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Great Jim Murray Writing about Baseball Stars
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No one has ever been able to explain to me the mysterious alchemy that
makes on man a .350 hitter and naother player more or less identical in
physical makeup, hard put to hit .200, You look at an Al Kaline, who
played with the Detroit Tigers from 1953 to 1974. He was pale, stringy,
almost poetic-looking. He always seemed to be struggling against a bad
case of mononucleosis. But with a bat in his hands, he was King Kong.
During his career, he hit 399 home runs, rapped out 3007 hits, and
complied a .297 batting average.
Form isn't the reason. The first time anybody saw Roberto Clemente
step into the batter's box for the Pittsburgh Pirates, the best guess
was that Clemeente would be back in Double A ball in a week. He had one
foot in the bucked and held his bat an an awkward angle-he looked as
though he couldn't hit an outside pitch. A lot of other ball players
may have had a better-looking stance. Yet they never led the National
League in hitting in four different years, the way Clemente did.
Not every ballplayer is born with the agility to hit a curveball. Nor
is exceptional hand-eye coordination the key to heavy hitting. Big
league locker rooms are filled with players who have all the
attributes, save one: discipline. Every baseball man can tell you a
story about a pitcher who throws a ball faster than anyone has ever
seen but who has no control on or off the field.
The Hall of Fame is full of people who transformed themselves into
great ball players by working at the sport, by studying the game, and
making sacrifices. They're overachievers-and winners. If you want to
find them, just watch the World Series. Or simply read about New York
Yankee great Lou Gehrig;Ted Williams, "The Splendid Splinter" of the
Boston Red Sox; or the Dodgers Strikeout King Sandy Koufax.
A pitcher should be able to win a lot of ballgames with a 98
mile-per-hour fastball. But what about the pitcher who wins 20 games a
year with a fastball so slow that you can catch it with your teeth? Bob
Feller of the Cleveland INdians got into the Hall of Fame with a
blazing fastball that glowed in the dark. National League Star Grover
Cleveland Alexander got there with a pitch that took considerably
longer to reach the plate; but when it did arrvie, the pitch was
exactly where Alexander wanted it to be-and the last place the batter
expected it to be.
There are probably more players with exceptional ability who didn't
make it to the major leagues than there are who did. A number of great
hitters, bored with fielding practice, had to be dropped from their
team becasue their home-run production didn't make up for their lapses
in the field. And then there are players like Brooks Robinson of the
Baltimore Orioles , who made himself into a human vacuum cleaner at
third base because he knew that working hard to become an expert
fielder would win him a job in the big leagues.
A star is not something that flashes through the sky. Thats a comet. Or
a meteor. A star is something you can steer ships by. It stays in place
and gives off a steady glow; it is fixed, permanent. A star works at
being a star.
And thats how you tell a star in baseball. He shows up night after
night after night and takes pride in how brightly he shines. He's
WIllie Mays running so hard his hat keeps falling off; Ty CObb sliding
to stretch a single into a double; Lou Gehrig, after being fooled in
his first two at-bats, belting the next pitch off the light tower
because he's taken the time to study the pitcher. Stars never take
themselves for granted. That's why the're stars.
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