Ever So Slowly, He Seems to Catch On

You know how much the guy has slowed down when I can hop on a bad knee and still corner Garret Anderson. OK, so giving him the benefit of doubt, maybe he was in no mood to go all out and move away, or he was just lazy.

I knew once I had him, though, he certainly wasn’t going to dive for cover.

Last season ended for the Angels with the clubhouse closed during the playoffs and with Anderson refusing regular requests to step outside and chat. It’s like I told him Friday night before the Angels’ home opener against the Yankees, he ran harder to get away from Page 2 than for any fly ball hit to left.

He disagreed, which was at least a sign of life, and then we began to talk, prompting Anderson to sit down and start putting on his socks.

On those rare occasions when Anderson makes himself available for an interview, he always seems to sit down and put on his socks, eventually pulling on his shoes and tying them at an exaggeratedly slow pace that suggests he’s looking for a role on Sesame Street.

I know when it’s time for the 7-Eleven Kid to learn how to tie her shoes, I’m going to bring her along and start interviewing Anderson.

Tying his shoes allows Anderson to drop his head, avoid eye contact with the media and talk to the carpet in the clubhouse, forcing reporters to bend over, lean down and maybe catch every other mumble he has to offer. Usually it makes for short interviews.

I decided to hang in there and see just how long Anderson could play with his feet. He put on one pair of socks, another, rolled his pants’ legs down, then up, took a pair of socks off, rolled the pants down and then began working on his shoes.

“I got you rattled,” I said. “You don’t even know how to put on your socks.”

He disagreed, and I noticed he does that a lot on the rare occasions when we speak.

“I don’t run from the media,” he said, and I guess you have to give him that -- because if he’s not always going to run to first, it’s hard to make the case he’s always going to run from the media.

We continued to quibble about his evasive maneuvers until he finally admitted with a smile, “I’ll always make your job harder; it shouldn’t be easy.”

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THE ANGELS’ PR guy, who has a reputation for being honest even though he works in PR, has consistently maintained that “Anderson is really a good guy,” while I’ve always considered him to be somewhat of a jerk, complaining about not getting recognition, then making a point of hiding from the folks who might provide it.

I mentioned that to Anderson, and he said, “You can only go with what you see,” and by the way, he added, “I wouldn’t say you’re always accurate,” and while it was nice we were talking, I wouldn’t say everything he said made sense.

I told him several perceptions have taken root, such as not playing all out, because of his unwillingness to let the media know him better.

“Do you go all out?” I asked.

“No,” he said, and maybe it really isn’t such a good idea to let the media know him better.

“Who does go all out? And when you say go all out, I’m talking [busting your butt on every play],” he said. “Who runs to first base hard all the time?”

There are times, however, when I could get to first faster than a jogging Anderson, and he said, “Let’s go,” and right now with my sore knee I couldn’t even beat Mike Scioscia.

This season Anderson has a doctor’s excuse for slowing down, playing on a sore arch, the kind of injury that runners suffer, which come to think of it -- makes it hard to explain how he got it.

The foot continues to bother him, he said, but twice against the Yankees, he flashed speed, both attempts at displaying extra effort resulting in run-producing plays in the Angels’ 4-1 victory over the Yankees, which goes to show you how much energy he has if he’s not using it to run away from the media before the game.

I asked him what we might expect out of him this season, and he said, “I don’t know, but come talk to me at the end of the season and I’ll tell you,” obviously a clever attempt to avoid Page 2 for the next five months.

“Come on -- if healthy,” I said, “what have you got left in the tank?”

“You could hold me to hitting over .300, getting 20 to 30 home runs and having 100-plus RBIs,” he said, and it’s amazing how informative he can be when not directing all his answers to his feet. “I’d be disappointed in myself if I don’t do that.”

We continued to chat, the clubhouse began to empty, but Anderson remained in place and answered everything thrown his way.

He even laughed on occasion, and without me mentioning any of the ridiculous things that the Dodgers’ injured Kenny Lofton had to say.

It was almost impossible, well, it really was impossible to get him to bristle, even after I reminded him how hard I’ve worked to make fun of him on Page 2.

“In fact I’ve got another good one for you that I heard in the press box today that I want to use,” I told him. “You know that home run you hit off Eric Gagne in the freeway series -- that’s when Gagne knew his arm needed surgery. Get it ... if you could hit a home run off him ... “

And I swear, because I was there to see it, he got a kick out of that, and made no sudden move for the door.

Of course the next time he makes a sudden move -- will be his first.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.