toward returning to major leagues as a hitting instructor.

Wearing a familiar Cincinnati Reds jacket to combat a chilling wind, George Foster supports himself on a metal fence, his steely brown eyes carefully perusing the Sacred Heart University baseball team’s pregame warmups.

Still seemingly uneasy talking with the media, Foster soon moseys toward a nearby batting cage and cajoles players, offering tips to several attentive listeners on achieving his desired “trigger in the swing.”

As game time nears, Foster grabs a bat and fires fungos skyward to the outfield, then takes a rake and levels dirt around first base. As first-base coach, Foster smiles broadly and taps his right hand on the left side of his chest after leadoff hitter Jerry Fry barely beats a throw to second for a double. He then high-fives Scott Schilling and Albert Carrarra after a successful sacrifice bunt and sacrifice fly produce the game’s first run.

When not in the coach’s box, Foster watches intently, confers with Coach Nick Giaquinto or gives advice and comfort to any interested player -- of which there are many.

So what is the last National League player to hit 50 home runs in a season and 1977 National League MVP doing spending time as a volunteer assistant with a Division II baseball team? Because, in time, he hopes to erase negative residue from his major-league past and return to the scene of his greatest feats trying to help others do what he did best.

“My long-range goal is to be an independent hitting instructor in the majors,” said Foster, 42, 6-foot-2 and still near his major-league playing weight of 197. “College is the breeding ground for the major leagues. Seeing the mind-set here will help at the major-league level, knowing what mechanics to work on. ... I wasn’t going to sit home and be quiet when I could make use of my energies and get a resume together.”

Foster began his comeback after Joe Madaffari, baseball coach at Brien McMahon High in Norwalk, Conn., asked Giaquinto if he’d be interested in Foster helping the SHU team.

“We talked, and it seemed like a good fit,” said Giaquinto, a former football star at the University of Bridgeport and the University of Connecticut before playing in the NFL with Miami and Washington. “It’s great to be around him and pick his brain. I can’t hope to know half of what he knows. In one at-bat, he’ll know what a guy’s doing wrong and what he needs to work on. It’s a good learning experience for me and hopefully the guys will take advantage of it.”

Giaquinto said Foster works with all the players, concentrating on his forte -- hitting -- which produced 52 home runs, 149 RBI and a .320 batting average in his MVP season. In 18 major-league seasons with the Reds, the Mets, the Giants and the White Sox, Foster hit 348 home runs, had 1,239 RBI and batted .274.

Foster joined the SHU staff because of his interest in the college scene, the school’s proximity to his home in Greenwich, Conn., and Giaquinto’s belief he could be an asset.

Foster gave a preseason talk to the team and is spending as much time as he can with it before starting his third year as coach at the Brunswick School in Greenwich. He also works as a consultant for Grand Slam, a company that owns 90 hitting facilities nationwide .

“I’m not trying to force things. I’m concentrating on the teaching aspect and making players feel comfortable,” said Foster, whose “trigger in the swing” emphasizes power.

Foster hopes his work triggers a better understanding of his past, most notably his uncomfortable days with the Mets. It began with a five-year, $10 million contract, continued through resentment from teammates over salary and his aloofness and ended in August 1986, when the Mets, on the way to a World Series title, released Foster one day after comments alleging racial favoritism on the team.

Foster’s allegations included saying the Mets wanted to promote a Gary Carter or Keith Hernandez more than a Dwight Gooden or Darryl Strawberry because the first two were white and the latter black.

“I talked about favoritism, and that was the truth. Ray Charles could have seen that,” Foster said. “I just tried to be honest and fair, but I’m not going to try to change what allegedly was said. There was a conspiracy to find some reason to get rid of me. There were a lot of things that happened behind the scenes that weren’t known by the public. But there’s no sense harping on that because it sounds like sour grapes.”

Foster played 15 games for the White Sox in ’86 and was turned down by 18 teams the next spring, takes a similar stance when discussing the Hall of Fame, which includes former Reds teammates Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan. Those two, Foster, plus Pete Rose and Tony Perez, powered the Reds to three National League pennants and the World Series in 1975 and ’76.

“I feel I have the statistics to get in, but, like Pete, there are things that enter into voting other than on the field,” Foster said. “No one really knows what the standards are, except you have to play 10 years.

“Pete should be in. They compare him to Shoeless Joe Jackson, but that was on the field (fixing games). Pete’s (problem) was in his personal life (alleged betting on baseball and conviction for income tax evasion).”

History aside, Foster said Major League Baseball can’t -- and won’t -- ostracize him forever.

“I know I can help,” Foster said, “so it’s the major league’s loss by not using my expertise.”