Quietly Heading for 3,000

He’s one of the great hitters in baseball history, yet sportswriters have to look it up to see how to spell his name.

He needs only 46 hits to reach 3,000, and in the long history of baseball--and that’s about 10,000 players--only 20 have gotten 3,000 hits.

You think anyone had to look up how to spell Pete Rose? Ty Cobb? Even Stan Musial? Everyone else in the 3,000-hit category had his name and spelling indelibly etched in everyone’s mind. And that included even a tongue-twister like Napoleon Lajoie.

Paul Molitor has scored 1,627 runs. Only 28 players have scored more than that.

You’d think every schoolboy in America would know Paul Molitor’s name and how to spell it.

It’s not that he shuns publicity or the limelight. It’s partly that he has always been a small-market player. And it’s partly that he has always been a low-key individual.

But every pitcher in the league knows Paul Molitor. What they call him is easy to spell, but it can’t be reproduced in a family newspaper. Journalists may have to look it up to see how many “O’s” there are in Molitor, but the pitchers need only four letters to describe him.

In addition to the spelling of his name, one of the things the world doesn’t know about Paul Molitor is that he does all these terrible things to pitches even though he can’t see that well. He should be wearing glasses.

He’s not exactly Mr. Magoo. But you know how people regard great hitters as having the eyesight of a hunting hawk. They used to say of Ted Williams that he could see at 20 feet what even eagle-eyed people could not make out at 15. How a manager once told him to hit the ball on the commissioner’s signature and Williams asked “What letter?” How they used to boast he could tell the sex of a fly on a telephone pole outside the hotel window?

Well, Paul Molitor would settle for being able to see the pole. It’s not that he needs a dog, it’s just that he can’t get down to the end of the eye chart. He estimates his vision to be somewhere in the 20/30-20/40 range. Hitting a curving baseball is more than a function of eyesight.

Paul has tried eyeglasses, even contact lenses. They proved a distraction. There are pitchers in the league who swear he could hit blindfolded. In a way, he almost does.

He has 532 career doubles, seven more than Ted Williams and nine more than Willie Mays and is 20th on that all-time list. He has 101 triples. He has 480 stolen bases and is one of only four players in history (the others are Joe Morgan, Rickey Henderson and Bobby Bonds) to have hit more than 200 home runs and stolen more than 450 bases.

You would think the name would be as easy to spell as “cat” for the lexicographers of the grand old game.

Molitor has done all this with only a little more than 9,600 at-bats (Pete Rose had more than 14,000, Henry Aaron more than 12,000.)

So, did Molitor play in a mask? Didn’t he have a number on his back?

It has long been an article of faith in baseball that, if you don’t do it in New York, Boston or Chicago, you might as well not do it.

And then, there was Molitor, himself. He never fired a baseball at a photographer, never corked a bat, assaulted an umpire or broke a barroom mirror. He merely showed up for work, went two for four, stole home nine times, answered writers’ questions politely, starred in every World Series or postseason playoff he got in. Rival manager Gene Mauch used to sigh when he saw Molitor approaching the plate, “Well, here comes a run!”

When Molitor was with Milwaukee (for 15 seasons), Robin Yount was the franchise player (although Yount was a well-kept secret himself). When Molitor got to Toronto, Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar were the guys in the headlines.

Yet, he batted .355 in Milwaukee’s losing World Series in 1982. He batted .500 in the winning Toronto World Series of 1993. He got two home runs, two triples, two doubles and eight runs batted in. Then, Carter, with two on and his team trailing, 6-5, hit the home run in the bottom of the ninth of the final game, and that’s all anybody remembers of that Series. Molitor got the MVP, but Carter got the glory.

An old story with Paul Molitor. So I went down to the locker room at Anaheim Stadium the other night to see what life was like for the most-overlooked player of the generation. For much of this season, he has led the majors in hits and, before Wednesday night, was tied for the lead with Cleveland’s Kenny Lofton with 165 hits.

Molitor who will be 40 next week, is now with the Minnesota Twins, which is another way to escape public notice. Now that Kirby Puckett is gone, this team is as anonymous as a spy ring.

“How do you get 3,000 hits?” I asked him. I resisted adding “While nobody is watching.”

“Do you have to get ahead of the pitcher? Swing only at strikes?”

Molitor shook his head. “Sometimes good strikes are not hittable. First, you need longevity. Treat every day as a gift.

“You have to learn to deal with failure. Even greatness means you have to fail six or seven out of every 10 times. You let that get to you and you’re eating out of the pitchers’ hands. You keep your head up. You don’t press. Pressing produces slumps.”

Does he mind performing, so to speak, in the dark? He laughs. “I was given a gift. I can hit the curveball. I have had injuries but managed to last. Others were not so fortunate. Look at the tragedy of Kirby Puckett. I don’t think baseball owes me anything.”

I wandered over to the Angels’ dressing room, where pitcher Mark Langston was putting on his uniform. “Paul Molitor,” I braced him. “Tough out?”

Langston winced. “Molly?” he said. “The toughest. I have to invent pitches against him. He hits all the ones I got.”

“What kind of a pitch can’t he hit then?” I wondered.

Langston thought. “Ball four,” Langston suggested. “And you better roll it.”

Paul Molitor can relax. Cooperstown will get his name right.