Now He’s Showing Everyone : Dodgers Did Their Best to Make Juan Samuel Feel Unwanted, So He Worked Hard and He’s Having All-Star Season

Juan Samuel stalks to home plate slowly, with heavy steps, as if somebody there has challenged him to a fight.

After scoring a run, he stalks back to the dugout, head down, as if only tolerating the cheers.

Afterward, despite his trademark big smile, he says little to Dodger teammates, and nothing to reporters from local newspapers. As his bat has gotten louder, his silence has grown deafening.

It is left to others to describe what the man feels. Oddly, they can do it in one word.

Anger.

They say Samuel is angry at an organization that he thinks did not believe in him. They say he is angry with reporters who he believes made him a focal point of the Dodgers’ troubles last season.

They say he is angry enough to have turned this season into a mission.

“Juan was not wanted here, and everybody knows that,” one Dodger veteran said. “Last winter they were only throwing him a bone by offering him a contract. They never thought he would take it, and never thought he would be their regular second baseman.

“He is out to show everybody something.”

Said Brett Butler: “I don’t really know him, but I know he is playing like a man trying to prove a point.”

Fortunately for the Dodgers, Samuel has directed his anger at National League pitchers. Less than a year after being mourned as another fallen star, he is now being celebrated as the best second baseman in the National League and a most valuable player candidate.

Samuel is hitting .326, just behind Lenny Harris’ .327. He leads the Dodgers, who have the best record in baseball, in hits with 85, and in total bases, 123. He is second in runs with 42, home runs with eight, and stolen bases with 10. He is third in runs batted in with 36.

The only other second baseman in the league with comparable numbers is the Chicago Cubs’ Ryne Sandberg. But Samuel is batting 32 points higher than Sandberg.

Samuel struggles occasionally in the field--his seven errors are second most among National League second basemen. But the Dodgers can overlook that in a player who has yet to go consecutive games without at least one hit.

“We are seeing the Juan Samuel that I knew a few years ago with Philadelphia,” Darryl Strawberry said. “This is the guy who once hit all those homers (28 in 1987) and drove in all those runs (100, also in 1987).

“You can tell it in his approach, in the way he looks. He is the player he used to be.”

What the Dodgers appreciate most about Samuel are little things he does, things that slip through the cracks in compiling statistics. Hitting a grounder to the right side. Taking an extra base.

These are smart plays that can be made only by those playing with a purpose. They result not in All-Star votes--Samuel trails Sandberg in the balloting--but victories.

Ben Hines, the Dodgers’ batting coach, likes to talk about a recent at-bat during which Samuel took two called strikes in the first three pitches, then fought the pitcher for six more pitches before drawing a walk on a checked swing.

“That last pitch was a slider that came outside at the last minute,” Hines said. “His bat control was exceptional.”

Not bad for a player who once set a record by leading the league in strikeouts for four consecutive seasons.

Joe Amalfitano, Dodger third base coach, points to the first inning of last Wednesday’s 9-8 victory over the Cubs as another of Samuel’s highlights.

Butler started the game with a single. Samuel then hit a grounder to the right side, which made it harder for the Cubs to turn the double play, and Samuel was safe on first.

Stan Javier then singled to left field, but Samuel did not stop at second. He slid into third base, barely ahead of the throw, and Javier was able to sneak into second. Two batters later, both runners had scored.

“He makes plays this year that you would not have seen last year,” Amalfitano said. “You can tell, he’s on a mission to prove a lot of people wrong. He is playing to prove that he is not through.”

As far as the public can see, the only thing he has in common with last year is the uniform.

But this is the same person who last season batted .207 in April, .184 in June and .164 in August.

This is the same person who once went hitless in 33 consecutive at-bats before finally being benched.

This is the same person whose frustration peaked when he spent the night in a Pittsburgh jail after an alleged bar fight, for which charges were eventually dropped.

He was supposed to be the Dodgers’ center fielder, but that lasted six weeks. He was supposed to be the leadoff hitter, but by the end of the season he was batting seventh.

He batted .242 with 126 strikeouts, fifth highest in the league. He committed 13 errors at second base for a .972 fielding percentage, the worst among all National League second baseman who played at least 100 games.

Nobody was happier to see the season end than Samuel, who didn’t want to return to the Dodgers any more than they wanted him to. But an incident last August began a chain of events that, 10 months later, has brought him to the verge of his first All-Star game appearance in four years.

THE BAT

In the visiting clubhouse at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium last August, Samuel and Javier were chatting before a game when Samuel absently began swinging Javier’s bat. It was an inch shorter, 34 inches, and an ounce lighter, 31, than Samuel’s.

