White Sox’s Radinsky Becomes a Big Wheel : Despite Meteoric Rise, Chicago Reliever Remains as Down to Earth as His Mode of Transportation

For your wincing pleasure, the current era of major league baseball brings you such men as Jose Canseco. Jose likes to drive his $175,000 Ferrari at a rate approaching that of the Batmobile through city streets. He is sometimes arrested for this.

Or, when he tires of that, Canseco rams his $55,000 Porsche into his $40,000 BMW, as the police say he did Feb. 13. The second car happens to be driven by Canseco’s estranged wife. Or, he gets arrested for having a loaded handgun in his $60,000 Jaguar. That was in 1991.

Major league baseball also brings you Lenny Dykstra, who slams his 2-week-old $68,000 Mercedes into a stately Pennsylvania oak at high speed. Says the tree jumped right in front of him. Police say alcohol is the culprit.

And now, major league baseball brings you Scott Radinsky.

Be thankful.

If you are one of those old-fashioned sorts who like your baseball heroes without handcuffs, without an ego-enlarged head, without even a car , Radinsky might be your guy for the next decade or so.

Two years ago, when he broke into the major leagues with the Chicago White Sox, the former Simi Valley High standout stunned the Establishment by hurtling from his Chicago apartment to Comiskey Park with a new set of wheels.

The wheels were attached to a skateboard.

“Here comes this kid from California, fresh out of Class-A ball, heading to his first major league park on a skateboard,” recalled Alan Solomon, who covers the White Sox for the Chicago Tribune. “All the way from his apartment, about a mile away. It was an astounding thing to see.

“The kid is a genuine free spirit in an age when baseball players seem to come out of a cookie cutter. It’s refreshing to have someone who does things a little differently. And he’s good-natured too, which is also quite a change from the usual major league player.”

Today, as he heads into his third season and stands on the doorstep of stardom and megabucks, Radinsky has changed. You wouldn’t expect him to still be riding his skateboard to the ballpark, would you? Of course not.

Now, he rides his bike.

“Naturally,” Solomon said. “He makes more money now.”

Radinsky, a 6-foot-3, 195-pound left-hander, is, at 24, considered one of the top relievers in the American League. He has drawn buckets of praise from managers, coaches, players and the media. Peter Gammons, the highly respected baseball analyst for ESPN, says Radinsky will be baseball’s next dominant relief pitcher, a Goose Gossage, Rollie Fingers or Lee Smith-type superstar.

“To be honest, and I don’t want to get down on you guys, but I really don’t pay any attention to what you guys say about me,” Radinsky said. “I guess it’s nice, but so what? What counts is what happens on the mound. It’s between me and the batter. Not the media.”

Is this the beginning of the same warped attitude that brought us pitcher Steve Carlton a decade ago, a man who refused to deal with the media until his arm turned to beef jerky and he needed publicity?

Hardly.

Radinsky, by all accounts, remains the same blond kid he was six years ago, a kid who stopped smiling only when it was time to scare the yelping bejabbers out of high school batters with a wicked, 90-m.p.h. fastball and a slam-dunk curve, pitches that had batters swinging first at a ball that already had arrived in the catcher’s mitt and then swinging at a ball that had just bounced off the plate.

The money--including a reported $50,000 signing bonus when he was still 17--has had little effect. Of course, he hasn’t made the big money yet. He played for $130,000 last year and signed a contract for 1992 that will pay him $175,000. The White Sox are infamous among players for paying minimum or slightly higher salaries to players who have not yet become eligible for arbitration.

After this season, however, Radinsky is eligible for arbitration. A solid season will give Radinsky ammunition to command, and very likely get, a contract in the million-dollar range.

For the time being, however, Radinsky’s neighborhood is decidedly less posh. Early in February, he bought an 1,800-square-foot home for $255,000 in Simi Valley’s Wood Ranch development.

“I wanted to stay in Simi Valley,” Radinsky said. “But it seems funny to have my own house. A few years ago, I didn’t have enough money to buy lunch.”

A reporter can verify that claim. Toward the end of an interview over lunch in 1986, Radinsky, who had not yet signed a pro contract, revealed that he had no money with him, proving false the adage: There is no such thing as a free lunch.

