A Swing -- and A Hit

Doug Mientkiewicz is a natural worrier. Like so many other things he does, the Minnesota Twins first baseman has become great at it.

While analytical to a fault, he is certain of this: If he hadn’t fretted his way right out of the majors in 1999, he wouldn’t be tearing them up in 2001.

“I’ve never forgotten what happened to me in ‘99,” Mientkiewicz said. “It was miserable. I wake up every day and remember what it was like.”

Mientkiewicz has relaxed long enough to hover over .400 for most of April and May and become the surprise player on baseball’s surprise team.

People are learning that he is a former Class Double-A batting champion, a college and Olympic hero and Alex Rodriguez’s high-school teammate in Miami. Yet, he made such a minor impression in 118 games in 1999, New York Yankees manager Joe Torre said he couldn’t remember hearing of him.

Mientkiewicz (pronounced mint-KAY-vich) is making people take notice this season, with pants pulled to his knees and a glove that might even be better than his bat. He has an old-school love for the game. He said he got a bigger thrill drawing a bases-empty walk from Roger Clemens than he did getting a hit off the Rocket. He has enough respect for Ted Williams to deny himself--or any other current major leaguer--any chance of becoming baseball’s first .400 hitter since 1941.

He also loves fishing and solitude, which Minnesota’s lakes provide. Remaining anonymous will not remain as easy as it was while Mientkiewicz was batting .229 and stewing his way back to Class Triple-A Salt Lake in ’99.

“I saw him sitting in this clubhouse, miserable, not having any fun,” the Twins’ Denny Hocking said. “I mean, you’re in the big leagues. It should be some kind of fun. He felt like he was a cancer here.”

Mientkiewicz believes he should have been sent down that season. While his relationship with manager Tom Kelly reportedly was strained, Mientkiewicz said the stories are overblown. Mientkiewicz said he now has a better understanding of Kelly, whom he learned was in his corner the entire time.

“He’s never come up to me and said, ‘You’re doing a great job,”’ Mientkiewicz said. “But I also understand that’s not his style.”

Mientkiewicz’s name on a lineup card is Kelly’s term of endearment.

“My attitude is, let’s see him play a couple of years, then we’ll see if we have a player,” Kelly said. “I took that approach with Kirby Puckett, and if it’s good enough for Puck, I think it’s good enough for everyone else.”

Mientkiewicz’s demotion in 2000 was a mixed blessing. At Salt Lake, he was surrounded by players who had also spent much of 1999 in the majors. Sulking was prohibited. Baseball became fun again.

“That’s what I needed,” he said. “Baseball wasn’t a lot of fun for me in ’99.”

Mientkiewicz hit .334 at Salt Lake. He also launched two game-winning homers for Tommy Lasorda’s collection of minor leaguers who won the gold medal for the United States in the 2000 Olympics.

Lasorda said Mientkiewicz talked to him about quitting baseball.

“He said he thought maybe he should give the game up,” Lasorda said. “All I did was encourage him, tell him he had the ability to play in the big leagues. By being in the Olympics, he could show everyone the ability he had. And by golly, he did.”

After the Olympics, Mientkiewicz also joined the Twins for three games and went 6-for-14. He hasn’t stopped hitting for them since.

“People think I’m doing this well just because of the Olympics,” Mientkiewicz said. “No, it’s all of 2000. It’s all of 2000, all of ’99.”

And probably further back, too.

Mientkiewicz’s tough-love father, Len, raised his son to become a ballplayer. The master electrician built a batting cage with lights and a regulation mound in their backyard and still throws him BP. There, Doug Mientkiewicz was taught baseball was serious business.

“There were times he made me want to jump off the Empire State Building,” Mientkiewicz said.

Mientkiewicz was capable of going off the deep end on his own. He shaved his arms for good luck after getting off to a 5-for-110 start one season in Class A. He won an Eastern League batting title by hitting .323 in 1998, yet swears he hit the ball harder going .255 the previous season.

“Struggling has never been foreign to me,” Mientkiewicz said.

Even this season, Mientkiewicz was hitting only .231 after the Twins opened the season with a five-game road trip.

“That’s when TK came up to me and said, ‘Have some fun,’ ” he said. “He said that a thousand times to me in ‘99, but I never understood what he meant.”

Until now. The 2001 season is giving Mientkiewicz little to worry about.