ORANGE COUNTY SPORTS HALL OF FAME : Bittersweet Memories : Downing Set Records as Angel, but He’s Sour About Being Cut

For a man who did not acknowledge many happy days in a 20-year major league career spanning 2,344 games and 2,099 hits, Sunday should be one of Brian Downing’s better days.

That’s when Downing, who spent 13 years with the Angels and became the team leader in 10 of 12 offensive categories, enters the Orange County Hall of Fame, alongside teammate and friend Nolan Ryan.

But there will be no joy for Downing. At 44, two years removed from a career that began with the Chicago White Sox in 1973 and ended with the Texas Rangers in 1992, Downing remains angry with the Angels’ decision to release him in 1990.

So angry, that getting him to talk about it is like working through a labyrinth and finding Pandora’s box.

“I was really hurt by what the Angels did to me and I’ll never forgive them for it,” Downing said recently.

“I put all my heart into that team. A lot of people don’t think that. I had a lot of teammates that didn’t like me because I took every at-bat personally. Some people have inner struggles going on. I had trouble off the field and playing on the field was my release.

“I wish now I had never played here.”

To try to understand the depth of Downing’s feelings, one needs a few history lessons.

When the White Sox traded him to the Angels in 1978 (along with pitchers Dave Frost and Chris Knapp for outfielders Bobby Bonds, Thad Bosley and pitcher Rich Dotson), Downing was an undersized converted catcher with thick glasses and a .243 lifetime batting average. “I probably would have been out of baseball in another year if I had stayed in Chicago,” said Downing, who also played at Magnolia High and Cypress College.

His first year he batted .255, but in 1979--when the Angels won their first American League West title--Downing hit a career-best .326. It was the top average by a right-handed batter and third-highest in the league. But with it came only 12 homers (and 75 runs batted in). And after a disastrous 1980 season in which he was sidelined from April 20 to Sept. 1 because of a fractured ankle, Downing figured if he was going to stay in the majors, he had to get bigger and stronger.

Over the next couple of years, Downing remade himself with an exhaustive weightlifting regimen. The difference was dramatic: From 1982-88 Downing averaged about 23 home runs with a career-best 29 in 1987. He averaged 78 RBIs per year during the same span, with a high of 95 in 1986.

“He was tired of being a little guy,” said Gene Mauch, Downing’s manager with the Angels from 1981-87. “When he started out, he was a hustling but not-so-confident guy. But as his strength increased, his confidence increased. He became one hell of an offensive player.

“He had the greatest ‘scuffle’ stroke I ever saw. With two strokes he’d cut down on his swing and just foul off pitches until he got something he could handle. I think that’s what I remember so fondly. Another was his total lack of fear of the ball hitting him.”

If Downing did not create a weightlifting revolution in baseball--an activity long discouraged by old-timers who thought it bunched and knotted muscles, making them counter-productive to skills needed for the game--he certainly spurred its wide use. You cannot walk into a major league clubhouse today and not find an extensive weight workout room.

“I don’t know if it helped me hit the ball farther but it did help me generate more bat speed,” Downing said. “Would I have lasted as long at the same weight? I doubt it.”

In addition to being the lone player on all three Angel division winners, Downing was also the team’s leadoff hitter, when penciled in by Mauch. Certainly not a prototype--Downing had little speed, reaching double figures in stolen bases only once--he nonetheless maintained an above-average on-base percentage (lifetime .373) and led the majors in walks (106) in 1987. He also scored 100 or more runs twice in that peak period of 1982-88.

“What he brought to the park every day was 100% baseball player,” Mauch said. “Not 100% of what was left after the off-the-field stuff was taken care of.”

Another of Mauch’s moves was to put Downing in left field, a move he initially resisted because he wasn’t sure he could play it capably. And above all else, Downing hates to embarrass himself.

Mauch remembered his first play in Anaheim Stadium. “There were men on base and a ball came to him and rolled through his legs. He didn’t want to see left field again. But he realized it couldn’t get any worse, and from there went straight to the top.”

By spending countless hours learning hitters’ tendencies and where to position himself, Downing became more than adequate. In 1982 he set a league record for handling 330 consecutive chances without an error, breaking the 1971 mark of 314 set by the Yankees’ Roy White. By the middle of 1983, he set another record--244 errorless games, surpassing Detroit’s Al Kaline.

“I wasn’t a Gold Glove outfielder,” said Downing, who had played the last two years despite severe pain in his right side. “I played strategic baseball, and coming from behind the plate really helped me a lot. It helped me think the way hitters think.”

But Downing’s heavenly run with the Angels took a hellish turn.

In the final weekend of the 1990 season, then-Manager Doug Rader announced the team “would only play the guys who care about the team.” Downing was lumped into the does-not-care group. He was stunned and he sat.

“I thought Rader was great for the team,” Downing said. “But he and (then-General Manager Mike Port) promised me things to my face. I said, ‘Just let me play on Fan Appreciation Day and I’ll retire. If you want to get rid of me because you have (other) guys you want to make the designated hitter, I can handle that.’ ”

Downing, who by then was the team’s all-time leader in games played, hits, home runs and several other categories, said he asked that if he was going to be released, that it not be in December. The Angels said they would not.

Whatever you do to Downing, don’t tell him one thing and do another. A self-made but insecure player, he always wants to know where he stands.

So when the Angels unceremoniously let him go, they created a wound that will not heal.

“I’m not upset with everyone because they got rid of me,” Downing said. “They had made promises to my face. I had gone through the things I had done for them and felt I had done, and they agreed with everything I said. They said, ‘We won’t cut you in December.’ Then they go ahead and do that.

“I wanted to retire with a little dignity. To turn around and be released in the off-season . . . that just bugs me. They didn’t owe me anything. But they were like my family. Baseball was my life. To have them turn their backs on me like that . . . “

Although he finally signed with Texas and played two more years--”I did like it there”--much of the fun of baseball was drained from Downing.

Today he and wife, Cheryl, watch sons Brad and Brandon play baseball. (Brad is trying out for Cypress College; Brandon plays for El Dorado.) And Downing also loves riding motorcycles; he has taken trips through Wyoming and South Dakota, and hopes to travel with a group cross-country in March, starting from Daytona Beach, Fla.

Downing has not decided on a second career, but doubts he will seek a major or minor league coaching job. He still loves the game, but remains anguished.

“I may need more time away from the game,” Downing said. “I’m not a teacher. I wasn’t a great player, just an everyday scuffler.

“I might be a maniac but not an egomaniac.”

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Hall Class of ’94

THE NEW MEMBERS

Profiling the 1994 Orange County Sports Hall of Fame inductees this week:

Sunday--Josephine Cruickshank

Today--Brian Downing

Tuesday--George Latka

Wednesday--Nolan Ryan

Thursday--Rich Saul

Friday--Steve Scott

Saturday--Mary Decker Slaney

INDUCTION FACTS

What: The Orange County Sports Hall of Fame inducts the class of 1994 and awards special honors to Dennis Murphy, Donald Kennedy, Ashley Bethel and Frank Bryant.

Day: Sunday

Time: Gathering for Rams-Bears on television, 10 a.m.; snacks, noon; induction ceremonies, 1 p.m.

Where: Hall of Fame Patio, Anaheim Stadium.

Tickets: $20, seating limited to the first 300.

For reservations: (714) 254-3050.