“He picked it up and said it felt good,” Javier recalled. “I said, ‘Why don’t you try it out?’ ”

Samuel used Javier’s bats the rest of the season. He hit .376 in September and October.

This season, Samuel ordered his name engraved in those smaller bats, and Hines can see the difference every time Samuel steps to the plate.

“What we’re seeing this year really started last year, with those bats,” Hines said. “Because he can handle the smaller bat better, he can wait longer before swinging at a pitch. He doesn’t commit himself so quick. He has better swings at better pitches.”

Said Javier, who is batting .211: “Maybe now I should start using Sammy’s old bats.”

THE SNUB

Before the Dodgers finally retained Samuel’s services last winter, two months after he had declared himself a free agent, they had already done three things that many players thought made their intentions clear.

They had tried to sign Cincinnati second baseman Bill Doran, had traded for the Cubs’ top second-base prospect, Greg Smith, and had discussed using Lenny Harris and Mike Sharperson as a platoon at second base.

When Samuel finally accepted their arbitration offer Dec. 15, many in the organization were stunned.

When asked for a comment on the day of his acceptance, one Dodger official said, “Some people were worried that this would happen.”

By offering him arbitration, the Dodgers were assuring themselves of compensation in case Samuel went to another team. By accepting arbitration, Samuel was admitting that nobody else wanted him.

It was not exactly a match made in heaven.

“One team I could have signed with wanted me to play third base,” Samuel said this spring in one of his final newspaper interviews. “Another team wanted me to play in the outfield. Another team wanted me to do both.

“Then there was one team that said I would play second base as soon as they made a trade! I went through that last year. I would not go through that again.”

In the Dominican Republic, where Samuel spent part of the winter, he heard the stories about the Dodgers’ interest in other second basemen. He knew he would be returning to a potentially uncomfortable situation.

And so he started to train as never before. Javier began seeing him every day during informal winter workouts at the University of Santo Domingo.

“One day he came and talked about how, all of a sudden, he was a veteran fighting for a job,” Javier said. “That made him think. That really made him serious.

“He started hitting the weights hard. He was doing everything hard. Really building himself up. It looked like he was preparing his body, but really, he was preparing his mind.”

When asked if Samuel was inspired by a perceived snub, Jim Turner, his agent, would not comment. But Fred Claire, Dodger vice president, said that he wanted Samuel all along.

“I have always had the highest regard for Juan--remember, I traded two good players for him,” Claire said, recalling the trade that sent Alejandro Pena and Mike Marshall to the New York Mets.

“If you remember last year after the All-Star game, with the whole world falling on his head, I used Samuel as an example of what a player should be. Plays hard every day and never complains.”

Claire added, “There is also this misconception that we offered Samuel arbitration just because of compensation. That was not the driving motivation. Nobody could be happier when he accepted our offer than me. I even called him at home in the Dominican on the night he accepted.”

THE PROMISE

Hours before the season opener, after Samuel had hit .322 in spring training, Tom Lasorda called him into the visiting manager’s office underneath Atlanta Fulton County Stadium.

He told Samuel, who was the team’s wildest swinger and worst possible choice as a No. 2 hitter, that he was going to be the No. 2 hitter.

“Everybody thought I was crazy,” Lasorda said. “Nobody, but nobody, thought Juan Samuel could be a No. 2 hitter.

“But we desperately needed somebody to bat behind Brett Butler. And I saw something in this guy during batting practices that made me think he could do it.

“So I asked Juan, just give me 30 days. That’s all, just promise me 30 days as the No. 2 hitter. Take more pitches, try to hit the ball to the opposite field. Just 30 days.”

Samuel was already happy with the idea of playing one position throughout the season. According to Hines, who was also in the meeting, Samuel’s eyes grew wide at the thought of consistently batting in the same spot.

“I remember Sammy saying, ‘Yes, I would like to do that,’ ” Hines said. “You could hear the commitment in his voice. All of a sudden he had more direction, more incentive, more purpose.”

Butler, who is among the league leaders with 48 runs, talks about what has happened since.

“I go up to Sammy now and say, ‘You’re my idol, man,’ ” Butler said. “I’m now walking back to first base fewer times than I am going to third base.”

The benefit has been mutual, because Samuel is seeing more fastballs with a baserunning threat like Butler on base so often.

“I think Sammy just wanted to be wanted,” Butler said. “I don’t know if he felt that in the past here. But I know he feels it now.”