Tradition Really Has Caught On With Hundleys

Well, chalk up another for the gene pool. Major league baseball is becoming a Mom and Pop store. Or, more accurately, a Son and Pop business. Any day now, you can expect a team to take the field with a lineup in which the last names will be a duplicate of the lineup that took the field 30 years ago.

One of the latest in a long line of successors is Randy Hundley’s boy, Todd. Randy, you will remember, toiled for the Cubs of the 1960s and 1970s. Todd is a Met of the 1990s.

You know, you expect a doctor’s son to become a doctor, a tailor’s a tailor, a lawyer’s son a lawyer, a politician’s a politician.

But, does a coal miner’s go down in the mines the way his Daddy used to do?

Not if he can help it. Daddy mines coal so his son can become a banker. Or a broker. Some job where he can stay above ground.

So, when you see a catcher’s son go down on his haunches to do the same hard work as his daddy, you’re taken by surprise. Catching is the baseball equivalent of going down in the mines.

Catcher’s gear is known far and wide as “the tools of ignorance.” It’s the hardest work on the baseball team. Foul balls ignite off your fingers till your hands come to look like bags of plums. Guys crash into you scoring from second at Mach 2. You get the same trouble in the back of your legs that charwomen do.

Randy Hundley spent 14 big league seasons in the squat position for the Chicago Cubs mostly but three other big league teams as well.

Now, son Todd does the same thing for the New York Mets.

You know, the government checks into your inheritance if it’s money or property. Inheritance taxes in some years was almost confiscatory.

But if your inheritance is eyesight like a circling hawk, reflexes of a crouched lion, speed of a deer or power of a grizzly--if you’re the beneficiary of those attributes that can be worth millions to you, the government takes no interest. They have to wait till you start making money with this inheritance. Then, they tax that.

So, Todd Randolph Hundley of the Old Dominion Hundleys is doing very well at the family business.

Dad was a premier catcher in his National League days, but son Todd has eclipsed him.

The most home runs Dad ever hit was 19 in a season. Respectable. But, last year, son Todd hit 41 home runs, which is the most any catcher ever hit in the big leagues, more than Johnny Bench, Gabby Hartnett, Yogi Berra or Carlton Fisk. It broke the 43-year-old record of Roy Campanella, who hit 40 as a catcher in 1953.

He also broke the league record for home runs by a switch-hitter. In fact, only Mickey Mantle hit more home runs in a season switch-hitting. Of course Mickey did it three times (54, 52 and 42 in a season).

You know, a big league team doesn’t really ask that of a catcher. A team usually asks a catcher only to be a stubborn out, maybe hit behind the runner now and then, bunt, just try not to be an automatic out. He’s usually hired to call the pitches, handle the pitchers, throw out the runners and in general take charge in the field out there.

When he demonstrates some sock, the team usually begins to wonder if it shouldn’t put him in another position where there’s less wear-and-tear on the body, say, right field.

Every time Mike Piazza comes down with a sore shin, the Dodgers look nervously on as if they should get him out of there and put him some place with a fielder’s glove. Catchers are conspicuously absent in the longevity lists. In most games played lifetime, only Carlton Fisk (36th) and Ted Simmons (44th) even make it into the top 55.

Pitchers come out of the game after 100 pitches nowadays, but the catcher is in there for the duration even though his work is as hard as the pitcher’s. His importance maybe seen from the fact that the pitcher-catcher combination on a baseball team has always been known as the “the battery.” It could be “the ignition.”

Todd’s dad brought all this home to his son. “You sure that’s what you want to do [catch]?” he asked.

Todd said it was. “I found all those other positions boring,” he explains.

He just couldn’t bear to stand out there in right field all night blowing bubble gum. He had to be in the action.

He has paid the price. Ligament tears in his throwing hand make throwing out a runner about as much fun as putting your arm in a pail of scalding water. His fingers have been broken so many times that one more will make his hand a mitt.

Still, Todd is happy he’s carrying on the family business. And it’s booming. He was hitting .295 at the close of business Friday. His 22 home runs were sixth in the league and tied with Piazza for most among catchers.

He is a big reason the Mets are still in the wild-card race despite injuries to the pitching staff. “Todd’s more than just a bat,” his manager, Bobby Valentine, was explaining the other night. “He saves as many runs as he drives in, the way he blocks the ball and keeps runners close. He’s playing hurt. He went 0 for 4 the other night but the way he kept our pitchers [Brian] Bohanon and [Cory] Lidle on target won the game for us. He’s a pennant catcher. Dad taught him well.”

It’s always nice doing business with an old established firm like Hundley & Hundley. There’s another prospect coming along, Todd’s son, Jason, age 3. They may never get out of the mines.