A Trying Time for Rookies

By Tom Callahan

Making their pitch, hoping to be a hit

In spring, all the hopeful rookies, aging veterans and years run together, usually in the outfield after a few innings of play, alongside a fence covered with advertisements as the game goes on. Sometimes it seems that there is only one person out there running, always the same man, that he runs until he's old and then he runs until he's young again.

It's a cloudless day in Winter Haven, Fla., where everyone has been taken with No. 21, both the age and the uniform of Boston Red Sox Pitcher Roger Clemens, a righthander who won the deciding game of the past college world series for the University of Texas and spent last summer brightening two minor leagues. Against Detroit a few days ago, Clemens struck out three men on ten pitches, causing Tiger Manager Sparky Anderson to proclaim, "This is the best, most poised young pitcher I've seen since Tom Seaver: great rising fastball, pretty good curve, and he don't get scattery."

The Red Sox are playing Los Angeles now, and Sandy Koufax, who did get scattery when he was 21, has momentarily reappeared at 48 in his Dodger uniform. "One year I got so tired of trying to find home plate," he says, "I dumped all of my equipment in the clubhouse trash can and walked out." Koufax begins to tell a story of his first game at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field, and just as he is giving up a double to Sam Mele, who should happen by in a Red Sox suit but Mele. This is the charm of spring training. Ted Williams is studying Clemens from the rightfield bullpen and slowly working his wrists. Carl Yastrzemski looks up from giving instructions to a nonroster player in a distant batting cage. And sitting in the stands, smiling softly under a baseball cap, is Cecil ("Tex") Hughson, 68, the Red Sox pitching phenom of the '40s, who wore No. 21.

Near by in Sarasota, Chicago White Sox Pitcher Tom Seaver and Catcher Carlton Fisk are still getting acquainted. "Let's just go out and work," Seaver suggested before their first game. "I'll throw, you catch, and we'll sit down and talk about particulars later." The result was three hitless innings, and Seaver is rejuvenated at 39. Had the New York Mets not bungled and lost Seaver in the compensation draft, he would have been certain of his 15th opening-day start, leaving Walter Johnson in the dust. As it turns out, a surprising 19-year-old named Dwight Gooden could open for the Mets, while Seaver may have to follow behind several White Sox pitchers. But he seems unconcerned. A whole new league and audience await him. "I hope I pitch well for them," he says quietly and adds lyrically, "I've never been inside Fenway. It should be an adventure."

It certainly should be. The White Sox are proposing to play a lefthanded fielder at third base. Only a few loitering pitchers have tried it since Washington First Baseman Joe Kuhel attempted one game in 1936, and the modern record for swiveling 90DEG pivots must have been set by Wee Willie Keeler in 44 games over six seasons at the turn of the century. Manager Tony La Russa's idea is to excuse regular Third Baseman Vance Law from facing the ace righthanders and hope the lefthanded bat of former Gold Glove First Baseman Mike Squires is not offset by a nightmare of swinging bunts. "There is a no man's land halfway between the mound and third," Squires admits, "but how many people can bunt the ball consistently? Our pitchers will have to help."

Jim Kaat, probably the best fielding pitcher in history, a collector of 16 gold gloves, is leaning back on a bench in Bradenton, the first Pirate to arrive for the day's game. He is the most experienced major leaguer of all, 25 seasons, 26 if he latches on with Pittsburgh or some other team this year. This appears unlikely. Frankly, his seventh big-league uniform, bright yellow with black stripes, is not his particular favorite. "I feel like a school bus with lips," he says. But he expresses no self-consciousness trying out at 45. "All of us can't leave like Carl Yastrzemski or Johnny Bench," he says. "I don't feel like a one-dimensional person, but I just want to play. Pete Rose wants 200 more hits, but I just want to face one more batter, experience that wonderful anxiety one more time, and then one more time after that."

Before reporting to the Pirates, Kaat had occasion to serve as a counselor in one of those "fantasy camps" now in vogue, where big leaguers present and past drill middle-aged dreamers at perhaps $2,500 a head. "There was this woman playing second base, a 50-year-old woman," he says, "who kept getting bowled over by the runners and still kept coming up holding the ball. She was a gamer. The enthusiasm of those people--I'm not kidding, you had to drag them off the field. Well, it was inspiring." As the other Pirates start to arrive, Kaat pulls on his glove. "Just think," he says, heading out to the bullpen. "I don't even have to pay the $2,500."

Not in the Pirates' camp, as one might expect, but in the Phillies' quarters at Clearwater, Roberto Clemente Jr., 18, is among the fledglings starting out in gray T shirts without numbers, just names stenciled on the back. There seem to be thousands of them. Clemente's shirt says BAMBI "because that's my nickname in Puerto Rico," he says, "and because I want to have my own name." Not intending that to sound harsh, he quickly goes on, "I think of my father all the time, both the player and the man. They say I was six and don't remember him as a player, but I do. I know he gave all he had, and just like him, I'm going to give all I have. I'm sure I have baseball in my blood, but I also like it. I'm not replacing my father, just starting off where he did." Young Clemente is slender but looks strong, maybe 5 ft. 11 in., maybe 170 lbs., and he is specific about his position. "I'm a rightfielder," he says.

--By Tom Callahan