Major Motivation

By PAUL GUTIERREZ

July 28, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

ROHNERT PARK, Calif. —

Egged on by a Phillie Phanatic-inspired mascot--the purple-footed Abominable Sonoman--the season-high crowd of 4,140 rose, cheering on the returning hero. With the James Brown classic “Payback” blaring over Rohnert Park Stadium’s antiquated speakers like some Cold War-era air-raid signal warning schoolchildren to take cover, Kevin Mitchell acknowledged the response with a sly grin and lumbered to the plate.

It was the Fourth of July and Mitchell, making his first plate appearance after sitting out nearly three weeks because of an injury, was back in uniform for the Sonoma County Crushers of the independent Western Baseball League.

Mitchell, the 1989 National League most valuable player, suits up for an organization that prides itself on such fan-friendly promotions as Ribs & ‘Slaw Night and plays in a league that is, at best, comparable to single-A ball?

Why not? He hasn’t played in the major leagues in almost two years and has been diagnosed with diabetes. So playing in front of an average home crowd of 1,913 is not demeaning at all to Mitchell, 38, who is making a comeback of sorts in Rohnert Park, about 50 miles north of San Francisco.

“Everybody here is competitive, and there’s no politics involved. It’s not who’s making the most money,” he said of the WBL, which has a per-player salary cap that maxes out at $2,200 a month.

“Every player in this league, they love this game, that’s why they’re here. This is it for them.

“And it’s harder to hit here because [the pitchers aren’t] around the plate as much.”

That wasn’t the case three days earlier when he took part in a pregame legends home run derby at the San Francisco Giants’ Pacific Bell Park on July 1.

The pitches were down the pipe and Mitchell, sporting a Giant uniform with a gold-tooth smile as grandiose as his imposing figure, took aim at the left-field stands and the giant glove 501 feet away from home plate. The huge Saturday afternoon crowd, which would swell to 40,000, cheered his monster swings and the way the ball jumped off his bat and out of the park.

In 10 from-the-heels swings, he crushed four home runs and hit the wall with line drives twice more, winning the contest over such long-ball luminaries as Jack Clark, Dave Kingman and Jeffrey Leonard.

His blasts didn’t reach the glove, but they elicited the loudest cheers and were comparable to those hit in this year’s major league home run derby.

Barry Bonds, the Giants’ all-star left fielder, was the first to greet Mitchell after his power display.

“You need to stay in this uniform,” Bonds told him.

Mitchell shrugged and sighed.

“I went to Pac Bell, I sat in my seat and I put on that uniform and I just marinated right there,” he said, his voice trailing off. “It hurt.”

It was on the limousine ride away that Leonard could tell something was amiss.

“Man, what’s wrong with you?” Leonard asked, knowing full well that taking part made Mitchell miss being a major leaguer that much more. “See, that’s why I didn’t want to do this.”

While the limo was taking the duo away from their past, it was also shuttling them to their present. Mitchell and Leonard, his manager with the Crushers, were on their way to Sonoma County’s game that night in Marysville.

“When I stepped out on that field the other day, I was a whole different person,” Mitchell said after his Pac Bell engagement. “I got real comfortable there. But I’m comfortable here [with the Crushers].”

Mitchell, who has spent time with eight teams--the New York Mets, San Diego Padres, Giants, Seattle Mariners, Cincinnati Reds, Boston Red Sox, Cleveland Indians and Oakland Athletics--as well as in Japan and Mexico, went “underground” two winters ago.

That’s when he was diagnosed with diabetes. Depression set in. In a three-week span, the 5-foot-11 Mitchell’s weight plummeted from 265 pounds to 227. He thought it was a natural loss because he had stopped taking creatine, a strength-enhancing supplement. He also had an unquenchable thirst and was urinating with frightening frequency.

Mitchell’s mother, Bunny, told him that he was exhibiting the symptoms of a diabetic and urged him to get checked.

