Dante’s Out of the Inferno : Former Angel Bichette Has Emerged as a Slugging Star With the Rockies After Having Been Written Off as a Flake and Nearly Leaving for Japan

It happens less frequently now, but whenever Dante Bichette’s concentration lapses or his punctuality isn’t what it should be, Don Baylor likes to say, “Well, our man just dropped in from Venus again.” However, there are other reasons for the Colorado Rockies’ manager to declare that his right fielder has been out of this world.

After five frustrating seasons as a part-time player with the Angels and Milwaukee Brewers, reaching the point where he thought his only chance to play regularly was in Japan, Bichette has developed into one of the major leagues’ most productive hitters during his year and a half with the Rockies.

The best measure of that was his selection by Philadelphia Manager Jim Fregosi to the National League All-Star team that will play the American League in Pittsburgh tonight, a selection that prompted a congratulatory call from Bichette’s idol, Ted Williams.

“This is the culmination of everything I’ve worked so hard for,” Bichette, 30, said during the weekend. “I’ve been knocked down and stepped on so often that it makes it even more special. I always knew I could be this kind of player if I had the chance to play regularly, and this proves to all those people who said I couldn’t that they were wrong.

“I told Don when he told me that I had been selected to the (All-Star) team that if it hadn’t been for his confidence in me, for giving me the chance to play regularly, it wouldn’t have happened. I owe him a lot.”

Playing regularly for the first time last season, he jumped into the financial big time--$2.8-million this year--after a season that would have been even more impressive if he hadn’t sat out the final 21 games because of a broken hand. The 6-foot-3, 230-pound Bichette still finished third in the league in doubles, fourth in extra-base hits, sixth in slugging percentage and third in outfield assists. As Baylor notes, Bichette is armed and dangerous. He threw out 14 runners but also led National League outfielders with nine errors, trying to do too much with his throws.

In the 141 games before he suffered a broken left hand when hit by a pitch by Doug Jones, Bichette established career highs for average, .310; hits, 167; doubles, 43; home runs, 21, and runs batted in, 89. He is about to wipe all of that off the board, however.

He already has 77 RBIs, second in the league, and has already matched his 21 homers of last year, which earned him a spot in the All-Star home run contest Monday. He is batting .303 and certain that his development will continue.

Says Baylor: “When he learns to swing only at strikes, he may run the league.”

With the Angels, some seemed to believe Bichette was a flake, a player who always seemed to be five minutes behind schedule and whose talent tended to be overshadowed by his attitude.

Bichette acknowledges having made mistakes in those early years but says the Angels, and then-manager Doug Rader, emphasized them to rationalize not playing him and eventually trading him.

Who would characterize him that way now?

Merely because he is close friends with Dinger, the purple dinosaur who serves as the Rockies’ mascot? Merely because he spends much of his free time on the road passionately playing foosball, a table game? Merely because he rarely is early for a bus or plane and is seldom up before noon because he has trouble unwinding and likes to watch videos of his at-bats, often staying in the clubhouse for several hours after a game?

Merely because he calls his clubhouse locker “the Happy Zone” and often leaves the Rockies cringing with his penchant for weightlifting and arm wrestling (he and outfielder Chris Jones teamed to win the $5,000 first prize in a Las Vegas players’ tournament during the winter)?

Baylor simply smiles and shakes his head.

“Dante likes to say he patterns himself after Paul Molitor and Robin Yount from his days in Milwaukee,” Baylor said. “Those two would probably beat him over the head if they knew he had said that. Their approach and his approach are two different things.

“We’ll walk out of the tunnel just before a game and Dante will be standing there with a cup of coffee and looking at the scoreboard and asking, ‘Who’s pitching (for the other team) today?’ That’s normal?”

Said Bichette: “Two things. One, I like to have fun, and two, I grew up in an environment where there wasn’t much discipline. Maybe I grew up as something of a nonconformist, but I don’t consider myself a flake. I’ve always worked hard, even when I was with the Angels.

“I just didn’t know the right way to go about it. I didn’t have the leadership of guys like Molitor and Yount. I wasn’t married yet and didn’t have a son (Dante Jr., 21 months). I’ve got a better grip on my priorities now. I’m in a positive environment. Things were always kind of negative with the Angels.”

