Rod Carew Becomes Champion for the Abused : Community: Baseball great recalls childhood traumas as he fights for a shelter in an affluent Anaheim Hills neighborhood. Eli Home expects to start caring for troubled women and children within six months.

An obedient son, 10-year-old Rod Carew would wait for his father to return home at night holding a cord, a rope and a leather strap.

“He would choose one and beat me with it,” recalled Carew, who also endured watching his father hit his mother. “I ran away from home a lot, but I always had to come back because there was no place to go.”

So when residents opposed building a shelter for abused women and children in Carew’s affluent Anaheim Hills neighborhood earlier this year, the fight reopened an old wound for the baseball Hall of Famer and former California Angel.

Although the shelter eventually won city approval, Carew said his community’s “Not in My Back Yard” attitude has motivated him to broaden his role with the Eli Home, which expects to open an emergency shelter for abuse victims within six months.

“I’m going to be outspoken,” said Carew, 49, famous for his smooth swing and wide smile. “If they had to put it in my back yard, I’d tell them to put it in my back yard.”

The Angels’ star hitter learned of the Eli Home shelter group, which has twice been honored by U.S. Presidents for its community service, through newly elected Anaheim City Councilman Bob Zemel. Aware of Carew’s troubled youth, Zemel recently told his friend of 10 years about the home’s programs, which annually provide emergency housing and counseling to about 1,000 abuse victims.

Carew immediately wanted to help, Zemel said.

“I think having Rod involved will mean kids will want to grow up stealing second base instead of a car,” said Zemel, a longtime Eli Home advocate.

Eli Home officials are grateful for the well-known athlete’s support, which will include attending a Christmas party for 200 children on Sunday.

“He is very valuable,” said Lori Galloway, executive director of the Eli Home. “People really respect Carew, and if he shows his support for our programs, then they pay a lot more attention.”

Even though the shelter won a permit after a battle with residents in September, Eli Home officials are still nervous about the future.

In a concession to opponents, the City Council will review the shelter in one year and could revoke the permit if the facility proves to be an unwelcome neighbor. Critics, who say the shelter violates city zoning codes and could attract violent spouses, have vowed to keep a close watch on the facility.

But Carew said he is prepared to go to “the end” to protect the shelter.

“It won’t ruin the neighborhood,” said Carew, who lives about three miles from where the shelter will be located. “When you’ve never been through a battered situation or a child abuse situation, you never know how badly these places are needed.”

Such a haven, Carew said, might have spared him and his mother, Olga, from years of physical abuse at the hands of his father, who was a laborer on the Panama Canal.

“I was a real sickly kid, and my dad just couldn’t understand that--a weak kid,” said Carew, who was the only one of his four siblings beaten. “And later I got rheumatic fever. It just got worse and worse.”

Carew said his father’s rage--ritualized, but often unpredictable--eroded his self-esteem and mystified him. By age 10, Carew could divine from his father’s walk as he came home from work whether he would be hit.

“You sit and you wonder, why?” said Carew, who underwent counseling for the childhood trauma. “I used to question myself and ask myself what did I do wrong. I don’t know how much better of a son I could have been.”

The young Carew, however, discovered a life-changing refuge away from his tormented home life--baseball. On the ball fields in his native Gatum, Panama, he excelled. By age 11, he even played in a men’s fast-pitch softball league.

“Baseball allowed me to be myself,” said Carew, who hit over .300 in 15 consecutive seasons in the major leagues. “I was the best at this and nobody could do anything, including my father, to hurt me.”

The sport also became an arena to defy his father, who pitched for an opposing team. Though succeeding at the plate against his father meant a beating later, the young Carew relished the chance to hit against his abuser.

“The guys on the team were concerned because they knew I’d get a whipping, and they’d ask me not to play against my dad,” Carew said. “But I said no, I’ll take it. I liked hitting against him, just for him to say one day, ‘You’re good.’ But he never did.”

Today, Carew wouldn’t give his father the chance. The two haven’t spoken since 1983, when Carew took his children to New York to see their grandfather for the first and only time.

“I have nothing to do with him,” said Carew, who has three daughters. “My dad always said I wasn’t going to amount to anything. He never encouraged me. . . . I think I wasn’t supposed to have been born.”

Carew, who quietly lived with the abuse for decades, finally revealed the searing experiences of his youth in a 1978 autobiography, titled “Carew.” The openness proved to be a catharsis, he said.

“The book ended the torment of having it inside me,” Carew said. “I was able to let it go.”

His father could not be reached for comment.

While distancing himself from his painful past, Carew engages himself with volunteer work and finds it as healing for himself as for the youngsters. Besides operating baseball camps, Carew said he regularly contributes his time to organizations dedicated to aiding troubled youth.

Carew said his experiences enable him to bond quickly with youngsters who have suffered abuse, and he hopes his openness about his past helps kids quiet their own personal demons.

“You always deal with (the abuse). But the only way to improve is to get it out,” Carew said. “I just hope someday when these kids grow up they say, ‘God, I’m glad the Eli Home was there.’ ”