A Happy Visitor : Ex-Angel Bichette Shows Off His .300 Average in Anaheim

Dante Bichette has always had unshakable confidence.

When he left the Angels in 1991, traded to Milwaukee for Dave Parker during spring training, he had something else that seemed unshakable: a reputation.

The Angels liked his strong arm in the outfield and the show of power he managed every spring. But by the end, they weren’t crazy about the person attached to the arm. Bichette, it was suggested, had taken too much to major league night life; Bichette’s opinion differs. He was labeled a dawdler for occasionally arriving in the clubhouse, and a malcontent for complaining publicly about his dwindling playing time.

Mostly, he puzzled the Angels, and they came to think of him as someone who would never live up to his potential. Finally, they made sure that if he did, it would be somewhere else.

“I’ve always had confidence in myself,” Bichette said. “All I needed was a chance to get out there and play.”

Here it is August, more than a season later, and Parker is long gone, after his hitting ability slid downhill at the end of his career.

Bichette walked into Anaheim Stadium Monday with a .307 batting average, a part-time job in the outfield, and a team that is pleased with him.

“I think Dante was one of the big misunderstood players around,” Milwaukee Manager Phil Garner said. “I had heard perhaps he was on the moody side. People said he was a different sort of guy, a little on the quiet side, you never knew what he was thinking. I don’t think anybody understood him or knew him.

“I think he’s very, very sensitive. I think a lot of people probably didn’t know his feelings or sensitivities were hurt, and he withdrew. They took that as rebellion.”

Bichette is still waiting for an everyday job, but he has learned to accept having a part-time one. Before, it used to eat at him. When he was with the Angels, his frustration at not playing helped to put strain on his relationship with former manager Doug Rader. With the Brewers, Bichette has learned to roll with the lineup a little better.

Last year, he played in 134 games. He hit 15 home runs, but finished the season with a .238 average, seeming to prove some of the Angels’ doubts. This year has been different.

“He came to me in spring training and said, ‘I want to be a better hitter,’ ” said Mike Easler, the Brewers’ hitting coach. “That was all I needed to hear. He’s been the best student I’ve had, that’s in three years of coaching and my last couple of years as a player, when I worked with other hitters a lot.

“Dante has some of the best raw talent for all-around power, average, RBIs, doubles. Plus, he plays with pain. He wants to play, he enjoys the game. He’s been the greatest student. Sure, you look at his home runs, they’re down. But his batting average is up 50 points and he has 34, 35 RBIs.”

Easler has worked with Bichette to help him use more of the field, and learn how to lower his strikeouts by cutting down his swing with two strikes.

Bichette has widened his stance and changed his swing as well.

“I’m using my hands a lot more, whipping the bat instead of trying to muscle everything,” he said.

This year, Bichette has played in 81 of the Brewers’ 112 games and has five homers and 36 runs batted in. The homers may be down, but the average is up. Even with a slow start this month, he is averaging .304.

Bichette takes a certain pleasure in seeing that average go up in lights in Anaheim Stadium, where management never believed he could sustain a good average late in the season.

“There’s no doubt,” Bichette said, smiling. “I’m coming here this late in the season. My numbers aren’t great, but I’m hitting over .300. I’m a solid big-league hitter. That’s something. The people who traded me aren’t here anymore, but they can still pick up a newspaper every day and see what I’m doing. They were wrong; to be human is to err. I don’t hold a grudge. Besides, it’s not over yet. I’m not going to say anything now that could get me in trouble.”

Looking back, Bichette thinks he said too much about his disappointment when Rader took him out of the regular lineup after Dave Winfield was acquired in 1990. The day the May 11 Winfield deal was announced, Bichette was hitting .295, leading the team in RBIs with 17 and throwing out runners from the outfield at a pace that would shatter the major league record. Winfield became the regular right fielder, and Bichette stewed.

“I might have been wrong in the way I handled it,” Bichette said. “When you’re leading a team in every offensive category . . . it was too tough to handle, having my job taken away.

“Rader had a right to feel the way he felt. Maybe the way I handled it was immature. I said some things I shouldn’t have. I think we were both wrong.”

Though some people claimed Bichette didn’t work hard enough, Bichette says he used to be wound too tightly, wanting so desperately to succeed.

“I think what happened to me, I got frustrated not playing,” he said. “I took my game so serious. I worked hard. That stuff about me falling asleep in the clubhouse during a game, that never happened.”

The complaints did, though.

“I was so young; I was immature,” Bichette said. “I think I’ve grown up a lot.”

One illustration of that, in Bichette’s mind, is the way he has handled his situation with the Brewers. Garner has a crowded outfield, with Robin Yount in center, Darryl Hamilton in right and Greg Vaughn in left. Yount is a fixture, Hamilton has the speed crucial to the Brewers’ style, and Vaughn, though struggling with a .211 average, is considered an important player after hitting 27 homers last year.

“It’s a juggling act,” said Garner, who used Bichette a lot when Hamilton was hurt earlier this year.

“He played well, and I sat him down,” Garner said. “He probably sensed that the same thing was happening again. But when I put him back in the lineup, he played extremely well. . . . When I put him in the lineup, he’s been ready. He’s kept himself ready.”

Two years ago, when upset about Rader benching him, Bichette said that even Winfield couldn’t perform if he wasn’t playing every day. Now Bichette just concentrates on doing it.

“I’ve learned how to play without the at-bats,” he said.

Easler laughs at the thought of a younger, rawer Bichette upset about his playing time.

“He probably shared his innermost feelings with the world,” Easler said. “Personally, I’m glad he did it, because he’s here with us now.”

So is Bichette.

“We’re in a pennant race. This is a dream that I don’t think could have happened with the Angels . . . not now, maybe later. It’s the funnest time I’ve ever had.

At 28, he counts himself older and wiser.

“You’ve got to find out you’re not bigger than the game,” Bichette said. “Sometimes you’ve got to take your lumps. I’d rather be sitting where I am now than be over on that bench right now.”