Caminiti Doesn’t Want to Keep Pain Bottled Up

Ken Caminiti now travels with what he calls his “nice little phone book.” An Alcoholics Anonymous directory of meeting times and places. A listing of sponsors and counselors.

The ultimate gamer has played through virtually every injury in the trainer’s manual.

Even now, as the Texas Rangers pray that he will be able to continue plugging their leak at third base, Caminiti is believed to have a tear in his right shoulder that would normally require surgery. The Rangers won’t disclose the X-ray findings because Caminiti has told them he intends to keep playing, no matter what the tests showed.

As the National League’s most valuable player with the San Diego Padres in 1996, Caminiti hit 40 homers, drove in 130 runs and enhanced his reputation for toughness.

He played with a torn rotator cuff--it was surgically repaired after the season--and won a place in Padre lore when, suffering from heat exhaustion and food poisoning, he uncurled off the floor of Manager Bruce Bochy’s office before an August game against the New York Mets in Monterrey, Mexico, detached the intravenous bag that was providing fluid, asked for a candy bar, told Bochy to put him in the lineup and promptly hit two home runs to beat the Mets and sustain his team’s playoff drive.

Injuries? Well, some are worse than others. Caminiti missed almost 80 games in each of the last two years with the Houston Astros because of calf and wrist problems, but it is the daily battle with his addiction to alcohol and painkillers that provides his biggest hurdle as he tries to salvage a 14-year marriage to his high school sweetheart, be more than a sometime father to his three daughters and prove, at 37, he is still an MVP-caliber player and not a faded boozer.

Cortisone he can handle. Vodka is another matter.

“I’ve learned over time that there’s not much that scares me, but alcohol definitely does,” Caminiti said in the visitor’s dugout at Edison Field. “It scares me a lot.”

Caminiti confronted his demons at a rehabilitation center in 1993 and was clean for three of his most productive years before relapsing.

The injuries of the last two years and the uncertainty over his future compounded his return to the bottle and painkillers, primarily Vicodin. Last Labor Day, he awoke to find his wife, father and best friend standing over him, insisting it was time to reenter rehab. Caminiti locked the door to the bedroom, sulked through the day, then emerged in agreement. He and his father flew to New York, where he spent 30 days at the Smithers Institute, a rehabilitation center.

“This is the first time in a long time I’ve been clean in my head and heart,” Caminiti said in Anaheim.

“In ‘93, I basically [went through rehab] because other people wanted me to and I always knew I’d be sneaking off at some point and drinking again,” he said. “I have a better understanding now of the self-hate that was involved, of what triggers it, of how I have to lead my life. That’s not to say my life is in great shape. I have problems. I have voids that hurt. I don’t really have a family life and that’s what I want most. I want to be with my girls, see them grow up. I’m just more confident now that I have a better understanding of who I am and how I have to deal with the problems.”

Just last week, Nancy Caminiti and her daughters moved into a house the Caminitis had built in Houston. The door is still locked to her husband. They are communicating, but Caminiti has to rebuild the trust that he destroyed, he said, through “too many years of hard running on the road, not being true to my family or myself. Too many hours spent in bars rather than at home.”

There are still empty hours, down times, he says, “staring at the ceiling.” But he has that phone book, volunteers for drug testing, attends AA meetings about five times a week and has a supportive group of teammates. He has spoken to them about his addiction, he said, and they have shown they will be quick to lend an ear or hand.

“I’m really not ashamed, but it’s hard for me to open up and talk about it,” he said. “I know it’s part of the process, but I’ve always been the type of person who keeps everything inside. The last couple years, on and off the field, have been the most frustrating and difficult of my life, but I’m happy to be back playing, even with the shoulder problem. I just know I’ve got a lot left, and while I stink offensively right now, that’s something that can be fixed, and I take a lot of satisfaction helping the team defensively.”

The Rangers need it. Rookie third baseman Mike Lamb, thrust into the void left by Todd Zeile’s departure last year, made 33 errors. A suspect pitching staff already has Texas infielders ducking for cover. Caminiti is a three-time Gold Glove winner who has already been credited with saving two games with his glove.

On Tuesday night in Anaheim, with the Angels trailing, 7-5, and mounting a ninth-inning threat, Bengie Molina hit a blistering grounder down the third base line. Caminiti made a spectacular diving stop, got up and threw Molina out to end the game. He was mobbed by teammates, who might not have noticed that Caminiti was crying because of the pain in his shoulder.

The ultimate gamer knows the risks, and so do the Rangers.

They looked into his history of injuries and personal problems before signing him to a one-year contract that includes two option years and can net Caminiti

$20.9 million if he plays all three years.

First things first, however. Both player and team have more than one reason to take it one day at a time.