THE RISE OF TROY

Mo Vaughn, sizing up Angel third baseman Troy Glaus’ exceptional power, plate discipline, defensive range, arm strength and overall potential, was the first to make the comparison, at least publicly.

“This guy is going to be Mike Schmidt,” Vaughn said last June.

Glaus did nothing to discourage such speculation, ripping an American League-leading 47 home runs in 2000 while batting .284 with 102 runs batted in, 120 runs, 112 walks and a .404 on-base percentage.

In his first two full seasons, Glaus hit 76 homers in 313 games. Schmidt, the Philadelphia Phillie Hall of Famer, hit 54 homers in 294 games in his first two seasons.

Schmidt struggled in his first full season, batting .196 with 18 homers, 52 RBIs, 136 strikeouts and 62 walks in 1973. Glaus, now 24, did the same, batting .240 with 29 homers, 79 RBIs, 143 strikeouts and 71 walks in 1999.

Schmidt improved dramatically in his second season, hitting .282 with 36 homers and 116 RBIs. A sharp increase in walks, 106, was a key factor in his 1974 surge. Ditto for Glaus in 2000.

Schmidt was a little prickly with reporters and uncomfortable in the spotlight as a youngster. Same with Glaus.

There are so many parallels, it seemed natural to wonder: What does the real Mike Schmidt think of the next Mike Schmidt?

“I would love to help you,” Schmidt said, when contacted at his home in Jupiter, Fla., “but I can’t say I’ve ever heard of the player.”

In this era of instant information, with pitch-by-pitch updates of every game available on the Internet and nightly sports highlight shows inundating the airwaves, Schmidt hasn’t tuned in, he has dropped out.

After a 17-year career in which he had 548 homers and 1,595 RBIs, Schmidt has lost interest in the game. He plays golf, fishes, does charity work. He’ll catch an inning or two on ESPN, look at some box scores, but he’s in bed by 10 every night, before the West Coast games start.

“I haven’t seen him on TV,” Schmidt said of Glaus. “Maybe if he was in Florida, Philadelphia or the East Coast I could help you. But wish him the best of luck for me.”

Schmidt may not know of Glaus, the 6-foot-5, 245-pounder some teammates call “man-child,” but he can relate to what he has gone through.

Like Glaus, Schmidt was often overmatched as a rookie. He found success the next year, matured quickly, and soared to remarkable heights.

“All of a sudden a kid will hit a couple of big home runs, something will spark a change,” Schmidt said. “And when he gets that confidence at the major league level, he can take off.”

For Schmidt, it was a walk-off homer against reliever Tug McGraw to beat the New York Mets in the 1974 season opener.

“After that, it was straight uphill for the next 16 years,” Schmidt said.

The epiphany for Glaus wasn’t as dramatic. It occurred during spring training last year, on a deserted practice field below Tempe Diablo Stadium. While the Angels played a Cactus League game, Glaus spent an hour with batting instructor Mickey Hatcher, hitting until his hands were raw.

Hatcher wanted to simplify Glaus’ swing and approach, to clear a cluttered mind in which thoughts caromed like pinballs every time Glaus stepped into the batter’s box: Where are my hands and feet positioned? How far do I stride? Are my hips aligned properly?

“His biggest problem was thinking about mechanics all the time,” Hatcher said.

Hatcher tried to recreate Glaus’ swing from his junior year at UCLA, when he broke Mark McGwire’s Pacific 10 Conference single-season record with 34 home runs.

Glaus stood more upright, dropped his hands a little, opened his stance a bit and bent his back knee slightly. Hatcher encouraged him to be more aggressive on 2-and-0 and 3-and-1 counts and urged him to swing at the first pitch a little more often.

“It was me and Mickey, one on one, for what seemed like days, but it was probably an hour or so,” Glaus said. “I got some aggression out. It took 150-200 swings to figure some stuff out.”

When Glaus walked away from the field that day, “You could see a look of confidence on his face,” Hatcher said. “He felt good about himself.”

So good that Glaus established himself as one of baseball’s best young players in 2000, enjoying an all-star season that was rewarded with a four-year, $22-million contract this spring but did little to satiate its producer.

