No reason why fans should slam Anderson

I took the front page of the newspaper to Garret Anderson. There’s a picture of Anderson arriving at home plate to complete maybe the best single night of his baseball career.

Three teammates are waiting for him, Cabrera, Kendrick and Guerrero, and while you can’t see their faces, it’s obvious just by the poses that they have struck -- they are thrilled Anderson has hit a grand slam.

There’s a look on Anderson’s face, meanwhile, that suggests he’s not interested, or even bored by all the hoopla that accompanies a 10-RBI night.

Or, as the wife of an associate says when she watches Anderson play, “He looks like he wants to be someplace else.”

There’s not even a hint of a smile in the photo, teammates and fans still getting the Anderson they get every night, and every night for the past 13 years.

It’s so typical, but without question misleading for anyone who really knows the guy, because had a TV camera shot the 15 minutes or so while he stood humbly before his locker talking to writers a little later after the game, admiring fans everywhere might be wearing No. 16.

And just think about that in this day and age of troubled athletes, drugs, dog fights and runaway egos -- Anderson’s biggest shortcoming being he doesn’t want to show up anyone on the other team.

“Inside, yes, I was very thrilled,” he concedes.

It’s the famous Anderson wall, of course, that accounts for this distant relationship between the stoic Anderson and the Angels faithful.

Or, as he puts it, “I just like to err on the side of being guarded.”

It took three years to get Anderson to stop walking away when seeking an interview, another year to get him to stop bending over and mumbling into his shoes in his attempt to sabotage a chat.

It has been a four-year journey and an empty notebook, understandable for any Angels fan, of course, who has followed Anderson for the past 13 years and probably still doesn’t know him.

But what a payoff, the one-on-one wall between player and columnist falling more than a year ago and the pleasure now of dealing daily with an athlete who has so much more to offer than excuses and clichés.

Others won’t believe it, but Anderson likes to laugh, tell jokes, loves to talk about family, honey-do chores and Jeff Kent, and so why does he make it so hard on folks?

Why play so nonchalantly, Erstad and Eckstein looking like they are giving it everything they have on every single pitch, and Anderson just seemingly gliding from here to there? Why not give the fans some show of emotion, some kind of reward for hanging in there with him?

“Ask the PR guy,” Anderson says with a grin. “There’s a video out there of me hitting a two-run homer against Seattle to win the game and I’m holding my fist in the air as I round first base.”

That was more than six years ago, April 13, 2001 -- Anderson conceding that the picture in the newspaper this week would have caught him smiling had the grand slam won the game against the Yankees -- instead of just padding his individual stats.

“You take players like Erstad, Eckstein, Figgins, Cabrera and it’s easy to see their passion,” Manager Mike Scioscia says, “but let me tell you -- that passion is every bit there with Garret.

“Too many people misread his athleticism,” and the ease at which he seems to play this game, Scioscia adds, “but this is someone who really wants to compete.”

Anderson drove in three runs with a double in the seventh game of the World Series, won the home run contest before the 2003 All-Star game, left that game as the MVP, and then pounded the Yankees.

He now holds many of the team’s offensive records, his favorite when he’s asked, “the hitting streak.” It’s 28 games he put together a few years back, a single here and single there, every one of them representing the emphasis he places on consistency -- both in performance and temperament.

And yet he stands in the Angels’ shadows. Take a look around Angel Stadium and count the Anderson jerseys being worn by fans: one, maybe two -- certainly three or four shy of “Glaus” or “Salmon,” who are no longer here.

Initially, it probably was Edmonds, and then Salmon, Erstad & Eckstein, followed by Guerrero -- the popular Angels who got all the attention. Anderson, meanwhile, was the guy who wouldn’t dive for a ball in the outfield, run all out to first base on a routine out, or throw himself at reporters.

Much of it his fault, his aversion to showmanship here in a part of the country where folks really wants their stars to be stars, and yet there were times when he wondered why he wasn’t getting his due.

“It bothered me,” he says, but the chip on his shoulder is gone now, laughing as he walks by to do a pair of TV interviews. “A few years ago, I would’ve just kept walking.”

The wall is beginning to fall more and more, the stoic one responding to the fans’ appreciation by emerging from the dugout after his grand slam to tip his helmet -- for the first time in his career.

“That was nice,” he says, allowing that it was also one more reminder that he can still play at a high level. But more importantly to Anderson, who is all about balance in life, he’s back solid with his kids.

A night before his offensive onslaught, his kids watched Ryan Budde win the game for the Angels, all of Budde’s teammates pounding him on the head to celebrate, Anderson’s kids wanting to do the same with Dad. If only Dad could do something special.

And so he did, his youngsters waiting for him when he got home so they could bop him on the head, Dad taking a break from his usual hum-drum consistent performance to give them everything they wanted. The big showman that he is.

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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.