OCR Text |
Show by Jim Murray Carew, Jackson and Lynn keep Sconiers on the bench By anybody's fair yardstick, Daryl Sconiers is a major-league ballplayer. Managers look at the long, level swing, the pure stride into the ball and they drool. Coaches study the slender 6 ft. 2 in. frame with not an ounce of fat on it, the flawless footwork around a base or in the outfield, the perfect throwing form, and they figure he's a picture player a la Fred Lynn or even the great DiMaggio. "He doesnt know how good he is," says teammate Reggie Jackson, who knows how good he is. Sconiers' manager, John McNamara, quotes Hall of Fame Manager Walter Alston to find a comparison: "Walter always said of Manny Mota, 'You could wake him on Christmas morning, give him a bat and he'd go out and get you a single to drive in a run.' Well, that's Daryl Sconiers. Except he could hit in his sleep." So, is this paragon of pristine virtue, this prospect of unparalleled promise, an everyday ballplayer amassing statistics that will one day be measured for entry in the Hall of Fame? Is he on display nightly, pulling hits off distant walls, learning his trade, getting better? Not exactly. What he's doing a lot of the time is leading cheers, waiting for his turn, batting with the irregulars. His problem is as old as baseball, as new as last night's results. He's a first baseman-right fielder, right? Well, how would you like to be a first baseman on a team that already had a guy there who was working on his 3,000th hit, his 16th consecutive year of batting .300 or more, a guy who averages 1.26 hits a game, who has won seven batting championships and will go in the Hall of Fame on the first ballot when he's eligible? How would you like to have to beat out Rod Carew for a job? Maybe you'd like your chances in right field? Well, the ,guy there has hit 493 career home runs, is 25th on the all-time all-time runs batted-in list with 1,485, has hit 10 World Series home runs including three in one game and four in a row? You'd be better off trying to replace Santa Claus. Reggie Jackson belongs to the ages. If Jackson is on the bench or is the designated hitter, you have one of the stylists of the game to take over for him, a young man with the smooth swing and grace of a guy, like you, born to play the game. Fred Lynn is a guy who would be hard to move out of any lineup, including the 1927 Yankees. Baseball is a cruel game. Consider the generations of center fielders who must have come up in the Giants' farm system in Willie Mays' day. Ponder the young sluggers who struggled in the shadow of Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig. The Yankees used to unload fine players past their prime to also-ran clubs like the Browns, players like Myril Hoag or Joe Gallagher, who spent their lives waiting for Babe Ruth or Joe DiMaggio to get Charley horses or hit the disabled list or even get old. Daryl Sconiers might be working on his 1,000th hit today if he came up with the Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners or even the San Diego Padres. There isn't a team in either league that couldn't use his bat in the regular lineup. Except the Angels. There, it's like trying to crack the American League All-Star lineup even though it may be the 1980 All-Star lineup. The Angels are a team full of Names, an act with a lot of marquee value. On almost any other team, Sconiers would have been handed a bat and a glove and been told: "OK, go on out there and come back a Star!" On the Angels, they tell him: "Not yet. We'll call you. Be patient." Sconiers has torn up every minor league he's been in. He rattled 19 homers and 86 runs batted in at Quad Cities as a teenager. At El Paso, he led the Texas League in hitting with .370. He hit .354 with Salt Lake City and .329 with Spokane in the Pacific Coast League. He is hitting a gaudy .375 this year, and the gag among the press-box regulars covering the Angels is that he has a better hitting streak than Joe DiMaggio's. Joe topped out at 56 straight, but Peter Schmuck points out that Sconiers' consecutive-games hitting streak is four months. He has hit safely in every game he's played in in 1984. The thing is, he's only played in nine. He has been disabled by back problems much of the year. Does his stand-in role bother him? Does he sit and wait for the stars to be unable to suit up? Sconiers shakes his head. "I use the time," he explains. "I don't just sit there. I study the pitchers. I try to have a concept in mind before I go to bat. People think, 'OK, this guy's got good eyes and coordination. He just goes up there and hits the ball.' Well, hitting is not that simple. Hitting is learning. "When I was a kid in San Bernardino, we used to have this plate-glass window onto the patio. And I would stand in front of it and see my reflection and check my action. There's a lot of way.s you can learn to play ball besides game action. "I'm not a big strong guy like Pedro Guerrero or Dale Murphy. I don't muscle a ball out. I do it with speed and concentration, like a Musial or somebody." Waiting in line has destroyed a lot of young ballplayers. But it won't, Sconiers believes, if you use the time. After all, some guys meet their future wives that way. Sconiers just hopes to meet his future. (c) 1984, Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate. |