The money that he has made and the money he seems sure to make matter little, he said.

“Oh, the salary thing has been great,” he said. “With baseball’s salary explosion over the past couple years, the timing of my career has been perfect. To be getting paid this kind of money for playing baseball, it’s crazy. I’d play baseball forever, just to play baseball. Anything else that comes with it is just icing. I honestly never dreamed of anything like this. I look at my checks and I think, ‘This is ridiculous.’

“But it’s still the same me. Same jeans and T-shirts. Same friends. Nothing will make me change any of that.”

The rise of Radinsky has been dramatic, a moon launch rivaled only by the career of the New York Mets’ Dwight Gooden. He and Radinsky are the only pitchers to vault from Class-A ball directly to the major leagues in one year. But for veteran Radinsky watchers, the blast has not been a surprise.

White Sox scout Craig Wallenbrock, who latched onto Radinsky early in the pitcher’s high school career and never let go, offered this assessment of the teen-ager in 1986: “He’s so determined to go on and make the big leagues. He has the mental attitude that it takes. He doesn’t think anyone can beat him, and that’s what will get him to the big leagues.

“He’s the type of high school pitcher who could move up very quickly. I don’t see anyone stopping this kid from doing what he wants to do.”

Good scout.

Good pitcher.

Radinsky struck out 180 in 100 innings during his senior season at Simi Valley.

In his only full minor league season, Radinsky posted a 7-5 record and 31 saves with a brilliant 1.75 earned-run average for the White Sox’s Class-A South Bend team in 1989.

He did that after recovering from shoulder surgery in 1988. In his first season with the White Sox, Radinsky was 4-0 with a 1.89 ERA in his first 22 appearances and he finished 6-1 with a 4.82 ERA in 52 1/3 innings.

In 1991, Radinsky emerged as an effective middle-relief specialist who helped set up Bobby Thigpen (30 saves).

Radinsky’s 2.02 ERA was the team’s best, and he struck out 49 in 71 1/3 innings.

“Really, I want to be the best relief pitcher in baseball. Period,” he said. “Not the best left-hander, not the best in the American League. The best.”

It could happen. Former White Sox Manager Jeff Torborg, now piloting the Mets, thinks Radinsky’s future is blindingly bright.

“Rad has an outstanding arm,” Torborg said.

“And he’s got poise. He comes bobbing into the mound with that funny-looking grin on his face. He’s kinda loose. But he’s like Goose Gossage in a way. He has the attitude: ‘I don’t care who’s up. I’ll get him out.’ ”

Kind of loose. That might be part of Radinsky’s description forever. In addition to riding skateboards and bikes to the ballpark, other quirks have surfaced.

For starters, he continues to tour the country during the off-season with his high school band, Scared Straight, playing drums and pounding out a heavy rock beat from Baltimore to Ventura.

“Fast, hard and loud,” he said when asked to describe the music. “Sometimes it’s noise and sometimes it’s good.”

And last season, another habit surfaced. During a game against the Minnesota Twins, with two strikes against Shane Mack in the eighth inning, Radinsky stomped off the mound, turned his back to home plate and held the ball in front of him, screaming at the white sphere.

Shades of Al Hrabosky, perhaps. Or Mark (the Bird) Fidrych.

“No,” Radinsky said. “I wasn’t screaming at the ball. I was saying, ‘You’re my friend. You’re going through the bat.’ ”

Mack struck out on the next pitch.

“I really couldn’t tell you what I’m doing out there,” Radinsky said. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Whatever it is, the White Sox hope it continues for a long time. American League batters can only hope Radinsky’s rock band gets much better and he decides to go on tour with his drums.

Every summer.

Baseball: The Rites of Passage

* A four-part look at players from the region in various stages of their professional careers. *Thursday: Dmitri Young--The former Rio Mesa High standout is a fledgling in the St. Louis Cardinals organization.

*Today: Scott Radinsky--The Simi Valley High product is considered one of the American League’s top relievers and appears to be on the verge of becoming a superstar.

*Saturday: Dwight Evans--The curtain is about to close on the former Boston Red Sox great and Chatsworth High graduate.

*Sunday: Phil Lombardi--The one-time Kennedy High star’s potential was never fulfilled during an injury-plagued career, and at 29 he is out of baseball.