Winfield: Life Begins at Age 39

Dave Winfield swung, connected and there it went, his 394th home run, most of any active major leaguer, a thunderbolt over the center-field fence that zapped the olive backdrop 429 feet from home plate, up there where Bo Jackson jacked one when Anaheim Stadium threw the 1989 All-Star party.

It interrupted a Jose Guzman no-hitter in the fifth inning and would have meant considerably more to Winfield had he been able to tape-measure No. 395 in Sunday’s ninth inning, when the Angels were behind by a run and The David (consider it a leftover New York appellation) represented their last chance. Had Winfield’s infield liner not been snagged by the Texas second baseman, ending the game, he would have felt happier afterward than he did.

Still, he felt pretty good.

“Remember what they were saying a year ago in New York?” Winfield said, unable to resist. “ ‘He’s finished, he’s finished.’ ‘You’re finished, Winfield, get outta here!’ ”

Finished?

Does this man look finished?

Does this man sound finished?

“Who’s the oldest guy in the majors now?” Winfield asked. “Charlie Hough?”

No, Nolan Ryan.

“How old’s he?”

“Forty-four.”

“Well, that’s my goal now,” said Winfield, 39. “I won’t leave the game of baseball until I’m the oldest guy in the game.”

He shouldn’t. Dave Winfield is not at the end of his game; he’s at the top of it. His 16 homers and 53 runs batted in are Angel club bests. He recently hit for the cycle--homer, triple, double, single--for the first time. In April, Winfield homered three times in one night. He went nearly a year without an error before making one Saturday night. And he has become so popular with the crowds, even Wally Joyner would have to concede that his favorite amusement park is turning into Wally & Winnie World.

The manager, Doug Rader, has been an even better manager since the day the Angels fortified their outfield with Winfield at a cost of expendable pitcher Mike Witt.

“He represents more to us than just a ballplayer,” Rader said Sunday. “He’s a man. Dave Winfield is a tremendous human being who sets a fine example around here for everybody. ‘Expectation’ is a very vague word, but I had known Dave for a very long time and knew what kind of productivity he was capable of. It wasn’t something you could forecast specifically, because of his health. But just look at him now.

“He’s a man. I just can’t think of a better way to put it.”

Someone who has taken lumps and handed them out. That describes Dave Winfield, who was tending to business in Yankee Stadium, behaving heroically, only to find himself dreading whatever midweek crisis awaited him next, usually one involving a certain party who shall remain shameless, George Steinbrenner.

When Winfield finally got out of town, his body was hardly in its greatest shape, but his mind seemed to be.

He is reminded of it, day by day.

“I am recharged,” Winfield said, rejoicing in sound health and the joy of a pennant race. “Every day I play here is another day I don’t have to deal with the garbage of before.”

Take, for example, the fact that not only is Winfield climbing his way toward Al Kaline’s 399 rung on the home-run ladder as well as that 400 ledge so few have ever reached, but that he is now within nine of the all-time RBI total of Rogers Hornsby, who holds 20th place on baseball’s all-time list.

When you start threatening records held by Hall of Famers, who can blame a guy for feeling, well, immortal? No wonder Winfield wants to grow old in Anaheim’s green grass.

“The Angels illuminate it when you do anything of any historic significance,” Winfield said. “In New York, they couldn’t really get into it. Maybe they’d already had too much.”

Yeah, all those Ruths and Gehrigs and DiMaggios and Mickeys and Reggies, you know.

“You see what they’re doing now, don’t you? Restructuring the whole team,” Winfield said. “One by one, they’re getting rid of the veterans and replacing them with younger players. And from the success they’ve been having, apparently it’s justified.”

Yep, break up the Yankees.

The Angels were happy to help. They feel better knowing that with one swing, Winfield can whack one off that big “A” out there above the billboards.

Rarely will he cost them a distinguished achievement or a game, as when a routine roller eluded him Saturday and wiped out an impressive Angel run of errorless games--which, as Winfield put it, is the sort of thing that “makes you feel like a jerk.”

When he batted in Sunday’s ninth, pendulously waggling his bat, Vic Power style, before stepping in against Guzman, there was not an Angel in the dugout who would have been shocked to see Winfield tie the score.

That is why they have him around. That is why he intends to stick around, as long as they will have him.