In Ventura, Mets Add Solid Bat, as Well as Solid Citizen

It was the day of the first Robin of spring, which is only one of the nicest things that’s happened to the Mets in some time. There was a laugh at the corners of Robin Ventura’s mouth almost all the time. The Mets needed some of that as much as they needed him for third base.

Oh, they wouldn’t put it that way. But they consciously did not add Albert Belle’s bat, and they did select Ventura off the free-agent market.

“I play solid enough defense and drive in runs; that’s pretty much what I do,” Ventura said Tuesday at his live and in-person introduction to Shea Stadium. A straightforward assessment.

“In Chicago, he was the team prankster,” Stephanie Ventura, wife with infant Jack in arms, volunteered.

The New York Mets made great strides the last two seasons in reaching 88 wins and making themselves a contender. They didn’t make themselves interesting enough. They were too bland. Perhaps they were too insecure. They lacked a person in the clubhouse who could string them all together, and if they could add someone with a sense of humor, substance and talent, it would be a wonderful thing.

“You go for players with talent, then chemistry, then presentation,” Steve Phillips, the general manager, said. There are times when parts of the sequence take on greater weight. Keith Hernandez changed the nature of a team with his personality. Frank Robinson did it with the Orioles a generation ago. Don Baylor went to the Red Sox in 1986 and promptly took Jim Rice into a private room for a lecture. Too many stars rarely risk stepping out of the borders of their locker; Dave Winfield comes to mind.

Precious few make others around them better in any sport. There are more who can play that role in a minor key. Such as the times in the last few of Ventura’s nine-plus seasons with the White Sox, when he saw young players struggling in the clubhouse. “When I was hurt, I had nothing else to do but help them,” Ventura said Tuesday. “I told them it wasn’t life or death; to a lot of young players, it seemed life-threatening. I thought I had to explain that you give 100 percent and sometimes you fail; it shouldn’t make you a miserable person to try something and fail.”

Ventura has won the Gold Glove at third base five times. He has driven in more than 90 runs six times. And he worked himself back from one of the worst leg injuries veteran observers ever saw. All of that goes into the package.

So does that he phones home from the road to his children, disguises his voice and tells them all about themselves. “You know, during the time doctors were telling him he might not play again, he was not afraid of being at home,” Stephanie said. “But he wasn’t ready to stop playing.”

He pushed himself to work at rehab three hours in the mornings and going to the ballpark for another three hours before games. Bobby Valentine, who will manage him this season, has been observing Ventura all these years, beginning when Ventura was named College Player of the Decade by Baseball America, and Valentine’s Texas Rangers didn’t draft him. Ventura did hit safely in 58 consecutive college games for Oklahoma State, which is significant in any league. During Valentine’s Rangers years, he’d go out after White Sox games with broadcaster Tom Paciorek and hear how terrific Ventura was.

“Take away the clubhouse aspect and he’d be a really good guy in Central Park,” Valentine said. “But he’s in the clubhouse. He’s a quality guy who gives you a better chance of getting through tough times.”

Ventura’s tough time began on the last day of spring training of 1997, when he slid into the plate and his right foot turned the other way around. He suffered a compound fracture, dislocation and nerves were severed. “I saw it and tried to get down to the field,” Stephanie said. “They wouldn’t let me. In the trainer’s room, he comforted me.”

“They said some lady in the stands threw up and passed out,” Ventura said, “but it was a very hot day.” Teammate Ray Durham did throw up.

Valentine recalled that the injury was similar to the one that ruined his career 25 years earlier. Ventura worked and worked with the new and improved medical technology and on the weekend of July 14, 1997, Stephanie hesitatingly went forward with plans to bring in a whole lot of friends to celebrate Ventura’s 30th birthday. With the groundskeepers’ blessing, Ventura’s friends were on the field at early batting practice and Ventura was on the bases.

“I was thinking, ‘Today’s the day I’m going to slide,’ ” he recalled. “I had thought about that. I ran down to second and didn’t do the things I normally do. It was a really terrible slide. Short and soft. But then I just did it.”

He managed to play in 54 games, and last season, he played 161. By September, he was stinging the ball the way he remembered. What he also remembered were the times he went onto the field dressed in the ice cream-man whites of a trainer. And the times he got Ozzie Guillen, also injured, to go on the field and drag the infield with the groundskeepers. “I think we did ‘YMCA,’ too,” Ventura said.

By the second half of last season, he wasn’t wearing a brace on his ankle. “I can run as good as ever,” he said.

When he was introduced to Valentine, Ventura inquired, “Do you want me to steal bases?” He has 15 career steals. He also asked Valentine if he minded him playing basketball to stay in shape. Valentine closed his eyes at the recollection. Yes, Ventura was pulling his leg. A four-year, $32 million contract will enhance the sense of humor for most men.

“Sometimes, he’ll go on the field with prosthetic teeth,” Stephanie Ventura said. “He’ll do stand-up comedy in the clubhouse. He’s not afraid of embarrassing himself.”

Ventura got his average up to .263 last season, drove in 91 runs and hit 21 homers. The White Sox abandoned their effort to be a contender and Ventura can have that with the Mets. He helps them at third base and moving Edgardo Alfonzo to second helps them at a second position. And he gives them Robin Ventura.

“He’s a prankster,” Stephanie Ventura said. “You’ll see. He’s a good guy.”

He says he can hit Maddux and Glavine, too, which would be no joke.