The Summer Game Is Under Way : Spring Training Arrives and It’s Not a Moment Too Soon

Baseball comes not a moment too soon this year. It comes as Americans above the Mason-Dixon line are ready to scream at the next snowflake, as Californians dig out from their latest Biblical plague, and as everybody is sufficiently comatose from alpine racing and Tonya vs. Nancy.

Baseball, 1994, is here. It may not look like baseball in recent times: There are six divisions and eight playoff berths, a Sunday opener, more day games and no expansion teams; Michael Jordan in spikes and Nolan Ryan, George Brett and Robin Yount in retirement. But some things do not change: fresh air and sun, youth and laughter, ball and bat. These gifts are handed down, generation to generation, parent to child, winter to spring.

So sit back, kick up, and let your mind travel. The summer game is under way in Florida and Arizona. Temperatures are in the 70s, landscapes are green, air is fragrant, and a soft breeze is licking your face.

*

Not quite four months have passed since Joe Carter took Mitch Williams deep. The National League champion Phillies--tough, combative, and game to the bitter end--felt as if they were TKO’d on cuts. Now they want to get it on again. Veterans Lenny Dykstra, Darren Daulton, Dave Hollins, Pete Incaviglia and John Kruk showed up at the Clearwater camp before last Thursday. Only Daulton was due in on the 17th; the others could have come in as late as next Wednesday. But they couldn’t wait to get back on the job.

Williams was gone by popular demand, traded to Houston. In his place is bearded reliever Doug Jones, a quiet, cerebral type who seems content on his first day to observe the Phillies’ regulars from a distance.

With Jimmy Cliff’s tune, “I Can See Clearly Now,” playing on the clubhouse radio, Manager Jim Fregosi convenes his first spring interview. Fregosi is brought right to the point: his bullpen.

“Who’s your closer?” a Philadelphia reporter asks.

“Jones has had past success--he’s done it before,” Fregosi says. “I’d like to keep (Larry) Andersen and (David) West for set-up. I’m not saying Doug is the closer. Let’s see how it goes. There’s an old adage: Whoever is hot gets the ball.”

Jones, 36, is a veteran of eight major league seasons with Milwaukee, Cleveland and Houston. His ERA has been erratic, but his saves are the bottom line. He has 190 of them, and if you exclude 1991, when his role with the Indians was less defined, Jones has averaged 34.4 over his last five seasons.

Jones says experience has taught him to pitch within himself, more easily accomplished with a high-scoring team such as the Phillies. He says he has learned to pitch with his head as much as his arm, thanks to advice from Steve Carlton and Don Money, both past teammates. He describes himself as a control pitcher who changes speed on his fastball and changeup to keep hitters off-balance.

“Your style doesn’t leave much room for error, does it?”

“Very little,” Jones says. “I have to be on top of my game to be effective.”

*

Boys love baseball. This politically incorrect observation is not meant to offend girls. It does not scientifically refute a trendy theory that baseball has been abandoned by youth. It simply recognizes what is.

Early on the first morning of spring baseball, 15-year-old Ryan Sherman arises, brushes his teeth, gulps his cereal and dashes out his front door. Normally, Sherman would head for Sarasota’s Riverview High School, where his ninth-grade teachers have grown accustomed to his blond hair and bright-eyed face. This morning, he makes a beeline for Ed Smith Stadium, where the White Sox train. At 8:15 a.m., he pops a small padlock on a gate in right field. At 8:45, he seats himself along the first-base line, trying to blend in with 300 reporters and 34 TV cameras.

“Won’t you get in trouble?” I ask him.

“No, my Mom is here,” Ryan says. “She snuck in with me.”

Moms love baseball, too.

Boys and moms also love Michael Jordan.

At 9:15, His Airness strolls through an outfield gate, carrying three bats over his shoulder. He wears Chicago’s black jersey, No. 45, and black Nike high-tops custom-fitted with cleats. As Michael settles into the batting cage for his initial cuts, one of the reporters jostling for position is Thierry Marchand, a writer for L’Equipe, Europe’s largest daily sports newspaper. L’Equipe’s headquarters is in Paris.

