Angels ’94 : Compulsive Will to Win Separates Curtis From His Demons : Outfield: Taking a cue from Pete Rose, he feels he must play up to his full potential at all times to achieve star status.

Chad Curtis was sitting in his adult Sunday school class this winter when he felt that familiar sensation overpowering him.

It couldn’t be happening. Come on, not here at the First Baptist Church in his hometown of Middleville, Mich. It was a just a neighborly board game that he was playing with his closest friends. Men versus women. Winners take home only bragging rights.

So, OK, the women were beating up on them pretty good this day. They were yelling out all the correct answers, and the game was becoming lopsided in a hurry. They even started giggling at the ease of their victory.

That’s when it started. Curtis felt the blood rushing toward his head. He breathed deeply and fast, opening and closing his hands.

Curtis no longer could resist temptation. He called time out, gathered the men together, and unveiled his strategy.

It was time to cheat.

“I found out a way we could turn the cards so we could read them,” Curtis said. “I was just trying to get us back into the game. I mean, they were crushing us.

“It wasn’t until I got home when I realized what I had just done.

“I told my wife, ‘Can you believe it? I cheated because I hate the thought of losing. ‘

“I’ve done things I’ve been embarrassed about later, and I know I get too intense, but that might have been my all-timer.

“I felt pretty bad about that one.”

To Curtis, playing any game is a test of strength, smarts and guts. No matter how frivolous, the goal is the same. May the most ruthless competitor win.

This insatiable desire to win might appear to be a twisted, almost a deranged way of thinking, but for Angel center fielder Chad Curtis it has become a necessary evil.

It is what separates Curtis from his peers in major league baseball, the difference in becoming a possible star to being a journeyman.

“I’m a compulsive baseball player,” Curtis said. “I always feel I have to win. Losing drives me crazy. I’ve got to go at everything with full intensity.

“I look at guys like Ken Griffey Jr. He can play up to half of his potential, and be an All-Star. When he reaches his full potential, he’s a Hall of Famer.

“I can’t do that. I’ve got to play up to my full potential. I use that as a strength, not a weakness.

“That’s why I think Pete Rose and I are a lot alike. He hustles. He wants to win. He’s not of big stature, never had a lot of talent, but he has more hits any anybody in baseball history.

“I don’t think Pete Rose has abundantly more talent than I do. There’s some people in the Hall of Fame that can’t do the things I can do.

“I’m not going to sit here and say I’m going to be in the Hall of Fame, but every day I put my uniform on, I’m going to say, ‘I’m a Hall of Fame caliber player.’

“Nobody can tell me any different.”

The game of baseball tried to exclude Curtis from ever trespassing. He was too small. Too short. Too slow.

Baseball was never blatant about its feelings but politely let him know that he wasn’t one of its kind, waiting until the 45th round in 1989 to even draft him. Even Carey Schueler, the 18-year-old daughter of Chicago White Sox General Manager Ron Schueler, was drafted higher, picked in the 43rd round last year.

“It was three days after the draft before the Angels even bothered to call me,” Curtis said. “Even then, they said they didn’t want me. They just wanted my rights.

“I actually had to convince them to sign me, and they’re the ones who drafted me.”

Curtis was incensed, but the more he thought about it, why should this be any different than anything else he had to overcome in life?

He was the meanest, toughest kid on the football field at Benson (Ariz.) High School, but when you’re 5-foot-9 and 155 pounds, no one pays much attention until that first big hit.

There was that game against Morenci High when the game plan simply was to dump off passes to their 6-foot-4, 225-pound tight end, telling him to bowl over Curtis time after time.

“I knew what they had in mind,” Curtis said. “The first time they ran it, I had a 10-yard head of steam, and I hit him with everything I had. They never ran that play again the rest of the night.”

Curtis had no scholarship offers to play football out of high school, and was prepared to be a walk-on at the University of Arizona. He stopped at a restaurant and saw tables full of baseball players from Yavapai Community College in Prescott, Ariz. He boldly walked up to the coach, asked if he could try out. He made the team, and batted .360 with 30 RBIs. He spent the next season at Cochise Community College, batting .407 with 15 homers and 71 RBIs.

Still, his credentials failed to get him a full scholarship from a major university. He kept weighing offers from Grand Canyon College, or a quarter-scholarship to the University of Arizona.

“I decided I needed to go to someplace where I could be recognized,” Curtis said. “Then I realized what better place than Canyon because Tim Salmon was there. I figured, if scouts were going to come out and see Tim, they had no choice but to see Chad Curtis.”

It appeared to be a stroke of ingenuity. Salmon attracted about 30 scouts a game, batting .356 with 19 homers and 68 RBIs, causing the Angels to draft him in the third round.

Curtis had even a more stellar season, batting .369 with 19 homers, 83 RBIs, and 36 steals. Scouts promised that he’d be selected in the first 10 rounds. He stuck around until the Angels grabbed him in the 45th round.

“You know something, I think that was the best thing that happened to him,” said Salmon, Curtis’ best friend on the team. “There were no expectations. It was like, ‘Who is this kid?’ He was the underdog.”

It took fewer than three years for Curtis to prove he belonged, out-hustling everyone to the top. Everything in his life was done at full speed. He even wore his baseball uniform the day he married his wife, Candace, just to ensure he would not be late for batting practice.

“Hey, I had to be on the field at 2,” Curtis said, “and our wedding got pushed back to 1:30. I didn’t have any choice but to take off my suit and put on my uniform.”

Curtis, 25, is convinced that marriage has mellowed him, but he still is the most intense player in baseball. The biggest difference now, Salmon says, is that Curtis no longer flings the remote control, chairs and tables across the room when he loses in Nintendo.

“Believe me,” said Salmon, his former roommate, “it got pretty ugly.”

Just as he ascended through the minor leagues, Curtis relies on pure hustle and intelligence for his game. He brings along his own scouting book to the bench, revealing which pitchers have a quick delivery to the plate and what they’ll throw at particular times in the count. Although he is not considered an exceptional runner, his instincts have enabled him to steal 91 bases in his first two seasons.

“We used to talk all the time in the minors about how guys don’t prepare themselves, and how they don’t hustle,” Salmon said. “He used to tell me, ‘That’s fine by me. That’s just one less guy I have to worry about getting to the big leagues.’ ”

This same guy who has been overlooked all of his life, today is considered the Angels’ catalyst. Their hopes for a division title might be predicated on his success as a first-year leadoff hitter.

“That’s fine by me,” Curtis said, “because I want to establish myself as the guy who gets the team going. I want to be that guy. It doesn’t matter how I do in a game, I could go four for five, and I’ll still try to find a way to blame myself.

“I’ve learned now that I can’t control my performance when I play, but I can control how hard I play the game.

“I used to make baseball my No. 1 priority in life, that’s why I try to use Pete Rose as an example. On the field, I want to be the kind of player he was. Off the field, I don’t want to be the way he was.

“One day, I’ve like to meet him.

“I’d like to thank him.”