He Hits Up a Storm but Won’t Talk Up One

The crowd of reporters waited around Atlanta Brave first baseman Fred McGriff’s locker. And waited. And waited.

Soon, one of his teammates sneaked into his locker, grabbed his clothes, and took them to the trainer’s room where McGriff sat with various parts of his body wrapped in ice.

He finally walked out of the trainer’s room Monday night in the visiting clubhouse at Yankee Stadium, fully dressed, wrinkled his nose at seeing the horde of reporters, and painfully answered each of the questions.

It seemed as if McGriff was annoyed that he had made the mistake of attracting national attention.

“You know me,” he shrugged, “I don’t care about this stuff. I just go out and play. That’s why we’ve got Chipper Jones and all of our pitchers for. They can do the talking.”

Yet, in another night when the Braves made it look oh so easy against the New York Yankees, winning, 4-0, and taking a 2-0 lead in the World Series, McGriff couldn’t avoid the postgame attention.

McGriff drove in the game’s first three runs and wound up in the record book with the most RBIs (15) by a player in postseason history.

The guy who previously held the record was Reggie Jackson. They named a candy bar after him.

“People still don’t know my name,” McGriff laughed, “so what could they name after me?”

And just how was McGriff planning to celebrate his feat?

He grabbed a golf magazine from the visiting clubhouse, the one with Tiger Woods on the cover, and planned to do some reading on the flight to Atlanta.

“Maybe I can learn something to help my golf swing,” McGriff said. “I could use some help.”

In an era when players are more interested in their next endorsement than their next game, and extol their feats to anyone who will listen, there is McGriff.

He never says much. He refuses to boast or brag. He never has been involved in the hint of a controversy.

He may be one of the most anonymous stars in baseball.

“I can’t imagine life without Freddy,” Jones said. “He anchors our lineup. I don’t know where we’d be without him.”

So why isn’t this man one of the greatest celebrities in baseball, if not all of sports?

“Because he’s so quiet,” Jones said. “He does it all without gloating or smacking in the papers. There’s no showboating. No hot dogging. He just goes out and takes care of business.”

Said John Schuerholz, Brave executive vice president: “Some times, the sizzle has more sell than the steak. He has a lot of steak.”

While the focus of attention this series understandably is on the Brave pitching staff, with Greg Maddux becoming the latest to dominate the Yankee lineup, McGriff has taken vengeance with his bat.

The Braves have outscored the opposition 46-2 the last five games, with a staff that has yielded only two extra-base hits in the last 45 innings, but the Braves will tell you that the man who has helped make this all possible is McGriff.

McGriff carried the Braves’ offense on his shoulders during the regular season with 28 homers and 107 RBIs after David Justice separated his shoulder and was sidelined for the year. McGriff drove in one run in each of their victories in the playoff sweep of the Dodgers, drove in a team-high seven runs in the National League championship series over the St. Louis Cardinals, and now he’s leading the Braves again with a .500 batting average and five RBIs in the World Series.

“I just want to get out of here,” McGriff said. “Any time you see fans run out onto the field like they do here, you can’t wait to get back to Atlanta.

“These fans are crazy.”

The greatest tribute to McGriff actually may have come a year ago at this time when the Braves were winning the 1995 World Series. They clinched the Series with a 1-0 victory over the Cleveland Indians, owner Ted Turner was escorted into the Brave clubhouse, and he made his way immediately to Manager Bobby Cox’s office.

“The first thing he [Turner] said to me was, ‘We’re going to get Fred back for you. Don’t worry about that Bobby, we’re going to keep him.’ ”

McGriff, who could have signed a more lucrative contract with the Yankees--the team that traded him away in 1982--instead signed a four-year, $20-million contract to return to Atlanta. But now that he is haunting the Yankees once again, he hears his name swirling in zany trade rumors.

The latest trade rumor has him going in a package of players to the San Francisco Giants for All-Star outfielder Barry Bonds. It may be far-fetched, but it actually surfaced in Atlanta and New York newspapers.

“There’s absolutely no validity to it,” Schuerholz said. “My son comes up with better rumors than that.”

Besides, when a guy like McGriff comes around, hitting at least 27 homers for nine consecutive years and drives in 93 or more runs six years in a row, who would be stupid enough to get rid of him?

The San Diego Padres already made that painful mistake three years ago in one of the worst trades in baseball history. They traded McGriff to the Braves for outfielders Melvin Nieves and Vince Moore and pitcher Donnie Elliott. Well, Elliott is out of baseball. Moore has never advanced past double-A and Nieves was dumped off to Detroit.

“It won’t happen again,” Schuerholz said, breaking into an expansive grin. “Believe me.”