A 17th-round draft pick of the Angels at Palm Beach Junior College in 1984, Bichette opened in right field after an impressive spring in 1989, but was back in the minors in mid-June. He produced another impressive spring in 1990 and was batting .295 with a team-leading 17 RBIs on May 11 when the Angels traded for Dave Winfield, leaving Bichette a bewildered part-timer who hit 15 homers and drove in 53 runs in 349 at-bats.

He was traded to Milwaukee at the end of the season for an over-the-hill Dave Parker, one of those lamentable transactions that dot the Angel landscape.

“I was leading the team in seven offensive categories when they traded for Winfield,” Bichette said. “I was excited about it because I thought it would help the team. I never dreamt it would cost me my job, and I had a tough time accepting it. I was frustrated and let it show. I had a couple of run-ins with Rader and got far too emotional.

“I know I didn’t handle it right. I know the team is more important than the individual, but I thought we were a better team when I was in there. I thought I was in the process of proving that. They obviously felt otherwise.”

Bichette now considers it a learning experience and said he is far too happy where he is to still hold hard feelings toward the Angels or Rader, who, he said, seemed genuinely upset when informing Bichette he had been traded.

On the surface, the two years in Milwaukee didn’t seem much of an improvement. Bichette appeared in 134 games in 1991, 112 in ‘92, when he began to think about Japan. However, a metamorphosis was slowly taking place.

Bichette had always read as much as he could on the subject of hitting. Books by Pete Rose and Steve Garvey. “The Science of Hitting” by Williams, given to him in 1986 by Tom Kotchman, now an Angel scout and then manager of their Palm Springs farm club. Bichette believed he understood the theories and mechanics, but wasn’t sure how to apply it all.

He learned in Milwaukee, where Baylor was his hitting coach in 1991 and Mike Easler followed in 1992.

“The Angels had always talked to me about being a Rob Deer type hitter,” Bichette said. “They didn’t care if I struck out 100 times as long as I hit a lot of home runs. That’s fine in theory, but as soon as I’d start to strike out, I’d be out of the lineup. They wouldn’t let me practice what they preached.”

Baylor and Easler taught Bichette how to hit for power and average without the strikeouts. They taught him how to adjust, cut down on his swing in certain situations, use the whole field, apply his studies. They now preached discipline and consistency.

“Easler convinced me I could do it and showed me how,” Bichette said. “I learned how to channel my work ethic from Yount and Molitor.”

Baylor, who had become the St. Louis Cardinals’ hitting coach in 1992, remembered the potential when he was hired to manage the expansion Rockies in 1993. The Rockies selected Kevin Reimer from the Texas Rangers in the expansion draft, then traded Reimer for Bichette in a prearranged deal.

Now, he is playing regularly for a no-nonsense manager who was instrumental in laying the groundwork for Bichette’s development. He plays half the season in a consistently sold-out ballpark suited to his gap power. He is batting third in an offense-minded lineup ahead of the Baylor-rejuvenated Andres Galarraga, who says Bichette has the ability to hit 30 homers and steal 30 bases in a season, done only 16 times in National League history.

Said Dwight Evans, his new hitting instructor: “When Dante is in his home run mode, things come easy. He might hit six to eight in 10 or 12 days. When he’s not in that mode he becomes a good enough hitter to shoot one down the line or hit the ball in the gaps. He’s becoming a smart hitter, and he’s so strong that he’ll hit 20 to 25 homers by mistake.”

Bichette is already there with 21 homers, but Baylor continues to preach discipline to a guess hitter who loves to swing at the first pitch and could be even more effective, the manager believes, by learning to use the count and swinging only at strikes.

Williams might have given him the same message if he had made contact, but the chagrined Bichette was out at the time and Williams told Bichette’s wife, Marianna, to extend his congratulations. That was good enough, Bichette said.

Who would have ever believed that Ted Williams would be calling, or that Bichette would be headed to the All-Star game?

“It’s a confidence builder just like last year gave me that much more confidence going into this year,” Bichette said. “I’d been told so often what I couldn’t do that I had a lot of confidence to build back up. I’m still working at it, but I have to feel good about how far I’ve come.”