DELINO DeSHIELDS IS : Taking a New Tack : Dodgers Can Expect Almost Anything From Their Second Baseman, Who Now Would Like to Be Known for What He Does on the Field

He was born in a town with a population of about 5,000, to a mother who was 15 and a father who was 18. They never married.

His grandmother, Elizabeth, raised him. They had food on the table and clothes on their backs. They had love, they just didn’t have any money.

He respected his father, Wilson, but his father was never there for him.

His mother, Debbie, tried to be there for him, but that didn’t always work out, either.

“They had me when they were young,” DeShields explained, “and they had a lot of living to do. I tell them that we can’t really make up for lost time, we just have to go on from here and make the most of it.”

When DeShields was in junior high school, he watched his mother fall into the snare of alcoholism. That, Debbie now says, forced her son to grow up quickly, far sooner than any 12-year-old should be expected to do.

“I had a problem with alcohol, and Delino had a lot of decisions to make at a young age,” she said, adding that she has not had a drink in four years. “My alcoholism made him grow up. My not being there for him made him dig deeper within himself.

“You wish you could change things in the past, but some things you can’t. In the last four years, we have started a whole new relationship and we are very close. Delino is always saying to me, ‘I had a hard time raising you, Mom.’ ”

As DeShields grew older, he finally had a choice, or so it seemed. He was the second black quarterback at Seaford High, in Seaford, Del.--the first was his uncle--and he also starred in baseball and basketball. The only sport he couldn’t handle was wrestling.

From an early age, though, DeShields knew what sport he wanted to play. Even when a basketball was bigger than him, his mother said, he handled it with skill.

He became so good, in fact, that Rollie

Massimino at Villanova offered him the only freshman basketball scholarship

available for the 1987 season, and he accepted. His future, it seemed, was set.

But the Montreal Expos also selected DeShields, a shortstop, in the first round of the 1987 draft, and with that came a bonus of $140,000--a pittance to most players now but a lot of money then.

DeShields loved basketball, but his grandmother lost her house around that time because of financial difficulties and, as agonizing as the decision was to make, there really was little question what DeShields would do. He signed with the Expos.

“At first, he was told that he could do both--fulfill his college obligation and play baseball, “ Debbie said. “But then Montreal didn’t allow him to play basketball. He never complained, but he really loved basketball.

“And it is still with him a little bit today.”

*

He has a different look, Delino DeShields does, and he’s not afraid to display it--wearing his socks to his knees and his pants baggy out of deference to the old Negro Leagues, writing things in his glove, doing stuff with his hair and choking up high on the bat.

Sometimes he’ll talk, sometimes he won’t. Sometimes he’ll just stare at you and not say a word.

DeShields isn’t sure why he’s done some of the things he has, but said he feels more mature now. At 25, he’s beginning his fifth major league season, this one with the Dodgers. The Nehru hat and the blue high-tops are long gone. So is the shaved head. And the socks are down, too--for now, anyway. Besides cutting off his circulation at times, he found that his socks prompted more questions than his game.

“He’s a good person, but a lot of people are not going to understand him, because he’s kind of weird,” said Marquis Grissom, DeShields’ best friend and former teammate at Montreal. “He talks when he wants to talk, and when he does talk, he’s honest. He’s not going to hold anything back. He’s not too outspoken about things off the field; he’ll stick to the topic of baseball most of the time.

“People just have to give him his space, players especially, because he’s stubborn in some ways, but they’re good ways. When he sets his mind out to do something--he has accomplished so much so fast--it’s like he’s not afraid and he teaches himself, because he gets tired of making the same mistake over and over again.”

Grissom and DeShields came up in Montreal’s system, steering similar courses through the minors. So when DeShields was told by the Expos in November that he’d been traded to the Dodgers for Pedro Martinez, Grissom was one of the first he called. “I told him I didn’t believe it, that I would have to watch it on ESPN,” Grissom said, “and I think he was stunned.”

DeShields spent only three years in the minors before arriving in Montreal for the 1990 season. He was a shortstop, but the Expos wanted to get him into a lineup that already featured Spike Owen. Interestingly, it was then-Dodger minor league manager Timmy Johnson, now a coach with the Expos, who helped DeShields make the conversion.

“I was managing a team in Mexico in the winter league when the Expos asked me if I would work Delino out at second base,” Johnson said. “He’s such a great athlete, one of the best I’ve ever seen, and when he went to second base, we won everything.

“The guy does everything. He’s a leader on the ballclub, a quiet leader, but when he says something, you listen. He is one guy who doesn’t use a crutch for anything, and never has. And on the field, he can make anything happen. Want to get a big base? He steals that. Want to make a big play? He does that. Need a big run? There isn’t anybody else you want at the plate.

