The Real Deal

“This guy is in a class by himself, and that’s after only one year at second base. There’s nobody close.”

--DAVEY LOPES,

Milwaukee Brewer manager and former Dodger

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There may be no play that Calvin “Pokey” Reese can’t make as the Cincinnati Reds’ second baseman and no adversity he hasn’t been forced to overcome.

He has a Gold Glove, a gold smile and attitude.

He also has a golden keepsake, an autograph from Ken Griffey Jr., who became his teammate this spring only after the Reds held firm for months, refusing to meet the Seattle Mariners’ demands for Reese and/or first baseman Sean Casey and/or relief pitcher Scott Williamson, the National League’s rookie of the year.

The Reds, who provide the opposition as the Dodgers open their home schedule at refurbished Dodger Stadium today, ultimately struck gold. They not only emerged with Griffey, but they retained their 96-win nucleus of 1999--and General Manager Jim Bowden stopped getting all those cards, letters and phone calls from fans around the country wondering why he would not trade that Pokey fellow for the player of the decade, a member of the All-Century team.

The Griffey negotiations, Bowden likes to say, took more spins than any soap opera, “but I always felt we could get it done without giving up any of our key young players, which is not to demean any of the players we did give up. I mean, people wondered how I could let a Pokey Reese or Sean Casey stand in the way of acquiring a Ken Griffey, but if we’re serious about building a championship team, as we set out to do in 1997, it made no sense to add a player--even a player of Griffey’s stature--if it meant subtracting one or two of our key young players.

“In Pokey’s case, he’s the best defensive second baseman I’ve ever seen. I also believe that if he played shortstop, and I love Rey Ordonez, he’d be a Gold Glove shortstop as well. This is a young, budding star. He reminds you of a short fielder in softball. Instead of playing just second base, he also plays right center and right field as well. The rest of the world may not have understood why we wouldn’t trade him, but when you see him play day in and day out, as Cincinnati fans have, they know he helps make us very special up the middle, particularly now that we have Griffey to complement Pokey and Barry Larkin.”

Sitting at his locker, there is nothing mythical about this 26-year-old second baseman the Reds would not trade for Griffey.

He is accommodating, unpretentious and, at 5 feet 11 and a listed 180 pounds, somewhat scrawny.

Griffey has always been one of his idols, as are Randy Moss and Allen Iverson. Reese has worn his hair in Iverson-like cornrows at times.

Would he have made the Reese-for-Griffey trade?

“Wouldn’t you?” Reese said. “Wouldn’t all those thousands and millions of other people?

“I’m happy that I’m still with the Reds, but I would have been happy to be a Mariner too. It was pretty awesome to be the guy they wanted for the best player in the game, but it puts me on the spot too.”

Shouldn’t be a problem.

In his first full year at second base, Reese replaced a Gold Glove winner in Bret Boone, dismissed concerns that prompted the Reds to investigate trades for Fernando Vina, Pat Meares and Tony Womack, among others, and won his own Gold Glove, making only one error in his first 85 games, three in his last 51 and seven in all. He also made a major leap offensively, batting .285 with 37 doubles and 38 stolen bases.

“Pokey is just getting started,” Cincinnati closer Danny Graves said. “I wouldn’t have traded him either.”

Nor would the effusive Lopes.

“When I played,” he said, “every second baseman measured himself against Joe Morgan.

“Now, defensively, they are all measured against Pokey. He’s already reached that status. Roberto Alomar may be flashier, but he can’t be any better, and just wait until Pokey has 10 years under his belt. Even five. Maybe even two.”

As a potential Gold Glove-winning shortstop playing second, Reese brings a great arm and astonishing range--as ESPN analyst Harold Reynolds, a former second baseman, describes it--to the position.

However, it’s not an automatic or easy adjustment.

“When you grow up as a shortstop, the tendency is to consider yourself part of an elite group,” Larkin said. “You may have the talent to move, but it can be a battle mentally because there’s the perception that it’s a less important position and you’re less of a player. I tried to make the move in the minors and couldn’t do it. Pokey was mature enough to accept it, knowing he had to if he was going to play in the majors and help the team. Some of the things he does are amazing, and he’s only going to get better.”

Said Reese: “I was taught in Little League, when they put you at a position, you don’t say you can’t do it. By moving to second base it was a chance to play every day and to play next to a future Hall of Famer [Larkin]. It wasn’t a hard move for me at all, although there are a lot of things I’m still learning.”

Cincinnati scouts have always given Reese their highest rating for instincts. He is “highly focused and motivated,” Bowden said, “and a very strong-willed person. I’m sure he feels there’s nothing he can’t overcome on the field because of the adversity he’s faced off it.”

Reese grew up amid poverty in Arthurtown, S.C. His father has been more out of his life than in, and he was raised in what he said was a two-bedroom shack with four siblings, two cousins, his mother and grandmother. There were no toilets or sewers. A well provided the closest water, about half a mile away.

“When I say we were dirt poor, we were dirt poor,” Reese said. “When I say we had nothing, we had nothing.”

A young and chubby Reese--he was initially Porky, but some loose pronunciation turned it into Pokey--used soft drink cans for backyard bases and borrowed his mother’s flour to create foul lines, which resulted in a spanking because the flour represented a week’s worth of biscuits.

He played baseball and football in high school and received a $200,000 bonus as the Reds’ top draft choice in 1991, Bowden’s first year as general manager. Baseball America named Reese the Reds’ top prospect for three consecutive years, but Reese was slow to develop offensively, and a series of injuries further delayed his progress. There were difficulties off the field as well.

His fiancee and mother of his now 6-year-old daughter, LaBresha, died in a traffic accident shortly after their engagement.

The mother of his 7-year-old son, Naquwan, died giving birth to another child (not his).

Naquwan’s grandmother and great grandmother, who were raising the boy, were both murdered in South Carolina last year.

“You reach a point where you wonder if you can handle any more, but I love my kids [he has a third with his current girlfriend] and you go on,” Reese said. “My mother has always reminded me that things happen for a reason, and I’ve tried to live day by day and play day by day.

“The closest I came to quitting was in ’93 when my fiancee was killed and I started the year in double A 0 for 30, but my mom said you can’t quit, you have to continue, if you quit now you’ll quit later in life. I stuck it out and I’m glad I did.”

Given his tragic litany it is no wonder that those record-tying four errors he made at shortstop replacing an injured Larkin on opening day in 1998 were nothing more than a speed bump, as was the thumb injury that required surgery and ended his season in July that year. It is no wonder that he shrugged off the pressure of moving to a new position and replacing Gold Glove winner Boone last year and now embraces the challenge of living up to the Reds’ high expectations and the spotlight stemming from their refusal to trade him for Griffey.

“I want to be in the same category as an Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Nomar Garciaparra,” Reese said. “I want to have the same all-around game they do. I was a terrible hitter in the minors and when I first came up. I’ve come a long way, but I have a long way to go.”

The journey may eventually find Reese moving back to shortstop as successor to a retired Larkin, although Larkin has no plans to retire soon and said, “the way Pokey has established himself as a premier second baseman, I would think he’d want to stay with it.”

Already the measuring stick, insists Lopes, for all other second baseman and a cornerstone of a championship-minded franchise that was able to obtain Ken Griffey Jr. without disturbing the foundation.

Dodgers’ Home Opener

TODAY, 1, CH. 5

CINCINNATI

Rob Bell, 0-0, 1.29

vs. DODGERS

Orel Hershiser, 0-0, 7.20

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FIXER UPPER

For $50 million, Dodger Stadium has a new look, with upscale dugout seats and luxury suites. Page 10