Polonia Determined to Shine . . . On and Off Field

Luis Polonia steps out of the shower, slaps cologne on his face, and stands in front of the mirror trying to figure out his ensemble for the night.

He reaches into the top drawer and puts a gold chain around his neck. Then another. The third, the one with the diamond-laced cross, goes on last.

He looks into the mirror, realizes something still is lacking, and finds the missing piece. Ah, the diamond earring. It goes on his left ear.

Now that everything looks fine at the top, it’s time to work on the arms and hands. He places a diamond-and-gold chain on his left wrist, and a New York Yankee ring on his third finger.

For the right hand, he puts on a thick gold bracelet, a watch, and a thin gold chain. He decides to leave his fingers bare.

“I used to wear everything together,” Polonia said, “but I decided that doesn’t look good. So I change my jewelry like I change my clothes. I spend $5,000, maybe $10,000 every year in jewelry alone.”

Polonia admires himself, starts to walk out of the bedroom for the night, and stops. The pager. He grabs a small black pager and hooks it on his belt.

Wearing a $200 Italian sweater, an $80 pair of designer jeans and a $150 pair of shoes, Polonia climbs into his new glistening-red sports car, and is all set for the night.

Hello world, it’s Luis Polonia.

Will you please take notice?

“My dream is to be recognized wherever I go,” Polonia said. “I want to be famous. I don’t want people to think I’m just another ballplayer, another .300 hitter.’

“I want people to say, ‘There goes Luis Polonia, one of the best bleeping left fielders in this whole bleeping game.’

“That’s what I want people to say.”

Polonia actually has no idea what the fans think of him. He rips open his fan mail each day, signs the baseball cards and tosses the letters away without reading them.

Polonia, 28, has not read fan mail the last three years. Too painful, he says. Although there might be a hundred letters of adoration in one stack, it’s not worth the aggravation of reading the handful that cause the anguish.

“I’m sorry I don’t read the letters,” he said. “I know there are a lot of nice people out there, but there’s a lot of bad people too. I just can’t do it.”

It’s the memories of the Aug. 16, 1989, night in Milwaukee, while Polonia was playing for the Yankees, that refuse to vanish. It was an innocent mistake, Polonia says, that continues to haunt him.

Polonia was arrested that night for having sex with a 15-year-old girl. She lied to him about her age, Polonia said, and he believed her.

He paid dearly. Polonia was sentenced to 60 days in jail, and fined $1,500. He recently reached an out-of-court settlement to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the girl’s family.

“I learned my lesson,” he said. “I got tricked and paid the price for it.

“Now, I don’t care how old women say they are. If you want to be with me, you better show your I.D. If you don’t have it, I’ll see you later. The only ones I don’t ask are the women in the bar.

“If they’re in a bar, they fooled a lot more people than me.”

Polonia, who is the father of five children, each by a different mother, realizes that his social life may repress his popularity. No one realizes he supports all five kids, and has three houses and an apartment to ensure that everyone has a place to stay.

“I don’t want my kids in the street with nothing to eat,” said Polonia, one of the nine children raised by Luciano and Luz Maria Polonia. “They have a dad that is responsible for them. All five of them have my last name. They’re mine, and I tell their mothers to make sure you let them know they’re mine.

“I’ll do anything for my kids. I’m not just some jerk out there.”

Polonia, who lives in the off-season with his family, is very much a folk hero in his hometown of Santiago City, Dominican Republic. He can’t walk the streets without people rushing over to shake his hand, talking to him about baseball.

“In the Dominican,” he says, “people recognize me more than the president. People know me everywhere. The whole country knows my face. It’s beautiful.”

Polonia has been craving this attention since he was a 12-year-old in the Dominican Republic, telling everyone he would be in the major leagues one day. He even began teaching himself English, knowing he’d need it once he was playing baseball in the United States.

“Luis always has been very confident of himself,” says teammate Stan Javier, who considers Polonia one of his best friends. “He’s very tough mentally. He loves someone to challenge him, because he knows he’ll always win.”