“With Delino at second base, he’s going to make Jose Offerman a better shortstop and Eric Karros a better first baseman. This guy is going to get balls that Karros won’t have to worry about. This is an exciting player.”

Fred Claire, Dodger executive vice president, found DeShields so enticing that he gave up perhaps the best pitcher on his team. Just about every club wanted Martinez, but Claire, after retreating from the Jody Reed negotiations when his offer of $8 million for three years was rejected, only budged for DeShields.

“Reed is a fiery player and a leader in the clubhouse, but I think people are going to be surprised at what Delino will do,” said Tim Wallach, a teammate of DeShields in his first three Expo seasons. “People think he’s quiet, but he’s such a competitor and he’s so tough, he wants to win. He’s a very mature guy for his age and he’s gotten better every season.”

One of the first things Claire did was sign DeShields to a $2.7-million contract for this season, giving him a raise of more than $1.1 million. “He fits with our club so well because of his great athletic ability, his attitude and presence on and off the field, and because of his youth, “ Claire said. “With how we are building with youth, I can’t think of anyone at his position who could fit our club better than Delino.”

DeShields has averaged 46 stolen bases, 144 hits and 77 runs scored in his four major league seasons. Last season, he had an 81% success rate in stolen bases. He has a career .277 batting average--.293 over the past two seasons. In fielding percentage, he finished sixth in the National League last season.

“The only tough thing about the trade is leaving the guys I came up with,” DeShields said. “I felt like I could talk to everybody and everybody could talk to me. Guys would come to me with their problems, but we were all young guys anyway on the Expos, so we all related to each other pretty well. . . . Dennis Martinez was the oldest guy on the team, by far. Whereas on the Dodgers, you have a better mix.

“The Expos gave me a chance to do what I had to do and I’m thankful for that. Now it’s time to move on.”

DeShields comes to the Dodgers with high expectations, most of them his own. This may be his fifth season, but he is aware that he is talked about as though he had been playing for a decade.

“Expectations have been there all my life, basically, but if other people don’t put high expectations up for me, I seem to do it myself,” he said. “I think I’m maturing now. When I first came to the league, I was young and I didn’t know a specific way to act, so I was just being myself. Like sometimes I would write “love” on one glove and “hate” on another, things that I don’t really know why I did.

“But I feel a little more secure about what I’m doing now. I want to be known for what I do on the field, not for what I wear or how I look.”

*

On the field, DeShields is serious. Grissom said he doesn’t joke around, doesn’t smile much and sometimes works too hard. But off the field, he and Grissom spent a lot of time talking, playing pool . . . and sometimes playing a little basketball.

“I thought I could play basketball but he can really play, he’s NBA material,” Grissom said. “He can get down.”

The other day in batting practice, Manager Tom Lasorda yelled out to DeShields: “Hey, Delino, I talked with Rollie (Massimino) the other day, and he told me to tell you hi. He really wanted you to play for him, boy did he.”

DeShields still loves basketball, although when Claire asked him recently if he could dunk, DeShields said he didn’t have any plans to play, even for fun--which suits Claire just fine.

“Although I don’t think there are any restrictions in his contract, I can say that I hope Delino’s basketball days are behind him,” Claire said.

Had he played basketball for a year and then quit, DeShields thinks he would have regretted it. “But there are no regrets now,” he said, “everything is lovely.”

DeShields married Tisha Milligan about three years ago, and they have an 18-month-old son, Delino Jr. DeShields has found that being a father has given him a deeper understanding of the perils of being a parent, and he often speaks to groups of children about the perils of being a child. He never really had anyone do that for him.

“I don’t preach to them but sometimes I’m there just so they can see me,” said DeShields, who remains in close contact with his father. “I was talking to some kids yesterday and I told them that they can’t be afraid to try different things. I asked them, ‘What would you rather do--struggle and stay in that one spot, or change and have some success?’ That’s my way of looking at it.”

Back in Seaford, DeShields’ mother turned 41 last Saturday. She has gone back to school and recently earned her Associate of Arts degree. She plans to go on for a bachelor’s degree in human resources. On her birthday, she talked about the past, hesitantly but honestly.

DeShields remembered what effect it had on his mother the first time he told the story of his upbringing.

“When I first came up to the big leagues and told my story, it was very difficult for her,” he said. “But she is getting stronger now, and it’s getting better. She told me she talked about it again and she still feels uncomfortable. But I told her that all of that is in the past, it’s OK now. We are moving forward.”