Soothing the Wound : Carew’s Bitterness Over His Departure From Angels Is Left at Door of Hall of Fame for Today’s Induction

Even now, almost six years later, his unceremonious departure from the Angels still gnaws at Rod Carew.

Even today, when he will be inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame after being elected his first time on the ballot, Carew would delay this emotional event in exchange for the two years he felt he could have played after what became the last of his seven seasons with the Angels in 1985.

“I’d make that trade because I knew I could play two more years,” he said before leaving his Anaheim Hills home for Cooperstown, N.Y. “I wanted to play and still enjoyed playing. I was retired, but I wasn’t ready to retire.”

Forty then, he is 45 now. A player must be retired for five years before becoming eligible for the Hall, but Carew still says that his was an involuntary retirement. There were offers from other teams, but they came long after the scenario with the Angels had played out and he realized he wasn’t going to be asked back.

“It was a business move on their part,” Carew said. “They felt Wally (Joyner) was ready and obviously didn’t want to pay a big salary to someone who wasn’t going to play and who they felt might be a bad influence in that role.

“The thing was, I knew I couldn’t play every day anymore and would have been happy to come off the bench, to sub for Wally once in a while and help any way I could. As the season went along and I saw some of the guys they were bringing off the bench, I had to ask myself, ‘What’d I do wrong, was I that bad?’

“I mean, I recognized their right to make a business decision, but I didn’t appreciate the way it was done, the way (then-general manager) Mike Port did it.

“All I wanted to know was, ‘Are you going to keep me or not keep me?’ and I never got an answer. It couldn’t have been about money, because they never talked to me about money, they never talked to me about anything.

“Even after I realized that I was looking at retirement, I made overtures to the Angels. I wrote letters and made phone calls, hoping there would be something for me in the organization, but heard nothing.

“I don’t think anyone could say I had ever been a problem to them, but I again had to ask myself, ‘Was I that bad that I couldn’t work with the players in some way?’

“Clubs ask for loyalty (Carew’s was such that he returned $230,000 in salary after the 1981 player

strike although under no obligation to do so), then give none in return. We’re human beings, it hurts. I was bitter for a while, but then went on with my life.”

He now operates a batting school, giving 24 lessons a day, five days a week. He has rejected full-time coaching positions because of the enjoyment he is experiencing giving lessons and being home with his wife, Marilynn, and their three daughters, but he also is a part-time batting, bunting and base running instructor for the Cleveland Indians.

He wore the Cleveland uniform while serving as the American League’s honorary captain in the recent All-Star game, and his Hall of Fame plaque will show him in a Minnesota Twin cap, which he wore for the first 12 of his 19 big- league seasons.

The Angels, who had retired his No. 29 in what seemed to be a public relations response to criticism of their role in his departure, sent only a congratulatory letter after his election.

“That’s all right,” Carew said. “They didn’t have to call. I know there are people there who are happy for me.”

Among them, he believes, is owner Gene Autry, expected to be among those receiving thanks in his speech today.

“Contrary to what people may perceive my feelings to be about the organization, I really enjoyed playing for that man,” Carew said. “He was a class act after (Carew left) the Twin Cities.

“I’ve also had a meeting with Richard Brown (new Angel president) and I think he sincerely wants to strengthen the ties with former Angel players, make them feel part of the organization again, and I think that’s a great idea on his part.”

Carew batted .305 or better in five of his seven seasons with the Angels. He was the 22nd player elected to the Hall in his first year of eligibility, receiving 401 of 443 votes, 90.5%.

Carew acknowledged he was surprised by that landslide, considering many in the Baseball Writers Assn. of America felt they had been snubbed by Carew at times, classifying him as temperamental.

There was also expected to be many who felt his lack of run production was a drawback to first-year consideration, although he drove in 50 or more runs eight times and 70 or more four times while almost always batting first or second in the order.

“That was something I always had to deal with,” Carew said of such criticism. “The only way I can answer it is that I never hit fourth or fifth, and I couldn’t have gotten more than 3,000 hits without some of them being clutch hits that drove in clutch runs.

“I think that because I was an enigma to some people they had to search out a negative, and that was it.”

An enigma?

Carew says that image is the result of a childhood with an abusive father.

“I still carry a shell that I can withdraw into, like the turtle who only occasionally sticks his head out,” he said.

“The most important thing is that my family and friends know who I am, what my values are and how I treat people. I know I wasn’t always the easiest guy for the writers to get along with. I made that bed and would have had to sleep in it, but I’m happy they didn’t hold it against me. I want to thank them for that.”

The overriding consideration, of course, was his accomplishments:

--A .328 career average, 28th on the all-time list, and No. 12 in hits with 3,053.

--A .300 average or better for 15 consecutive seasons. Only Ty Cobb, Stan Musial and Honus Wagner had longer streaks.

--Seven batting titles. Only Cobb (12) and Wagner (eight) won more.

--A .388 average in 1977, the highest since Ted Williams’ .388 in 1957. The only higher average since Williams hit .406 in 1941 was a .390 by the Kansas City Royals’ George Brett in 1980.

--Carew’s 239 hits in 1977 were the most by an American Leaguer since Heine Manush had 241 for the St. Louis Browns in 1928. Carew’s total has been exceeded since only by Wade Boggs of the Boston Red Sox with 240 in 1985.

Carew was an excellent bunter and base stealer. He stole home 17 times.

Gene Tenace, the former Oakland Athletics catcher who is now the Toronto Blue Jays’ batting instructor, said at the All-Star game that Carew was the best bunter he ever saw.

