Trying to Stay High on the Hog

Mary Jane Phillips remembers fixing 20 pounds of chitlins--that’s hog intestines for the Southern-food impaired, “a poor man’s caviar,” to her son, Tony--only to have the entire batch devoured by young Tony and a friend.

And every Thanksgiving Tony would have dinner at a buddy’s house, then come home for another feast. “He ate everything and everywhere,” Mary Jane said.

Where this itty bitty boy--Tony Phillips was 4 feet 10 and barely 100 pounds as a high school freshman--got this ferocious appetite, his mother never knew.

But in a sense it’s still driving him today, more than 20 years later, even after the boy grew up to be a major league baseball player and a millionaire, wealthy enough to buy his mother a new house, car and diamond jewelry, and to dine at five-star restaurants every day.

The Tony Phillips story has a rags-to-riches ring, but the Chicago White Sox left fielder and former Angel third baseman still plays like a hungry kid wondering where his next meal is coming from.

That’s not just an opposing pitcher on the mound: “It’s a guy trying to take food from my kids,” Phillips says.

And those players in the other dugout? “They’re trying to take from me, and they have to beat me to do it,” Phillips says.

Ever wonder why Phillips refused to ask for a day off last season, even when a sore hamstring made it almost impossible to run and his batting average plummeted during the Angels’ August/September collapse?

“Because I didn’t want someone to take my job,” the switch-hitting, leadoff batter said. “I was a utility player for years. I didn’t want to come off the field because I realize what it took to get there.”

Phillips, who returns to Anaheim Stadium tonight as the White Sox begin a three-game series against the Angels, seems to go through life with one eye looking ahead and the other looking over his shoulder.

Maybe it’s because he was an undersized, overly picked-on kid, or an over-achiever who had to work harder than most to make the big leagues, or because he’s 36 and hears the footsteps of younger players.

Or maybe all three factors have had a cumulative effect, combining to keep Phillips on edge, in a perpetual state of anxiety--and intensity.

“I’m proud of the fact I’m still in the big leagues, man,” says Phillips, who hit .261 with 27 home runs, 119 runs and 113 walks last season before signing with the White Sox as a free agent in February.

“I came from Rosewell, Ga.--no one knows where that is--and the odds of making the big leagues were not good. But I worked my ass off and made myself into a decent player. I’m not a great player by any means, but I got the most out of my talent.”

That’s why Phillips was so angry last June when then-Yankee Manager Buck Showalter had his bat confiscated. The nerve of the guy, to insinuate Phillips’ power came from a corked bat--that he needed to cheat to get ahead.

Showalter obviously didn’t know that Phillips:

* Spent an off-season revamping his batting stance, cloning former teammate Rickey Henderson’s crouch, because Detroit Manager Sparky Anderson told him he would bat leadoff after being traded from Oakland to the Tigers in 1990, and Phillips was determined to be the best leadoff hitter in the game.

* Went to Boston three winters in a row, “when it was 8 below,” to work with renowned batting instructor Walt Hriniak.

“It took me eight years [actually 12] to hit .300 in the big leagues,” Phillips said. “No one has given me . . . in my career. Everything I got I went out and earned, and that’s where my drive comes from.”

That drive, that need for respect, nearly drove him out of the game in February. Only days after reporting to spring training in Florida, Phillips returned to his home in Scottsdale, Ariz. and abruptly retired on Feb. 27.

Phillips cited family reasons, but Angel designated hitter Chili Davis, who spoke to Phillips the morning of his retirement, said Phillips also was disillusioned.

Though he received a two-year, $3.6-million contract from the White Sox, Phillips took a huge pay cut from his $3.5-million salary in 1995, and Davis said Phillips was disappointed more teams, including the Angels, didn’t show interest in him the off-season after having such a good season.

“Sometimes it’s not about the money, it’s about the way he played the game and being appreciated,” Davis said. “Working-class America doesn’t understand that, but when you’re not appreciated, it makes you wonder, is it worth it?”

Phillips decided it was. He announced Feb. 29 he was returning to the White Sox, his retirement lasting only two days, but it’s difficult to determine why Phillips left the game--and came back.

“I just thought it was more important at the time to be with my family than it was to be playing, because I wasn’t in the right frame,” Phillips recently told the Chicago Tribune.

“I never wanted to leave. It wasn’t about my desire to play. It wasn’t about the money I made. It was about principle, my principles.”

Those principles took shape on the playgrounds and in the recreation centers of Rosewell, where a wisp of a kid nicknamed “T-bone” learned you had to be tough to survive.

Phillips was so small he once asked his mother if he was going to be a midget. “Of course not,” Mary Jane replied, “ . . . but I had my doubts.” Bigger kids bullied Tony--but not for long.

“When I was a skinny little two-pound kid, a guy would smack me on the head and I wouldn’t do anything,” Phillips said. “The next day he’d pop me on the head again, until I stood up to him. That’s when it stopped.”

Phillips is 5-10, 175 pounds today, but his mom wasn’t the least bit surprised when he sparked a bench-clearing brawl by wrestling then-Red Sox catcher Mike Macfarlane to the ground last June and challenged Boston batting Coach Jim Rice, who is about twice his size, to a fight.

“He was playing basketball in high school and got into it with some 6-5 guy,” Mary Jane Phillips said. “He thought Tony was going to back off, but he didn’t. He never backs down. I always told my boys, you don’t start fights, you finish them.”

The feisty Phillips, who can’t seem to go through an at-bat without questioning an umpire’s strike call, was a standout point guard in high school and hoped to play college basketball at Clemson.

But when the Montreal Expos picked him in the January 1978 draft and offered a $5,000 signing bonus, Phillips jumped at it.

“I said, ‘Are you crazy? Gimme that cake,’ ” Phillips said, using his favorite slang for money. “I can get my mom a new TV, a couch. . . . I wasn’t going to turn that down.”

That was Phillips, always wanting to take care of his family. He told his mother when he made the major leagues he would buy her a house and car.

After Phillips signed a three-year, $10-million deal with the Tigers in 1993, he bought Mary Jane a new home in Alpharetta, Ga., about 40 miles from Atlanta, and a new Cadillac. His sister, Stacey, drives a new Toyota Celica, compliments of Tony.

“He always wanted to take care of other people,” Mary Jane said. “One time we were at the rec center and he said, ‘Momma, this kid doesn’t have any money. Buy him a hot dog.’ He’s very charitable.”

It’s not as if Phillips had much to give as a child.

“I wouldn’t put a label on it, but I was no silver-spoon by a longshot,” said Phillips, who grew up in an apartment with his parents, two brothers, a sister and several aunts and uncles.

“But how can you say you’re poor when all you have are fond memories? I knew I couldn’t have a go-kart or new motorcycle, but I got my ball and glove and a new pair of sneakers. Those were the most important things back then.”