Erstad’s Real-Life Fargo Drama

Darin Erstad sat up in his Minneapolis hotel room at 4:30 a.m. last week, couldn’t sleep, did what your basic big-league player does in the middle of the night.

Turned on the laptop. Plugged into the Internet.

He read where the Red River was still rising, snow was still melting, and flood waters were approaching the southwestern part of Fargo, N.D.

“That’s my house,” he said out loud.

He checked flight schedules, rechecked news reports, then made an extremely veteran call for a 22-year-old in his second professional season.

“I decided, I’ve got to go home,” he said.

And so it happened that five hours after collecting a couple of hits and scoring two runs in his team’s 4-3 loss to the Minnesota Twins last Thursday afternoon, the Angel first baseman was standing hip-deep in disaster.

“He got out of a car in Fargo wearing real nice clothes,” recalled Fargo roommate Jeff Thompson. “He looked around at the big mess and said, ‘Be right back.’

“He came out a few minutes later in sweats and grabbed a sandbag.”

Darin Erstad has shown the Angels many things during this pitching-marred three weeks.

He can run. Before Monday, his six stolen bases were among league leaders. He can work a bat. He ranked third on the team with seven walks, and led the team with five doubles.

He can adapt. His switch to first base has impressed even Eddie Murray.

And he can get bloody.

“He has all these scabs from all his hustle, and they are always bleeding, and I tell him, ‘When they dry up is when you are in trouble,’ ” said third base coach Larry Bowa.

But what Estrad did Thursday and Friday showed them something nearly as coveted in an age of highly paid cretins.

He showed the Angels he has a conscience.

While teammates took advantage of Friday’s day off to shop or watch movies or slug casino patrons in the jaw--even if Allen Watson was justified, he was stupid--Erstad busied himself with life’s little realities.

A middle-class home he owns and shares with three childhood buddies in Fargo was threatened with destruction because of flooding there after the recent winter storms.

He wasn’t really needed--either a nearby dike was going to break, or it wasn’t.

He certainly wasn’t expected--”He’s in the middle of his season, we never thought . . . “ Thompson said.

But he climbed into a car after Thursday afternoon’s game in Minneapolis and drove there anyway.

“I thought, I feel a lot better about myself if I do this,” he said.

He arrived five hours later, at sunset, just as his neighbors and roommates finished surrounding his 2,400-square foot house with sandbags. There was dirt in the streets and fear in the eyes.

“It looked like a war zone,” he said.

He changed clothes and immediately helped surround other houses with sandbags. For several hours, well into the night, he stood in a long line with dozens of others, passing along the 50-70 pound bags until many couldn’t lift their arms.

Even though he grew up in a small town just 90 minutes away, and is one of just two major leaguers from North Dakota (Rick Helling of Florida is the other), only a couple of people recognized him.

The ones who did, shrugged.

And none of them asked him why he was there.

Apparently, if you’re from North Dakota, you don’t need to ask.

“Good game today, sorry you lost,” said one, who then casually changed the subject.

Like he played that game right down the street.

“It was like, absolutely no big deal that I came back,” Erstad said. “That’s why I love it. That’s why I’m never moving.”

After the sand bag detail ended around 11 p.m., he signed his only autograph of the trip.

He then joined a North Dakota congressman in touring the flooded areas and examining the dikes. But it’s not what you think. This was no scheduled photo-op.

It was midnight, and the lawmaker was a buddy of his.

“It wasn’t even planned, I just wanted to find out what was going on,” Erstad said. “I mean, I live there.”

The next day, three blocks from his house, water had risen to within six inches of the dike. He huddled with his roommates on the main floor of his house--the basement was beginning to flood and had been cleaned out--and waited out nature.

“The water goes over the dike, or the dike breaks, and we’re done,” he said.

They played pool and ate taco pizza and waited some more. Then they heard over the radio that the government was going to enlarge that particular dike, and they sighed.

By the time Erstad slipped out of the darkened house at 5 a.m. Saturday to begin his trip to Kansas City--where he would arrive in time for a game that afternoon--the only danger was that the giant dike would break.

Reached Monday, his roommates said the waters were subsiding and the danger was disappearing.

“I haven’t called anybody, I figured I would wait it out and hope that no news was good news,” Erstad said. “It’s been a tense week.”

But one that has shown the Angels the sort of character they acquired when they made Erstad the first overall pick in the draft in 1995.

Talk to him a while, catch his serious stare and answers that come from the 1950s, and you get the feeling he’ll be a good guy for the Angels to have around for a while.

Just do not ask Darin Erstad if he enjoyed the movie “Fargo.”

He has not seen it, nor does he plan to see it,

“I have no interest in watching other people mimic our way of life,” he said.

You say you thought it was a pretty good movie. But you say you understand.