“French sports fans are very happy to see Michael back in business,” Marchand says. “Everybody in France cares about him. L’Equipe named him Greatest Athlete in the World last year.”

“Do the French understand baseball?” he is asked.

“Not really,” Marchand says. “The main thing is that Michael is playing.”

“What if France’s best soccer player decided to become a race car driver?” I say. “Would the French fans take him seriously?”

“No, people would think it was a big joke,” Marchand says.

“Exactly.”

“I see what you mean,” he says. “But you have to be careful.”

“Careful? “

“This is Michael Jordan. You don’t know what he is capable of doing.”

For two hours Michael hits, fields, throws and runs. Taking fat pitches from coaches, he pounds many into the dirt, pops many into the top of the cage, and lines a goodly number into the outfield. It appears that if Michael learns to hit, he will do it as a spray hitter. His speed from home to second is impressive. His outfield glove could be made serviceable, but his arm is weak. One can only wonder about his ability to chew, spit and scratch his groin.

“I feel sorry for the other players,” Ryan says. “Nobody is paying attention to them.”

*

Spring is embodied in a rookie, tall and strong and optimistic. When the Braves open camp at West Palm Beach, clambering up the dugout steps and breaking into a lazy trot, the cries from the stands are not for Glavine, Maddux, Smoltz or Avery. No, they are for a young man with broad shoulders and piercing dark eyes.

“Javy, you’re the man this year! Good luck!”

Javier Lopez smiles. “All right!” he shouts.

Lopez, 23, is the man. The Braves have handed him the catching job, with 17 major league games under his belt, allowing veterans Damon Berryhill and Greg Olson to move on.

Perhaps one measure of Lopez’s promise is a non-athlete hovering close to the action. Thomas C. Lynch, promotions director for Neumann Glove Co., happily points out Lopez’s equipment: wrist bands, batting gloves and catcher’s mitt, all Neumann products. Neumann is trying to break into the baseball equipment market; the company is counting on television closeups of Lopez and his Neumann equipment for years to come.

“Javy is only a rookie, and already he’s the one the fans want,” Lynch says.

*

Another two-sport Jordan is playing baseball, really playing. The morning after “the circus,” Brian Jordan plants himself firmly in the batting cage at the Busch Complex. Cardinals hitting coach Chris Chambliss reaches into a bag of baseballs. Nobody else is around. No other players or coaches, no satellite trucks or minicams.

For 20 minutes the sound of Jordan’s bat on ball shatters the morning silence and sends foraging seabirds flapping away in terror. Jordan was a 205-pound All-Pro defensive back with the Falcons until he quit football in 1991. He quit because baseball offered greater longevity. Still, his swing communicates the explosive violence of football.

Last season, Jordan hit .309, with 10 home runs and 44 RBIs in just 223 at-bats. His season was cut short when his left shoulder socket detached, an injury first incurred on a football field. Offseason surgery and rehabilitation fixed the shoulder. No work was required on Jordan’s attitude. He is driven and disciplined.

“There were times last season when I swung and my shoulder would drop out of the socket,” says Jordan, 26. “I had to snap it back in. It was painful. But I’m a competitor.”

“People think athletes are motivated by money, but I know what motivates me. The challenge. I want the ball at the end of the game. I want to be up at the plate.”

*

Each spring clubhouse has an invisible wall. On one side sit the major-leaguers. On the other side, the players with minor league contracts. The major-leaguers greet one another, discuss golf and investments, open boxes of fan mail and grant interviews to reporters. The players with minor league contracts watch them, inscrutable and hawk-eyed. Social contact between the two groups is minimal.

The attitude of minor-leaguers invited to major league camps is typified by Jeff Patterson, a businesslike 25-year-old reliever in the Phillies organization.

“The most important thing is to be seen,” Patterson says. “If they see you, maybe you get a call during the year.”

Patterson put in five professional seasons before getting his first invitation to the major league camp. He pitched well for Scranton last season in short relief. If the Phillies--with their weak bullpen--had ignored him this spring, he would have begun to wonder.

“I’m not labeled a minor-leaguer--I’m not at that stage yet,” Patterson says. “That label can really hurt guys. Because they don’t take the time to get past the label. It’s an uphill battle after that.”