On Deck

There was a moment when the game of baseball orbited around Dave Winfield, the 12-time all-star, the World Series champion, the people’s choice against The Boss, when nothing mattered but the expanding depth of his 22 big-league seasons--the 3,110 hits, 465 home runs and 1,833 runs batted in.

There was a moment when the game fell away and left only Winfield, 6-foot-6 and full of grace, releasing into space with an extraordinary stride and a lumberjack’s stroke, chased by the sullen harmony of a pitcher’s heart stalling and a third baseman’s spine stiffening.

There was a single moment when Winfield uncoiled with the entire force of his curled right biceps, and a tiny jaw hit tiny clavicle.

It was two weeks ago.

David Winfield Jr. is 5, like his twin sister, Arielle. Just before bedtime, two days before the children would leave for the All-Star game in Atlanta, David’s grandfather, Papa, pushed a videotape into the VCR. It was 10 o’clock.

Papa sat down beside David and said, “I want to show you the video from when your daddy played in the World Series.”

David watched for an hour. Then longer.

The video was from 1992. The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Atlanta Braves in six games. A young version of David’s daddy drove a Charlie Leibrandt changeup into the left-field corner in the 11th inning of the final game. Two runs scored. Not long afterward, everyone celebrated.

“He started out sleepy,” his mother, Tonya, said. “But he watched that entire video and was just blown away. He couldn’t believe that was Daddy up there doing that stuff.”

David Jr. and Arielle were born too late to witness their father’s career. They will not, however, miss the grandest celebration of it. Winfield, who retired in 1995, leads the next class of Hall of Fame hopefuls, which also includes newcomers Kirby Puckett, Don Mattingly and Lou Whitaker.

So, as Tony Perez, Carlton Fisk and Sparky Anderson get comfortable in Cooperstown, they should expect Winfield, along with a couple of awed 6-year-olds, next year.

“Whenever he goes in,” Tonya said before catching herself, “if ever he goes in, I know the children will be a big part of that.”

Dave Winfield wears glasses to read now, which makes him laugh. Had he known his eyes were going, he said, he might have fixed them, and maybe there would have been another couple years out there for a middle-aged hitter on his way to the Hall of Fame.

At 48, he sounds young and still has a youthful perspective, in part because of the twins.

“They’re getting a little older and they can appreciate my involvement in baseball,” he said. “They don’t see me go out there every day, but they absolutely know I was involved, and they get a kick out of it.”

Then, so proudly, he added, “My son, he played a little T-ball this year.”

Winfield works often in Atlanta, where he serves as president and CEO of Light and Energy Management, a national lighting contractor. He is a popular motivational speaker. He is writing a book about baseball--”Not an autobiography,” he said. Not two weeks ago he was an honorary captain at the All-Star game, and he will be inducted into the San Diego Padres’ Hall of Fame Aug. 19.

To stay in touch, he and Tonya occasionally e-mail each other from the offices of their Bel-Air home, Dave from upstairs, she from downstairs. They are busy.

So much so, Winfield said, that he hasn’t had much time to consider the Hall of Fame vote next winter. Nor has he chosen the cap he will wear should he be elected. In fact, the subject made him uncomfortable.

The cap thing is especially touchy. Winfield’s career had three distinct chapters, and therefore muddles his ultimate affiliation.

He broke in and spent eight seasons in San Diego. He went to free agency and served more than nine seasons with the New York Yankees, and he endured the Steinbrenner Wars. His final 5 1/2 seasons were spent with the Angels, Blue Jays, Minnesota and Cleveland.

Winfield won his World Series in that last chapter. He went home to Minneapolis-St. Paul. He met an owner, Gene Autry, he said was his favorite.

“If my career would have been over after the first 16 years, man, would I have been totally satisfied? Would I have felt good about the whole perception of who I am? Probably not,” he said. “I needed that third part.

“By the time I left, I felt really good that people had the correct perception of what I had invested in myself and in the cities I played in and the teams I played for, the teammates I worked with. By the time I was done, people said, ‘We want him here, we want him on our team. He’s a leader. He affects us in a positive way. He’s a winner.’ ”

It is the rare Hall of Famer who played significant time with the Yankees and did not carry the interlocking NY into Cooperstown. But Winfield did not have a typical experience there, either, because of his battles with George Steinbrenner, the owner. Steinbrenner has since expressed regret, and Winfield has attended the past two Legends Games at Yankee Stadium.

“I’d say we’re fine,” he said of his relationship with Steinbrenner. “There were a lot of things said publicly, he apologized and wished things would not have happened, that it was a big mistake. I’m certainly the kind of guy who can accept that. It took time and distance.”

As for his cap selection, Winfield said he has been hearing that question a lot lately.

“I haven’t made up my mind,” he said. “And I don’t mean that like I’m playing people . . . But, it’s just, people ask me and I haven’t decided.”

Said Tonya, with a chuckle: “Whenever he wants to talk about it, I’m sure we’ll all know.”

Fearful of appearing presumptuous, Winfield wouldn’t talk of his chance for a first-ballot entrance. But he did say he looked forward to today, to watching his peers find their place in the Hall. And, as he described what he believed their emotions would be, Winfield might have exposed his own.

“It’s their day, their time,” he said. “I just know, Fisk and Perez are thinking that from the time they were kids, first they want to be a professional baseball player. That, probably, was the first thing they wanted to do, and they got a chance to do it. That’s usually how it works. Then, maybe they hoped to be an all-star one day, to be considered one of the best. And this now is the ultimate for them.

“It’s the ultimate for any player, to know that you contributed something. You made your mark. You were fortunate to do the thing that you set out to do in life, to be one in a million, or more. They got a chance to do what they really loved doing, and they were good at it. To get that immortality, you have to smile. You have to smile. I’m happy for them.”

Next summer, there is a good chance it will be his turn. With the great brick hall behind him, he’ll be able to look into the crowd and find his wife, and his children. Then he’ll know, too, for that moment, the game is his again.

“I would want that to be a highlight of his life,” Tonya said. “If it is, then I will be truly, truly happy.”