“One morning I was going to a funeral, I couldn’t see,” said Mitchell, whose kidneys were about to shut down as well. “My sugar level was 590 [Normal is about 125, according to the American Diabetes Assn.]. She rushed me to the hospital and kept me there for a month, until I got it under control.”

Mitchell had to give himself an insulin shot four times a day in the early going, though he has weaned himself off the needles and now takes two pills twice a day while keeping his blood-sugar level from dropping too low.

“It was tough those first few months,” he said. “All I was doing was sitting around the house moping, moping that I did have diabetes.”

Out of his funk a bit, Mitchell coached peewee league baseball (9- and 10-year-olds) in his native San Diego with a childhood buddy, Byron Hatcher, who has since joined Mitchell as a clubhouse attendant for the Crushers.

In 1999, Mitchell ventured south for all of 52 at-bats with the Tabasco Cattlemen of the Mexican League.

He was visiting Giant Manager Dusty Baker in Arizona during spring training when the phone in Baker’s office rang. It was Leonard, offering Mitchell a spot with Sonoma County.

He agreed to become a Crusher within the day.

And while Leonard has taken his tired act of truculent intimidation to Sonoma County (It hasn’t worked for the Crushers, who were 17-28 and two games out of last place of the WBL’s Southern Division at the end of the first half), Mitchell has remained a clubhouse comedian, keeping things loose for the young and impressionable Crushers.

Crusher President Robert Fletcher said Mitchell has been an invaluable asset to his mom-and-pop operation.

“He’s pitched right in helping us with the most mundane things that you normally have to do on a minor league operation,” Fletcher said. “He helps other players and has a very positive attitude about everything and even offered to help get the laundry going the other day.”

Besides adding the occasional fabric softener, Mitchell regales his young teammates with stories of The Show.

Matt Pool, a Sonoma County starter, says even the pitching staff has learned from Mitchell.

“When you get someone of his caliber, certainly you’re going to pick his brain,” said Pool, who has played in the Colorado Rockies and Chicago Cub minor league systems. “As a pitcher, you find out what’s going on in his mind as a hitter, see what he’s thinking, and learn from that.

“I’ve played with a few pros, and he’s one of the most sincere guys. He’s got great stories and he just keeps it loose.”

Mitchell’s presence has sparked interest throughout the WBL.

Tri-City Posse Manager Wally Backman, who played with Mitchell on the Mets’ 1986 World Series championship team, said he is far from washed up.

“His struggle with diabetes is helping him accomplish his goals,” Backman said. “He’s still a major league hitter. I think he has the opportunity this year to go up, if people start paying attention to him. He’s very capable of changing the game with one swing of his bat.”

Baker agreed.

“Hey, man, Mitch can still play. I know he can still hit,” he said. “You hate to see a guy not get the maximum out of their career. I know he had some injuries and had a few things happen, but he’s a heck of a person too. Anybody who knows Mitch likes Mitch.”

Much has been made of Mitchell’s background, growing up in a gang-infested area of southeast San Diego. Baker sees Mitchell’s experiences as a plus.

“Mitch can be an asset, I think, to a lot of organizations because in modern times you’ve got to have somebody that can relate to some of the guys that, perhaps, have come from where Mitch has come from. And that helps,” Baker said. “And Mitch is a truthful dude.”

Throughout his career, Mitchell battled being labeled petulant, a prima donna and having an obsessive-compulsive personality.

“I’m not a bad guy, and I was rated as the Bad Boy of Baseball,” Mitchell said. “People that know me know I’m not that guy.”

Fletcher said he harbored no such concerns before signing him.

“We were thrilled because of the story behind him, the whole diabetes story and the fact that he hadn’t known he had it and it affected his play the last few years,” Fletcher said. “I think in the past some reporters didn’t really take the trouble to get to know him or misrepresented some facts, and it can snowball. All I know is I judge Kevin by what I see and what I hear, and he’s been perfect.”

Unless you count him being injured.

Mitchell, whose spate of injuries in the majors bordered on the absurd, has already found the disabled list in Sonoma County.

