Center of Crisis : Last Season, Dodger Outfielder Kal Daniels Answered the Call to Help His Mother

The ringing of the telephone shattered the early-morning quiet of Kal Daniels’ Montreal hotel room.

The quiet of his season was shattered moments later.

“I tried to be as calm as I could be, but I couldn’t hide it,” recalled Faye, his sister. “Our mother was in trouble.”

With his Dodger team in the middle of a title race, Daniels hung up on that July day last summer and began packing for the trip home to Georgia.

It was the hardest decision he has ever made. It was also the easiest.

“With no father around, I’ve been the man of the house since I was a kid,” Daniels said. “My family needs me, I go.”

Little did he know that his journey, which kept him away from the team for 11 days, would not end until after the season.

While helping his mother Ella through a personal crisis, he experienced his own personal crisis that nearly resulted in a breakdown.

He struggled with nightmares, cold sweats, and some days he was so stressed he vomited in the outfield.

“There were times I thought I was falling apart,” Daniels said.

Guess who now acts like the happiest man at Dodgertown? With a new year has come serenity for Daniels.

His family situation has stabilized and his smile is back, even though he is having to learn a new position while playing with at least one teammate who thinks he should have been traded.

“It’s because of what Kal told me before he left home,” Faye said. “He told me, ‘1992 can’t be any worse than 1991.’ ”

Because of Daniels’ refusal last season to discuss his personal situation, even with team psychiatrist Herndon Harding, most in the organization were aware only of the numbers:

Before July 13, the date of the Montreal phone call, Daniels hit .259. After the phone call, he batted .238.

Before the call, he hit 10 home runs and drove in 41 runs. Afterward, he hit seven home runs and had 32 RBIs in 33 fewer at-bats.

As Daniels was affected, so was the team.

Before the call, the Dodgers were 49-33. Afterward, they lost seven of 10 games before Daniels returned, and went 44-36 during the rest of the season.

The Dodgers knew something was wrong with Daniels. They just didn’t know what.

“He was as quiet as I’ve ever seen him,” teammate Lenny Harris said. “He was obviously hurting, but he wouldn’t talk about it.”

Brett Butler approached him several times, with no luck.

“I would say, ‘What’s going on with you?’ ” Butler recalled. “He would say, ‘Oh, I just have some things on my mind.’ But he would drop it.”

The Dodgers volunteered the services of their medical staff to help Daniels and his mother, offering to fly Dr. Frank Jobe and Harding to Warner Robins, Ga., for a consultation.

Daniels politely refused.

“I didn’t want anybody making any excuses for my performance,” Daniels said. “I’ll still make no excuses. I’ll take responsibility for my numbers.”

Responsibility came early in life to Daniels, the youngest of three children. With no father around, he evolved into the leader of the house.

“He’s always felt like the one who has to keep things together,” Faye said. “So when my mother first had trouble last summer, I didn’t tell him. I kept it from him as long as I could. He had baseball to worry about.”

Finally, Faye said, the situation reached a critical stage, and the call was made to Montreal.

Daniels, who does not divulge the details of his mother’s crisis, phoned team Vice President Fred Claire and was given permission to leave.

Daniels confirmed the seriousness of the situation when he phoned home while changing planes in Pittsburgh. He reached an aunt.

“She told me to go back to Montreal, to stay with the team, that she could handle it,” Daniels said. “But she was crying while she was saying it. I said, ‘ You can handle it? Right.’ ”

When Daniels arrived home, his mother had been admitted to a hospital in nearby Macon for testing and observation. He spent the next 10 days shuttling between the hospital and home, trying to keep the family calm.

“He wasn’t eating, he wasn’t sleeping,” Faye said. “We would sit up at night watching the Dodgers on television, and they were losing, and he felt terrible. But he was afraid to leave us alone.”

Said Daniels: “I knew the Dodgers needed me. But my family needed me too.”

After games, Daniels would sit in his family room, watching rented tapes until dawn.

“By the time he finally went back to the team, he was a mess,” Faye said. “I thought, ‘He is going to get hurt from one of those fastballs.’ ”

Daniels said he spent the rest of the season worrying himself sick about his mother.

“I had nightmares,” he said. “I would wake up in a cold sweat. I wasn’t eating or sleeping.”

Teammates raised their eyebrows when he missed several consecutive days in September with flu. It turns out he thought he had an ulcer.

“I remember him a couple of times, he would turn around and bend over in left field in the middle of the game, like he was throwing up,” Butler said. “But he wouldn’t say anything to anybody.”

Besides setting up a meeting with Harding and treating Daniels’ physical problems, the Dodgers could do little but hope he snapped out of it.

“Dr. Harding wanted to know if I wanted to talk,” Daniels said. “I told him I was fine.”

His frustration peaked with a week remaining in the season, when he was thrown out of a game with the San Francisco Giants for arguing a strike call in the first inning.

It was that incident that might have prompted Darryl Strawberry to suggest that Daniels be traded.

“I lost my temper, it was wrong, and I’m sure the way I felt had something to do with it,” Daniels said. “I was carrying a big burden. I dealt with it as best I could.”

Once he returned home after the season and discovered that his mother was feeling better and his family had calmed, that burden was lifted.

Just in time to hear about Strawberry’s quotes.

Although Daniels has acted reasonably friendly toward Strawberry--he even waved his cap at Strawberry after Strawberry had hit a home run Wednesday against the New York Mets--he has not forgotten that Strawberry wanted him traded.

He has not forgotten because, he says, he has not been allowed to forget.

“I come to camp with a good attitude, preparing for my best season ever, and yet I keep getting the Strawberry thing thrown in my face,” he said.

Daniels said he gets irritated when newspapers quote Strawberry about Daniels’ attitude, or Daniels’ play at first base.

“All of a sudden it’s like, everything I do has to be OK’d with Strawberry?” Daniels said. “Just because he said some things about me? That really irritates me.”

When asked about their relationship, Daniels shrugs and says: “We get dressed in the same room together. But he’ll have no problems with me.”

As hard as it was to continue playing with Strawberry, it was also hard for Daniels to stomach the switch to first base. He acknowledges that when Claire approached him with the idea, he thought it was a joke.

“I thought they were just snowballing me because I was out of position,” Daniels said. “I told Fred, ‘I’ll be serious about it, but only after you guys show me you are serious about it.’ ”

The Dodgers are serious enough about it to point prospect Eric Karros toward Albuquerque so Daniels can take the position. Daniels has responded by playing well enough to warrant an opening-day start.

But he’s still not sure he loves it enough to stay there. Or stay with the Dodgers.

Because he wants to be closer to his family, it is doubtful he will be here after this season, when he will become a free agent. He could be traded sooner.

“I can play first base, but do I want to be a first baseman?” he asked. “That much, I still haven’t decided.”

He smiled.

“I guess sometimes a man has to stoop before he can walk,” he said. “I can handle that. Sometimes, I think I can learn to handle anything.”