Newfield’s Double-A Season Will Be Cut Short by Toe Surgery

One day this week, Marc Newfield will walk reluctantly into an operating room to have surgery on the big toe on his left foot. It’s far from a career-threatening injury and he is expected to make a full recovery within several months.

But on the whole, Newfield would rather be in Jacksonville, Fla. Or even on a long, bumpy bus ride to any of the Southern League’s other nine cities. Anywhere, but down and out of commission at his parents’ house in Huntington Beach.

The designated hitter has suffered minor pain from a bunion since he was 13, but he waited until after his first season in the Seattle Mariners’ organization to have minor surgery to correct the problem. But that procedure didn’t work as well as he had hoped and the pain flared worse than ever this spring.

This time, doctors will surgically break the bones in Newfield’s big toe, then reset them so there is no irritation or inflammation in the joint. He hopes to begin rehabilitation in late July, which means a promising 1992 season with the Mariners’ double-A affiliate at Jacksonville is now history.

“I’m really depressed,” Newfield said. “I’ve been at home about a week now and that’s made it a little easier.”

Until now, Newfield a 6-foot-4, 205-pound, right-handed hitter, was considered one of the minor league’s fastest-rising young talents.

After a senior season at Marina High in which he batted .467 and led the Vikings to the Southern Section 5-A championship, Newfield was taken as the sixth pick overall by the Mariners in the 1990 draft. And it didn’t take long for him to make heads turn as a professional.

In his first game with the Mariners’ rookie league team at Tempe, Ariz., Newfield crushed a 500-foot home run and went on to finish the season with a .313 average, 38 runs batted in and six home runs in 51 games.

After earning a promotion to Class-A San Bernardino in 1991, Newfield batted .300 with 68 RBIs and 11 homers in 125 games in 1991. By season’s end, he had been moved to double-A Jacksonville, where he batted .231 in six games.

In 45 games at Jacksonville this season, he hit .247 with 19 RBIs and four homers--not bad numbers for the only teen-ager on a double-A roster.

“I’m happy with how I’ve progressed so far,” said Newfield, who will turn 20 in October. “Hitting-wise, it’s hard to adjust to sliders. They look like fastballs to me. My hitting was coming along slowly, but it was getting better toward the end.”

Indeed, a hot streak in May pushed Newfield’s average from .223 to a season-high .260.

For now, however, he’s watching a lot of games on ESPN and hoping his recovery doesn’t take too long. When you’re going as good as Newfield has been, you’re almost afraid to slow down. Now, the future isn’t quite as clear as it once was.

“Maybe winter ball, maybe instructional ball,” Newfield said, listing his options when he returns.

“Right now, I’ve been watching a lot of games. There’s not much else to do.”

A not-so-grand slam: His college coach raved about his skills and compared him to many of the greats who’d gone before him. The major league scouts all agreed, and he was drafted in the first round by a up-and-coming team with an eye for talented, young players.

After signing with the Braves, former Arizona State and Los Alamitos outfielder Mike Kelly batted .250 with 17 RBIs and six home runs in 35 games with Class-A Durham, N.C. The brass in Atlanta seemed pleased with his first season and moved Kelly up to double-A Greenville for 1992.

But there have been hints recently that Kelly, an All-American at ASU, might be human after all.

In late May, he slammed the middle finger on his right hand while closing a car door. Although there were no broken bones, he did need 10 stitches to close a sizable wound and missed several games.

That might account for a recent dip in Kelly’s batting average. A one-for-29 slump that included 14 strikeouts lowered his average from .275 to .231.

For all you Angel fans mourning the club’s lack of offensive punch this season, frustrated by their inability to sign free agents Bobby Bonilla and Danny Tartabull and disappointed that they couldn’t retain the services of Wally Joyner and Dave Winfield, take heart.

Help could soon be on the way.

His name is Tim Salmon and he’s a 23-year-old outfielder with the Angels’ triple-A affiliate at Edmonton. And if statistics alone mean anything--and they tend to mean everything in baseball--Salmon might just fit the Angels’ bill.

After 45 games, he led the Pacific Coast League in home runs (11), RBIs (48) and doubles (16) and was third in batting average (.362).

Whitey Herzog, the Angels’ director of player personnel, is duly impressed, telling Baseball America: “If he can come on, he can really be a savior for us in the power slot.”

At this point, the Angels appear to need all the help they can get.