Asked what he needs to improve in 2001, a season the Angels will open at Texas today, Glaus replied, “Everything. This game has been played for 130 years, and no one has licked it yet. I can get better on defense and the basepaths. I can be more selective, hit more line drives, go the other way more, pull the ball better . . . really, everything.”

It is this relentless work ethic, the derivative of a tireless mother and a horrendous 1999 season, that has convinced teammates and coaches that Glaus won’t get complacent or let the new contract go to his head.

Glaus’ father, Tom, and his mother, Karen Jensen, divorced when Troy was 2, and Tom gradually slipped out of Troy’s life. They last spoke about the time Troy graduated from Carlsbad High in 1994.

Glaus is extremely sensitive about the subject. Asked about his father during an 80-minute interview, during which he was candid, almost effusive at times, Glaus clammed up: “I don’t want to talk about that, thanks.”

Bring up his mother, and Glaus perks back up. Karen ran a trucking business out of her Chatsworth home, and almost every day after grade school, Troy accompanied Karen when she hauled freight from the San Fernando Valley to Los Angeles International Airport.

“That lady worked her butt off every day, all day, sometimes seven days a week,” Glaus said. “If she doesn’t make money, we don’t eat.”

When Troy was 11, Karen moved with her son to Carlsbad and became a certified public accountant. She has since moved to Missouri but still does much of Glaus’ tax work.

“She taught herself how to be a CPA, and now she’s amazing at it,” Glaus said. “She instilled the work ethic in me, the drive to win and be successful.”

Success and Glaus were constant companions until midseason of 1998. Despite the awkwardness caused by an eight-inch growth spurt between the eighth and ninth grades--”I was a wreck,” Glaus recalled--he was a four-year varsity starter at Carlsbad High and an All-CIF selection as a junior and senior.

The Padres drafted Glaus as a pitcher--he was a standout reliever in high school--in the second round in 1994, but didn’t come close to signing him. Glaus went to UCLA as a shortstop and hit .344 with 62 homers and 180 RBIs in three seasons. He played on the 1996 Olympic team.

The Angels used the third pick of the 1997 draft on Glaus, and after a lengthy negotiation that cost him a chance to play that summer, he signed for a franchise-record $2.25 million in September.

His minor league apprenticeship lasted only 109 games at double-A Midland and triple-A Vancouver in 1998. By July 30 that year, Glaus was in the big leagues, where he showed promise defensively but seemed lost at the plate, batting .218 with one homer, 23 RBIs and 51 strikeouts in 48 games.

Then came 1999. It started with a bang, as Glaus hit .341 in April, and ended with a five-month thud, Glaus batting .222 the rest of the way. He would tear it up one week, then pitchers would shred him the next. He’d spend hours with then-batting instructor Rod Carew with few results.

Worse, it all was happening during a tumultuous season in which a dysfunctional Angel team bickered its way to a 70-92 record that cost manager Terry Collins and general manager Bill Bavasi their jobs.

“I’ll never forget that feeling of losing 92 games,” Glaus said. “I don’t ever want to do that again. That was not a lot of fun.”

Nor was the stress produced by so many emotional highs and lows.

“I learned that consistency is the key, that you can have three great months, but if the other three stink, you’re going to end up with a mediocre season,” Glaus said.

“I learned how to struggle. That was the first time that had happened to that extent, where I was trying to reinvent my swing all the time. I learned not to panic and what you need to do to get out of a slump.”

He also learned he could hit for power and play a little defense.

“When he struggled at the plate, he went out and picked everything in the field,” pitcher Tim Belcher said earlier this spring, before announcing his retirement. “I was impressed with that. There are far too many one-dimensional players in the game, guys who think playing defense is a way to pass time before their next at-bat. But Troy understands the importance of being a well-rounded player, a guy who can beat you with his glove or his bat.”

Last season was the opposite of 1999. Glaus actually struggled defensively, committing a league-high 33 errors, many of them on difficult throws from awkward angles after making spectacular stops.

But he was a monster at the plate, becoming the fifth player in American League history to hit 45 homers or more at 24 or younger. The others? McGwire, Reggie Jackson, Juan Gonzalez and Ken Griffey Jr.

