Gallagher Goes His Own Way : Angel Outfielder Is Successful Despite Unorthodox Approach

Dave Gallagher, an Angel outfielder and one of the leaders of a group of spirited reserves, is too friendly to be a loner. But when he uncovers a reason to, he’ll go his own way in a heartbeat.

Take the time in 1987 when Gallagher simply up and left baseball, flying home to New Jersey from a triple-A game in Vancouver. It was August, and he was hitting .306 for the Calgary Cannons. But after almost eight seasons in the minor leagues and four in triple-A, he had decided that year that he would set a deadline and then face facts.

“I gave myself until mid-August,” said Gallagher, who had made his major league debut that season in a brief 15-game stint with the Cleveland Indians. “I didn’t want to finish the season and then have to decide. I flew home from Vancouver all the way to New Jersey on Aug. 15. It was really a great feeling. I tell people that and they say, ‘What! You were done!’ But it was the first time I felt like I was making the decision about my future.”

He found his way back to baseball the next season, when the Chicago White Sox invited him to spring training. He ended up hitting .303 in 101 games for the White Sox, finishing fifth in the voting for the American League rookie of the year.

His will to do things a little differently is still with him.

You can see it in the way he plays center field, where Gallagher and Max Venable have been filling in for Junior Felix, who has played in only 43 of the Angels’ 86 games because of a troublesome calf injury.

Gallagher makes up for a comparative lack of speed with meticulous positioning. You’ll see him running back for over-the-shoulder catches because he often plays shallow, confident in his ability to go back for the ball. You can note how he makes adjustments not only for each hitter, but for each pitch. He reacts to the count and sometimes, like an infielder, even to the pitch the catcher calls. Gallagher, with 20-10 vision, swears he can see the catcher’s signals from center.

His teammates with the White Sox found that hard to believe, questioning him about it after he asked Carlton Fisk what the signs were with a runner on second.

“They’d pick out something in the stadium and say, ‘What’s that say?’ Gallagher said. “They never believed me.”

His success is the proof. Gallagher has become a good outfielder by learning to read angles on fly balls and running to spots, rather than running with his eye on the ball the whole time. He wouldn’t teach it that way, but it works for him.

So does studying the situation.

“If you know the hitter, you know the count, and you know what pitch is being thrown, you have the best chance you can,” he said. “Think how much more you know than someone who doesn’t know any of that. Say (Texas Ranger) Ruben Sierra is batting right-handed, and the count is 2-0. If I see the catcher is calling for a changeup, I can move 20 yards toward left field. It doesn’t make sense when you look and see a guy standing in the same spot.

“I don’t have the speed of Gary Pettis or Devon White. If I’m positioned, and placed in a spot, I become a very mediocre outfielder.”

Given his leeway, Gallagher is a very good outfielder. He hasn’t made an error in 33 starts this season and only five in almost three years in the major leagues. That kind of reliability has made him valuable to the Angels, who have survived Felix’s absence comfortably. Gallagher also has been successful at the plate, batting .291 despite a two-for-18 slide that recently dropped his average below .300 for the first time this season.

With Felix batting only .259 and Venable .238, an argument can be made that Gallagher would serve the Angels well as the everyday center fielder. Gallagher, 30, compared with Felix, 23, doesn’t dwell on that possibility, however.

“When I started the season, I knew my role,” Gallagher said. “I don’t think it’s changed.

“This is something I thought would happen at some time during the season, that someone would get hurt or someone would be slumping. I was very patient early. I knew no one would be tired then. Role players tend not to see too much action until players get tired later in the season. I hoped that we would remain in contention, that being the ingredient that makes everyone’s role important.”

For Gallagher, it’s been more of an adjustment getting used to playing rarely than playing often.

“A lot of people don’t know I played every single day in 1989,” he said. Gallagher, in his second season, played all of the White Sox’s 161 games, hitting .266.

The biggest twist in a career with its share of fits and starts came when he was with the White Sox. Gallagher proved more willing than ever to go his own way.

The trouble started with contract negotiations after his impressive season in 1988. The White Sox offered a four-year, non-guaranteed contract. Gallagher was uncomfortable with aspects of it, including the fact that it was not guaranteed. He was uncomfortable about the contract taking away his first year of eligibility for arbitration in the fourth year, as well as a provision for games played that he believed would affect salaries in future years if there were an injury.

His negotiations with the White Sox grew into a dispute, one that Jack Gould, White Sox senior vice president for baseball, insists was unwarranted, and calls Gallagher’s claims “lies.”

“I spent more time negotiating with his agent in the two years he was with us than all the other agents combined,” Gould said. “No matter what we proposed, it was not good enough for them.”

Gallagher disagreed, and filed a grievance through the Major League Players Assn., charging that the White Sox didn’t negotiate in good faith with players who had fewer than four years experience. He says other players agreed with him in a team meeting, but that when it came time to file the grievance, which is still pending after testimony, they left him to go it on his own.

Gallagher played in all 161 of the White Sox games in 1989. The next year, he was slowed by injury and lost his position. He had played in 45 games and was batting .280 when the White Sox waived him last season, and Baltimore claimed him Aug. 1. He played out the season there, and was traded to the Angels for two minor leaguers in December.

Gould, who says Gallagher would have made far more money under the White Sox proposal than what he makes with the Angels, says Gallagher was put on waivers for baseball reasons. Gallagher believes otherwise.

“I think they wanted to create the thought in other players’ minds that was what would happen if they didn’t comply with management,” he said. “They ended up using me as an example.

“It became very evident to me that they just were going to squash me to prove you don’t question management. When they put me on waivers for the purpose of giving me my release, I was hitting exactly .280. It made no sense.”

Gould says Gallagher’s lack of speed was a defensive shortcoming.

“Dave puts out 100%, no question,” Gould said. “One of the problems, and he can’t help it, is he does not have the speed to play center field.”

Gallagher thinks the whole episode was damaging.

“Everyone wanted to know why they put me on waivers for the purpose of my release,” he said. “You work so hard in the minors to build a reputation. Someone can tear it down that quickly.

“I’ve always been very realistic about my abilities. That was more frustrating than anything else, that what I’d worked to build up for so long was pretty much thrown away. I’d do it all again. I teach my kids the same way, if it’s wrong, fight it.”

Gallagher will keep on going his own way. If only things will keep going his way, too.