Now, Polonia is telling whoever will listen that he no longer wants to be recognized as one of the best leadoff hitters in the American League. He wants people to realize, for once, that he’s also one of the best defensive left fielders in the game.

“Every year I buy all these magazines, look at all the TV shows, and they all say the same thing,” Polonia said. “They talk about my defense, saying I’m a poor defensive outfielder.

“They’re stupid. Get some clue. They don’t know what they write. I’m asking them, I’m asking everybody, to please take a hard look at me in left field this year.

“I think I’m as good a left fielder as anybody in this league. There’s no doubt in my mind. I want that respect. I want people to say, ‘That guy catches everything out there, he’s a complete ballplayer.’ ”

Polonia will have the opportunity for the first time to prove he is adept defensively. He will be the Angels’ everyday left fielder this spring.

“I never wanted to be a DH in the first place,” Polonia said. “I want to show people what I can do. Before, I was afraid to make mistakes. Now, I want every ball hit toward me.”

Said Sam Suplizio, the Angels’ outfield coach who has worked extensively with Polonia: “Luis made mistakes in the past, and got a reputation of being a poor outfielder. But I’m telling you, Luis is as good a left fielder as there is in the American League today.”

Polonia, who along with Rod Carew are the only career .300 hitters in Angel history, was never told to worry much about defense. He batted .308 during his first professional season in Madison, Wis., in the Oakland Athletics organization.

“They were never satisfied with me over there,” Polonia said of the Athletics. “Tony (LaRussa) wanted me to be too perfect.”

The Athletics never believed that Polonia would be a star, and traded him along with two pitchers on June 21, 1989 to acquire Rickey Henderson from the New York Yankees.

Polonia was given his first chance to play every day under Yankee Manager Dallas Green, batting .313 the rest of 1989, but returned to the bench when Bucky Dent became manager.

“To play for Bucky is to play for nobody,” Polonia said. “He was just a puppet for George (Steinbrenner). It made me sick.

“The worst day was when Mel Hall wasn’t feeling too good, and he told (hitting coach) Champ Summers that they should put me in left field. I heard, Summers say, ‘Polonia? There’s no way.’

“I couldn’t believe it. Champ Summers, who the hell is he? He never played. He was a pinch-hitter for life. The guy should be picking potatoes for a living, not coaching.

“From that point on, I told myself I’m going to be the best left fielder in the game.”

If Polonia indeed emerges this season as one of the finest left fielders in the game, it’s quite possible that he might be the next to leave the Angels. Polonia, traded from New York on April 29, 1990, is eligible for free agency after this season and the Angels have yet to open negotiations.

“I don’t understand them,” Polonia said. “There are a lot of guys that don’t want to be here. Hey, I want to be here. I don’t need the Angels. They need me.”

Dan O’Brien, Angel senior vice president/baseball operations, said: “We’re going to take a wait-and-see attitude. It all depends on how things fall. As we get down the road, we might start talking.”

Polonia, the first player in Angel history to lead the club in hits for three consecutive years, is dumbfounded. Isn’t he the latest recipient of the team’s Most Valuable Player award? Isn’t he rated as one of the best clutch hitters in the game, with a career .331 batting average with two outs and runners in scoring position?

“What more do they want from me?” Polonia says. “I score more runs than anybody. I get more hits than anybody. I steal more bases than anybody. I have the highest on-base percentage. I do everything they want.”

So the way Polonia has it figured, it will be no one’s fault but the Angels’ if he leaves. If they waited this long to negotiate, how will they react, he says, once he wins the batting title.

“Luis can do an awful lot of things with that bat,” said Carew, Angel hitting instructor, “and if he bunted more, there’s no doubt he could win it.”

Polonia says his biggest worry in the off-season just may be trying to decide on which finger to wear his batting title ring.

“This is my year,” he says. “I guarantee you this: People will know who Luis Polonia is after this year.”