Unlike 1999, Glaus had only one extended slump in 2000, going two for 33 from June 27-July 6, a 10-game stretch in which he was slowed by lower-back stiffness. Otherwise, he had only one three-game hitless streak.

“It’s scary, because I don’t think he knows how good he really is,” Angel center fielder Darin Erstad said. “The thing that blows me away is his patience. You just don’t see that, where a guy can strike out a lot [163 times in 2000] but walk that many times.

“And when he gets his pitch, he’s been given that gift to be able to elevate a ball to all fields. He just has freak natural power. He makes it look easy.”

And routine. Asked what Glaus is like when he returns to the dugout after a home run, Belcher said, “Like he expected to hit one . . . that’s different for a young guy. Whether it’s making a great play at third or hitting a ball a mile, he’s grown accustomed to doing these things.”

It’s this kind of maturity that prompted Manager Mike Scioscia, needing to shuffle the lineup because of Mo Vaughn’s injury, to move Glaus from the sixth spot to cleanup this season.

“He’s a marked man now, the guy every team will look at and say, ‘Don’t let this guy beat you,’ ” said right fielder Tim Salmon, who will move from cleanup to third. “But he’s a first-round pick, a bonus baby, so this is nothing new. He’s prepared. He’s shouldered these things before.”

Glaus, who batted .318 with six homers and 23 RBIs in spring training, loves the pressure that comes with batting cleanup and being an all-star.

“I want to be the guy who’s up with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, runner on base, and you’re down by one,” he said. “Every ball that’s hit to me, I expect to make the play.”

He just hates the accompanying spotlight. Though outgoing and relaxed with his teammates, Glaus is shy, sometimes aloof, around reporters. One of his least favorite subjects: himself.

There have been nights when Glaus played an integral part in an Angel victory and hung out in the trainer’s room or players’ lounge until deadline passed and reporters were gone.

On those rare days when he made an error that might have cost the Angels a game, Glaus has responded to inquiring reporters with disdain, his terse replies filled with contempt.

He refuses to acknowledge minor injuries and considers questions about them a personal affront. He rarely makes eye contact while passing reporters in the clubhouse. Some days, it seems, a do-not-disturb sign hangs on his locker.

“I don’t like being the center of attention,” Glaus said. “There are times I’m just not in a mood to talk. I don’t have bad intentions [toward reporters], but maybe there’s something I have to do first. And if my mind is set on something, I can’t be distracted.”

This may irk reporters at times, but not his teammates.

“There are enough guys in 30 clubhouses who like the attention,” Belcher said. “There are too many guys who say, ‘What can I do to get noticed?’ There aren’t enough who say, ‘What can I do to be a better ballplayer?’ ”

The ultra-intense Erstad had a similar reputation, saying little to reporters in his first year or two. But he grew more comfortable with them over the years and is now one of the better talkers on the team.

Glaus may never relish the attention, “but I think I’m getting better at handling it,” he said. “Obviously it’s not my favorite thing to do. But I understand it’s part of my job. I have to learn how to deal with it.”

As Schmidt did.

“I was way too sensitive when I was younger,” Schmidt said. “Imagine me playing in Philadelphia, where they either cheer you or boo you after every at-bat. I didn’t understand that.

“A lot of [my early struggles] had to do with pressure and expectations. Some players are sensitive to those things and they can start to press, to try too hard. Then when they struggle, they lose confidence.”

But when they gain confidence, they can blossom as Schmidt did, setting a standard for power-hitting third basemen that many expect Glaus to match or exceed.

Glaus does not feel pressured to be the next Mike Schmidt, though. He does not look toward the future with specific statistical goals in mind.

“What if your goal was to hit 35 home runs and you have 35 by August?” Glaus said. “Are you going to shut it down? I don’t look that far ahead. My goal is to just get better today.”

His coaches and teammates believe that approach will serve Glaus well. Leave the home run projections to the stat hounds and the comparisons to everyone else.

“Mike Schmidt was a great, great player who had 548 home runs, a ton of RBIs and played great defense,” Glaus said. “To even be mentioned in the same breath with him is a tremendous compliment.

“But you can’t really make the comparison between a guy who played 17 seasons and a guy who’s played two. I’d be much more comfortable playing this game for as long as I can, and then you can compare.”