He Didn’t Throw Away That Bat

The kid had a major league fastball, a slippery curve and reasonable control for a rookie that year in the minors at Daytona Beach and, by August, he already had an 18-5 record and a bright future as a pitcher. Then he took a bad tumble diving for a ball in the outfield and cracked his shoulder, clipped a bone, and the docs said he’d never break off a curveball again. His baseball career was over, they said, at age 19.

Not quite. Not for 3,630 hits, 475 home runs, 1,949 runs and 1,951 runs batted in later was the man’s career over. The “pitcher” was Stan Musial. That probably was the luckiest fall in the history of baseball.

Fast-forward 50 years. The place: Diamond Bar, Calif. This kid has a major league fastball, good curve and changeup too, and the future looks promising. He blows the ball past hitters. Until, one day, something pops in his elbow. A torn muscle. No more curves. The career is over, right?

Wrong again. This “pitcher” is James Patrick Edmonds, and every real pitcher in the American League wishes his arm had stayed sound because pitchers in this league don’t come to bat, and if his arm had stayed sound, they wouldn’t have Jim Edmonds fouling up their ERAs four times a night.

To be sure, Jim Edmonds is about 3,300 hits, 425 home runs and 1,770 RBIs behind “Stan the Man.” But Edmonds is 25 years old and in his third year in the big leagues with the Angels.

You think National League pitchers didn’t wish over the years that Musial had not dived for that ball in Daytona that year? They would have faced him four times a game. But only every fifth day.

Jim Edmonds is in the lineup every day. And his numbers keep improving. Last year, he batted .290 with 120 runs scored, 33 home runs and 107 RBIs in 141 games. Those are Musial-like stats.

This year, in a little more than a month, he has 42 hits, 12 homers, 25 runs, 30 RBIs and a .313 average.

In baseball, a “good-hitting pitcher” is usually a guy who gets one hit every 10 times up, drives in a run or two a month and can bunt reasonably well. But, in the lore of the game, the real “good-hitting pitchers” were guys like Babe Ruth and Stan Musial.

In fact, it’s a pity Babe Ruth didn’t fall on his collarbone early in his formative years too. He was a great pitcher--his ERA of 1.75 in 1916 is the best ever by an American League lefty--but he became “the Sultan of Swat” with a bat in his hands, not a ball. Pitching cost him four years and maybe another 100 home runs.

So, the Angels are glad they have Jim Edmonds as an ex-pitcher and in the batting order every night. He is part of one of the most potent middle-of-the-lineup offenses in the grand old game. Edmonds, Tim Salmon and Chili Davis--they accounted for 87 home runs and 298 RBIs last year--make the sweat run down any pitcher’s neck.

Danger in a batting order always comes in duplicate or triplicate--Ruth-Gehrig, Mathews-Aaron, Mays-McCovey. Pitchers need their best pitches and need them in the strike zone when the challenge is multiple and consecutive.

Edmonds is more than just another pretty bat. Usually when you get a good hitter, you store him at one of the corners of the lineup where he can’t hurt himself--or you. But Edmonds is in center field.

Now, center field is so vital to the team that management has been known to put even an inconsistent batsman out there. St. Louis Cardinal oldtimer Terry Moore comes to mind. A center fielder’s job is not necessarily to hit doubles and triples but to catch them.

Edmonds’ arm is average, but his baseball instinct is way above it. They used to say of Joe DiMaggio that he never lost his cap running for a ball, but that, when it came down, he was there waiting for it. As if he identified trajectory by the sound of the bat.

Edmonds has some of that aptitude.

“He has great instincts,” says his manager, Marcel Lachemann. “He has no fear of the fences and if the ball can be caught, he catches it.”

He made only one error last year. He almost never throws to the wrong base. He had three outfield assists in a game once. That’s a season for most outfielders.

“He has some growing up to do,” says Lachemann. “He takes an out personally. He gets angry over his last at-bat. But, he’ll make a lot of outs. Even Mickey Mantle did. Jim thinks he should get a hit every time up.”

When Edmonds went from five home runs a season to 33, more than the pitchers were astounded. But not Lachemann.

“He did a lot of weight work, built himself up,” Lachemann says. “But he always had power. That uppercut swing, the swift bat. He gives the pitcher his pitch. Jim looks for the one he wants.”

Edmonds played the second half of last year with a broken bone in his foot, bringing a new definition to playing hurt.

“It hurt all right,” he grimaces.

He fears no pitch, either. He was hit by pitchers five times last year.

The day may come when he will be compared to Musial for something more than an early-career sore arm. He’s also almost 10,000 at-bats behind “Stan the Man,” so the day may come when he’ll be “the Next Man” or “the Last Man.”

Lots of people turn negatives into positives. He and Musial turned negatives into careers. Look at it this way: Maybe guys like pitchers Don Drysdale and Red Ruffing just got lousy breaks in life. Their arms stayed sound.