His Average Isn’t Hard to Swallow

You look at No. 29 of the Phillies in the batter’s box and it’s easy to see he’ll never amount to anything as a hitter.

He bats off the wrong foot, for one thing, the back one. He lifts the wrong leg. You’re supposed to pick up the front foot to step into the ball. He slides ahead of the ball. He lunges.

You watch him awhile and you figure maybe he’s batting .230, to give him the benefit of the doubt. He must be a batting coach’s worst nightmare. Pitchers must love to see him come up there.

The only trouble is, you’re looking at John Kruk, who is only batting .349, tops in the National League, is all. When he came into Dodger Stadium the other night, he was batting .367. He’s second in the league in hits, he has seven home runs and 39 runs batted in.

John Kruk not only doesn’t act like a league-leading hitter, he doesn’t look like one. There’s that belly of a guy who likes pizza with everything, butter on the baked potato, ketchup on the French fries and ice cream on the pie. The uniform looks slept in. You get the feeling he doesn’t spend a lot of time in the gym.

In this day of the iron-pumping, salad-eating superstar, Kruk (rhymes with truck) looks as if he should be driving the team bus rather than batting cleanup.

What’s his secret?

To find out, a reporter approached him the other night at Dodger Stadium. Kruk appeared un-busy at the time. In fact, he was lying on his side like a Roman emperor eating grapes. The rest of the team appeared to be doing calisthenics. Kruk appeared to be trying to stay awake. But appearances are deceiving.

“I can’t talk right now, I’m really doing calisthenics,” Kruk said. “We have to do these.”

The reporter looked startled. The rest of the squad was stretching, kicking, twisting, doing push-ups. Kruk looked like a guy taking an eight-count.

“I’m really stretching,” he insisted, propping his head up on his elbow.

The reporter retreated, came back later. What, he wanted to know, contributed to Kruk’s success--was he a keen student of percentages like a Ted Williams? Did he chart the pitchers?

“Naw,” Kruk scoffed. “I watch what the pitchers throw. But I go up there to hit anything. I don’t look at the probable pitchers and say, ‘Oh, I should get two hits tonight off this guy.’ I mean, these guys are the best pitchers in the world up here. It’s not like you’re hitting in triple-A.”

A .350 hitter is supposed to have this tiny waist, a long graceful body--a Splendid Splinter, in other words. Didn’t managers get on John about his weight, about his lumpy silhouette?

“Oh, I kind of watch what I eat,” John Kruk says. “I don’t understand it. I’ve been watching what I eat since spring training--and I’m gaining weight.”

Teammates suggest that, when he watches what he eats, he sees Big Macs and pork chops, that he leads the league in grease, too. But, didn’t we read someplace where he got skinny and had his worst year?

Kruk yawns.

“Lots of people who diet still can’t hit,” he suggests.

Does he go up to the plate looking for a pitch-- his pitch, so to speak?

Kruk shakes his head.

“I go up to the plate looking for a pitch to hit. If I hit it, it’s my pitch. If I don’t, it’s his pitch.”

It has been said, he is reminded, that his batting style is, to say the least, unorthodox. Haven’t batting coaches tried to change him?

“A coach taught it to me 10 years ago,” he says. “I’ve had pretty good luck with it. I don’t try to look good striking out.”

Which is true. Kruk batted .351 in his final season in the minors at Las Vegas and has hit .300 three times in the majors. Despite his stride into the pitch, he has been hit by one only once in his career, more than 3,000 at-bats. Still, was he surprised to find himself topping the big leagues in hitting?

“Yes,” Kruk says. “Look, I’m no bat manipulator like Tony Gwynn or Wade Boggs. I’m no student of the strike zone. I see a pitch I think I can hit, I try to hit it.”

It must be a good system: Eat what you want, shave when you feel like it, bat as you please, hit it before it hits you--and you lead the game in batting.

Oh, yes, one more thing: Use the calisthenics period to catch up on your rest.