“One day I’m catching and Carew is hitting,” Tenace recalled. “He yells at Sal Bando, our third baseman, to come in, that he’s back too far. Sal comes in a couple of steps, but Carew yells that he is still back too far. Sal moves in another couple of steps, but Carew drops the bunt down in front of him and still legs it out.

“Another time, Dick Williams, our manager, was going over the opposing hitters with our pitchers and catchers. ‘How do you pitch this guy?’ Williams asked when he got to Carew.

“We had tried everything, so someone said, ‘What about throwing him down the middle? He’s going to hit the ball no matter where we throw it anyway.’ We threw it down the middle and he went 0 for 4. Then we made the mistake of doing it again the next day, and he went four for four.

“Like all great hitters, he was quick to adjust. There was no one way to pitch him.”

The credentials represent mileposts on a long journey.

“It’s unreal,” Carew said of the trip from an impoverished childhood in Panama to the steps of the Hall of Fame.

He recalled the broomstick and bottle caps that served as his first bat and balls, the major league games that he listened to on Armed Forces radio, the flour sack uniform he was able to buy with money earned helping to build a Little League field in Panama City, the tattered glove held together with string.

He has been remembering how his mother, Olga, who helped sustain her family by working as a maid, often stepped in and absorbed the blows her husband was directing at Rod and the other children.

And he recalls the first suit she bought him, for a plane trip to New York. They would live with relatives there and, in time, unable to play high school ball because of his struggle with studies, he would eventually develop a following playing sandlot games in Central Park and the Bronx.

Herb Stein, a scout for the Twins, saw him there, never missed a game and will be among those Carew thanks today.

He will also thank Calvin Griffith, the former Twin owner who provided him with the major league opportunity when some felt he wasn’t ready, and a succession of managers who served as instructors, psychologists and father figures: Vern Morgan, Billy Martin, Gene Mauch.

Particularly Martin, who died in a car accident before Carew’s election.

“I know Billy will be up there smiling Sunday, happy for me,” Carew said of his first Twin manager. “He was the right person at the right time in my life. Whatever problems I had, I could go to him. He was uncle, brother, father. He was supportive, compassionate and understanding. I saw a side of him few people saw.”

He will have special thanks, of course, for his mother, who will be there today, and for Marilynn, his wife of 21 years.

If his has been an improbable journey, the former Marilynn Levy has shared in it, the hate mail that their interracial marriage generated providing one more hurdle to overcome.

Carew reflected on his list of thanks and said that No. 1, as his mother always reminded him, was God.

“If he hadn’t been looking over me, I would have died of rheumatic fever as a youth,” he said. “No one expected me to live.

“And if he hadn’t been looking over me, I couldn’t have played 19 years in the big leagues without a career-ending injury.”

Carew often shares his thoughts and emotions with the youngsters he is teaching to hit, their growth in confidence and maturity, he said, as much a reward to him as their improved swings. He reminds them, too, that it is a business they are pursuing and that the first priority is their family and themselves.

That message, he acknowledged, is a result of his departure from the Angels. He believes in the message, but said this is not a time for angry thoughts.

It is a weekend for dreams and reverie, of hoping his enshrinement serves as an example.

“For every little boy who puts on a uniform, I was in his position, I know what his thinking is,” Carew said. “I go out to Little League fields now and I know where their visions take them. I tell them with hard work, it can happen for them as it happened for me.”

Born prematurely on a train and named after the doctor who was able to help, Rodney Cline Carew visited the Hall of Fame in May, walked through the exhibits, stood in a corner of the room where the plaques are mounted and struggled, he said, to hold back tears.

“It’s an overwhelming feeling, to think about where I came from and to realize I’ll be part of history forever,” he said.

Carew by the Numbers

3,053 hits (12th all-time)

.328 career batting average (28th all-time)

Hit .300 or better for 15 consecutive seasons. Only Ty Cobb, Stan Musial and Honus Wagner had longer streaks.

Won seven batting titles. Only Cobb (12) and Wagner (eight) won more.

Stole home 17 times.

ROD CAREW’S CAREER RECORD

YR TEAM AVG G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI 1967 Minnesota .292 137 514 66 150 22 7 8 51 1968 Minnesota .273 127 461 46 126 27 2 1 42 1969 Minnesota .332 123 458 79 152 30 4 8 56 1970 Minnesota .366 51 191 27 70 12 3 4 28 1971 Minnesota .307 147 577 88 177 16 10 2 48 1972 Minnesota .318 142 535 61 170 21 6 0 51 1973 Minnesota .350 149 580 98 203 30 11 6 62 1974 Minnesota .364 153 599 86 218 30 5 3 55 1975 Minnesota .359 143 535 89 192 24 4 14 89 1976 Minnesota .331 156 605 97 200 29 12 9 90 1977 Minnesota .388 155 616 128 239 38 16 14 100 1978 Minnesota .333 152 564 85 188 26 10 5 70 1979 Angels .318 110 409 78 130 15 3 3 44 1980 Angels .331 144 540 74 179 34 7 3 59 1981 Angels .305 93 364 57 111 17 1 2 21 1982 Angels .319 138 523 88 167 25 5 3 44 1983 Angels .339 129 472 66 160 24 2 2 44 1984 Angels .295 93 329 42 97 8 1 3 31 1985 Angels .280 127 443 69 124 17 3 2 39 Totals .328 2469 9315 1424 3053 445 112 92 1015