BATMAN & JOKER

One was a batting king. The other? Well, his reputation was more that of an irrepressible clown prince. No knock. Royalty is royalty, or as Angel shortstop Gary DiSarcina said:

“Rod Carew was a hall-of-famer who could roll out of bed and hit .340. Mickey Hatcher was more like a lot of us, a guy who had to scrape and scratch to hit .260. Rod is reserved, more into technique. Mickey is loosey-goosey, more into keeping it simple.

“Obviously, they come from two different backgrounds and bring two sets of experiences to the ballpark. But strip it down and both have a lot to offer.”

Carew won seven American League batting titles and had 3,053 hits in a 19-year major league career. He served eight seasons as the Angel batting instructor, was not retained by new Manager Mike Scioscia and now is in a similar position with the Milwaukee Brewers under Manager Davey Lopes.

Hatcher had an average of .280 and 946 hits in a 12-year career. He spent last season as Scioscia’s batting instructor with the Albuquerque Dukes. A longtime former Dodger, Hatcher thinks he’s in heaven with the Angels.

“The Dodgers were part of my life,” Hatcher said. “It was tough leaving after all those years, but this is a great opportunity for Mike and myself, and we’re still basically in Los Angeles.

“Besides, my mom loved [the late Angel owner] Gene Autry, and my kids love Disney [the current owner]. It’s the best of all worlds.”

Even succeeding the celebrated Carew with all of the inevitable comparisons?

“I’m not smart enough to be intimidated,” Hatcher said. “I obviously wasn’t the outstanding hitter that Rod was, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand how to go about it. As a hitting coach I feel very good about myself. I mean, just because I want to make Mo Vaughn a switch-hitter doesn’t make me all bad.”

He was kidding about that, of course, as he is apt to do at any time, which is not to say he doesn’t take this assignment seriously. He cited a litany of noted hitting coaches he has studied with and under--Reggie Smith, Jim Lefebvre, Ben Hines and Carew himself. He also pointed out that he had played with Kirby Puckett in Minnesota, spent time in Texas with Juan Gonzalez, Ivan Rodriguez and Jose Canseco, and talked with and studied hall-of-famers such as Ted Williams and Sandy Koufax so as to understand hitting from both the batting and pitching standpoints.

“I’ve learned a lot of great drills and developed some of my own, but my philosophy is to keep it as simple as possible,” Hatcher said. “Players at this level don’t want to be lectured, don’t want to have to go up there thinking about their hands one day, their stride the next. You want guys at this level to be their own hitting coach. You don’t want them running off to the Little League field before they come to you. Keep it simple. Hands to ball.”

In the aftermath of a combustible season, keeping it simple sounds reasonable. The Angels needed to reduce the tension, start fresh in several ways. A new manager is generally given the right to select his own coaches. Only Joe Maddon was retained.

Carew helped put many Angels on their major league feet with his intense and knowledgeable approach. No coach worked harder. He threw early batting practice to struggling hitters, kept notes on virtually every hitter’s every at-bat, held hitters’ meetings before and after games, and often stayed up late studying videotape.

Hatcher brings a similar work ethic, but with a more relaxed style. He was the zany leader of “the Stuntmen,” that group of irregulars who helped propel the undermanned Dodgers to an improbable World Series victory in 1988.

In Anaheim, the timing was probably right.

“No disrespect to Rod, because he helped all of us establish ourselves, but he was so technical that it was hard for some of the younger guys to follow,” center fielder Jim Edmonds said. “I certainly don’t pin our problems of last year on Rod, but I do think the change will be good. We were all wound pretty tight last year. Maybe the reins needed to be loosened.”

Carew sat on an equipment trunk in the Milwaukee clubhouse and shook his head. In September of a miserable season he had said the Angels needed a housecleaning. He wasn’t referring to the coaching staff but to unidentified players. He said he was surprised it didn’t happen. He still wouldn’t identify the players, but pointed a finger at Edmonds.

“I just wish someone would kick Jim Edmonds in the fanny, make him understand the gift he’s got and that any minute it can be taken away from you,” Carew said, joining a spring chorus that has left the Angel center fielder almost numb.

Edmonds shrugged and said, “Everybody says this is the player Jim should be, but nobody comes to me and says, ‘Jim, this is what we want you to do, what you need to do.’ The problem is that everybody thinks they know me when, in fact, nobody knows me. But that’s OK. Six years from now, I’ll be sitting home and enjoying life.”

For Carew, the enjoyment is in a new challenge with a new group of young hitters, but he said that he left a part of his heart with a core group of Angels--Edmonds and Tim Salmon, DiSarcina and Garret Anderson, Darin Erstad and the young Troy Glaus.

“I wish them well,” Carew said. “I have no hard feelings toward the Angels. I respect Mike’s right to bring in his own coaches. I just didn’t like the way [General Manager] Bill Stoneman handled it, given all the time I had spent there. I mean, if they weren’t going to bring the coaches back, tell us from the start. All I ask for is respect. I finally had to call him to find out what was happening.”

The Angels insist that Stoneman did call Carew, asking a relative to have Carew call back, but apparently the message never reached Carew. At any rate, he says he has turned the page, is happy with the Brewers and regrets only having to leave in the aftermath of an injury-riddled season.

“You can’t ask guys who don’t play every day to pick up the slack for a Mo Vaughn, Tim Salmon or Jim Edmonds,” Carew said. “I would like to have had the chance to redeem myself, help those guys get back in the groove, but business is business, and I tend not to even think about it anymore. I have a good group of young kids here who remind me of when I started with the Angels. It’s a new challenge, and that’s always invigorating.”

Said Salmon, “I grew up around Rod Carew and he’ll be missed. He brought a lot to the table just with his presence. If a Rod Carew gave you a compliment, it really meant something.

“The amazing thing was the amount of work that a guy of his stature put in. Guys on other teams were always commenting on how surprised they were to see him pitching early batting practice four or five hours before the game, but to me he was like a brother or friend. You could almost forget he was your batting coach and a hall-of-famer.”

It is too soon for the Angels to know what they have in successor Hatcher, although they recognize his enthusiasm and his ability to make a serious business fun, which--besides a pitcher or two and a second baseman--is maybe what they need most.

Carew, after all, was and is serious about being serious. Then again, isn’t that what a king should be?