Cone Silences Braves : Team That Gets Him Gets Best of the Deal

There have been bad trades in baseball. The swap of Frank Robinson to the Orioles for pitcher Milt Pappas comes to mind. The dealing of Lou Brock off to the Cardinals for Ernie Broglio proved embarrassing for the Cubs.

But it’s very possible a worse one than either of them escaped the sharp notice of the bards of baseball at the time it occurred because, on the face of it, San Diego got three players for one.

But the One turned out to be none other than Frederick Stanley McGriff, of whom you may have heard. The three they got for him were Melvin Nieves, Donnie Elliott and Vince Moore, of whom--admit it--you never have heard. And never will except here.

There’s no telling how great a ballplayer Fred McGriff might become if he used two hands.

He bats one-handed, so to speak. Watch him as he goes into his follow-through at the plate. The left hand goes completely off the handle of the bat.

The ball goes into the seats anyway. It’s like being mugged by a, so to speak, one-armed bandit.

But the Braves’ one-armed bandit, McGriff, is going to do it his way. And why not? He has slugged more than 300 home runs in his career his way. Only a comparative handful of players have done that. And they all used two hands. Only eight players, all ambidextrous batters, did what he did--hit more than 30 home runs in seven consecutive seasons. Match that around New York.

The word to describe Fred McGriff is “calm.” He’s as placid as a summer afternoon on a desert isle. You have the feeling he could stand in the middle of a hurricane picking his teeth and yawning. You’d like to have him in a lifeboat with you. You wonder what it would take to panic him.

He doesn’t talk much. He’s friendly, but not chatty. If he was any more relaxed, you’d want to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Fred doesn’t bother anyone. He just shows up, scares a pitcher to death, gets his hits (1,466 to date), scores his runs (869 to date), socks his homers (316 as of now), takes his shower and goes home. Even his locker is neat and orderly.

If he played in New York, he’d likely have a nickname by now--he’d be the new Iron Horse, or Freddy Baseball or Mac the Knife or some such. On the Braves, he’s called “Crime Dog,” but that’s in honor of the similarity of his name to the cartoon character.

Fred McGriff doesn’t care what you call him. He’s as dependable as the sunrise, as steady as a tugboat. It’s impossible to overestimate his importance to the Atlanta Braves. The public perceives the Braves as three arms with a ballclub attached. But the one-armed swinger is one of those attached.

Purists wince when they see McGriff pull his hand off the bat. It’s supposed to decelerate the bat and it is Holy Writ in baseball that bat speed is a direct function of home run power. McGriff begs to disagree. Good-naturedly, as he does everything. “Nah, lots of hitters take their hands off the bat,” he smiled as he stood around the batting cage before Game 3 of the World Series Tuesday night. “Lots of real good batters. I think it helps the follow-through.”

Whatever it does, he’s not going to change. He’s had trouble enough over the years, even doing it successfully his way, convincing the game he belongs. The Yankees originally drafted him but dealt him off to the Toronto Blue Jays for--well, for nothing, come to think of it. For a couple of relief pitchers named Murray and Dodd. Of whom you’ve never heard.

It was the story of McGriff’s life. But the market picked up for him in 1990. He (and Tony Fernandez) got traded to San Diego for Joe Carter and--let’s hear it!--Roberto Alomar. Of whom you may have heard.

Fred put in a couple more 30-homer years for San Diego, but the downsizing management dealt him to Atlanta--for the Dream Team. Nieves, Moore and Elliott.

“I will always be grateful to [General Manager] Randy Smith. He said he’d trade me to a contender--and he sure did.” He traded him to a champion, is what he did.

Fred McGriff is more than a one-handed bat to the Braves. On a pitching staff whose “out” pitch is the ground ball, he leads the world annually in putouts. He tied a World Series record for putouts in a game in last year’s World Series with 19. His total chances (21) tied another Series record. He regularly uses two hands in the field.

This dog will hunt. And if the Atlanta Braves are to repeat as World Series champions, the road goes through Fred McGriff.

Game 3 was supposed to be a Yankee immolation. Their pitcher Cone had turned vanilla and was melting visibly by the seventh inning. But the Yankees finally found an Atlanta pitcher who throws visible pitches--fellow named Greg McMichael. They couldn’t believe their luck. When he came in to relieve in the eighth, the game was anybody’s--2-1 Yankees. Three pitches later, he had thrown 1) a single; 2) a home run; and 3) a double. And that was the old ballgame.

Atlanta’s still sitting up and looking down at the Yankees. And they still have their hole card, McGriff, a guy who can beat you one-handed.