“Everybody goes through it,” said Mitchell, whose latest injury was the result of swinging too hard when fooled on an off-speed pitch. “What, was I supposed to go out there and not get hurt? I’m not trying to get hurt, but it happens.”

Mitchell, who has accidentally burned his eyes with rubbing alcohol, needed dental work after biting into an unusually crispy doughnut and strained rib muscles vomiting, was shelved recently because of a pulled left rib muscle. It was still tender for the Pac Bell homer derby.

But he was voted into the WBL All-Star game as a designated hitter and is batting .307 with five home runs, 29 runs batted in and a .474 slugging percentage in 32 games.

Those numbers may pale in comparison to the ones he put up in his MVP season of 1989 when he led the league with 47 homers and 125 RBIs while batting .291. But that was 11 years ago, seemingly eons before today’s long-ball era, and besides, he says, the WBL is legitimate.

In his comeback game, Mitchell would go one for three with a single and two four-pitch walks in the 9-6 loss to the Posse at Rohnert Park Stadium, originally built in 1981 for an Angel affiliate, the Class-A California League Redwood Pioneers. There were also five hit-batters in the game.

But that’s as wild as it gets in this easygoing nook of the North Bay, known more for its winemaking-industry rivalry with neighboring Napa County than championship-caliber baseball.

And that’s just fine with the kinder, gentler Mitchell, who had a voracious appetite for the night life and playthings in his heyday.

This is, after all, a guy that once flaunted $1,800 crocodile-skin combat boots, Desert Storm-style night-vision goggles and a $19,000 stereo system in one of his fleet of vehicles, a stable that reportedly included a Humvee, a BMW, a Porsche, a Mercedes, a Ferrari and a 1964 Chevy convertible.

“I don’t have all that stuff no more,” Mitchell said. “I’m just Basic Mitch now, enjoying myself here.”

Just as most of his toys are gone, so too is a clique of hangers-on.

“I did a lot for my friends,” said Mitchell, who once bought $2,800 worth of tickets for a game in San Diego for acquaintances. “I don’t have any friends now, since I stopped doing [things for them]. You know how it works, how it goes. I’ve got one good friend here in Byron [Hatcher] and a few more back home. But a lot of those so-called friends talk behind my back now, a lot of negative stuff.”

But he still has the gold tooth and a passion for paintball.

Mitchell was planning on teaching his Crusher teammates the finer points of the game, but the session was put on hold when Hatcher couldn’t get Mitchell’s paintball gun through the airport X-ray machine.

“They said it looked too much like a machine gun,” said Hatcher, who is known in the Crusher clubhouse as Mini Me to Mitchell’s Dr. Evil.

No big deal. Mitchell is more concerned with keeping his sugar level from fluctuating too much. He gets “the shakes” when it gets too low and his sight goes blurry and his equilibrium is off when it starts to rise.

“I’ve just got to stay on schedule, eat right and keep working out with my personal trainer,” said Mitchell, who’s listed at 245 pounds. “I keep peppermints in my wallet for those long bus rides when my sugar starts to dip.”

Diabetes has made Mitchell a student of health while becoming a more disciplined person.

“I had to check myself before I wrecked myself,” he said.

That doesn’t mean he’s using the Crushers as a steppingstone back.

“I never wanted all this starlight. I just wanted to play the game and play the game well,” he said. “I want to coach. Hopefully, I can one day be a hitting instructor.”

Even if the allure of his 15 minutes at Pac Bell still tugs at his heart?

“With all those people there, it motivates you, playing a crowd like that,” Mitchell said. “I still have a love for the game, but I’m not as young as I used to be. I can still hit the ball. I can still play.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Mitchell Muscle

A look at Kevin Mitchell’s statistics with the Sonoma County Crushers, through Wednesday:

Avg.: .307

G: 32

AB: 114

R: 19

H: 35

2B: 4

3B: 0

HR: 5

RBI: 29