Home Game

by Bret Boone

  There wasn’t much time to mope about it. Three months later, Dad and I flew from Orange County’s John Wayne Airport to Orlando, Florida. We rented a car and drove an hour to the Reds’ spring-training complex in Plant City, where I met my new double-play partner.

  Remember when I said that hitting’s mainly a talent but fielding’s a craft? Today, when I work with young infielders as a special instructor for the Oakland A’s, I drill that into their ears until they’re sick of hearing it. Defense is work, repetition, muscle memory. That’s how you develop the footwork and timing that make tough plays look easy. It has next to nothing to do with your hands.

  When an infielder makes a slick play, you often hear TV announcers say he has “great hands.” Why do they say that? Because they don’t know what they’re talking about. What the announcers think is great hands is actually bad feet. Watch enough games and you start to see how many fielding gems are caused by lousy, lazy footwork. An infielder hangs back on a hard-hit ball. His first step is sideways instead of toward the ball. He’s out of position. At the last instant he stabs at the ball. If he comes up with it, throws to first, gets the runner by a step, the TV guys get all excited. “Great hands!”

  Then there’s the fielder who moves toward the ball with the crack of the bat, hands low, weight on the balls of his feet. His footwork turns the other guy’s bad hop into a routine play. The announcers don’t notice that play, but baseball people do.

  Players I respected had told me about Barry Larkin. They said he was one of those shortstops who make life easier for second basemen. That spring, with about twenty fans in the Reds’ little six-thousand-seat ballpark in Plant City, I found out they were right. Playing the infield with Larkin was like taking BP with Ken Griffey Jr.

  The Reds finished fifth the year before, when Johnson replaced Tony Perez in midseason, but our ’94 team was better. We had Jose Rijo and John Smiley at the top of the rotation. We would have Larkin, Tony Fernandez, Hal Morris, and me in the infield and a potent outfield—Kevin Mitchell in left, Reggie Sanders in right, and (after an early-season trade) football-baseball star Deion Sanders in center. We had a loose clubhouse featuring vets like catcher Joe Oliver, a big, friendly dude who put up with my jokes about his huge head. (I once asked all our teammates, “What would you rather have, a million dollars or Joe Oliver’s head full of nickels?”)

  With “Neon Deion” stealing bases and headlines, the Reds took an early lead in the NL Central Division and stayed on top all season. I batted .316 in April and stayed hot, but that’s not what stands out when I look back on 1994. What stands out is what fun I had learning telepathy.

  That’s how it feels to be in sync with your double-play partner. I’d played with another great shortstop, Omar Vizquel, during my two years in Seattle. On a grounder to me, Omar would move toward second base, rounding toward the bag like a baserunner going the other way, while I fielded the ball. I’d lead him so that my throw reached him just before he got to the base, then he’d drag his toe across the bag and fire a strike to first.

  That’s the optimal double-play ball. Sometimes you have to improvise, and Vizquel was a wizard at that. Throw the ball behind him and he was liable to spin around, barehand it, and still get the runner at first. Omar was a wizard, but I can’t say he was my favorite double-play partner. I was still a newbie in Seattle, kind of a major-league apprentice still learning my craft. We worked well together, but our shortstop–second baseman relationship was more of a solid marriage than a bromance.

  Then I met Lark. Cue the violins.

  Barry Larkin turned thirty the year I got to Cincinnati. He was a five-time winner of the Silver Slugger Award as the National League’s best-hitting shortstop, an All-Star who had already hit .342 in a season and swiped 40 bases in another. Larkin was the only base-stealer I’d put in Rickey Henderson’s class. Pretty soon he’d be voted Most Valuable Player of the National League. None of which meant nearly as much to me as the way he played short. Like a jazzman. Reacting, improvising, never losing his composure, every move as cool as could be. It all started with the sort of footwork that fans, announcers, and even baseball men tend to miss. He seldom backhanded a ball, because he was in position before it got to him. He might have to backhand a rocket to the hole, but that was a ball other shortstops would dive for. He would go on to win three Gold Gloves, the fielding awards voted on by managers and coaches. But he deserved twice as many, if not more. Larkin wasn’t seen as Vizquel’s equal as a fielder, but nobody saw him up close like I did, and I think he was as good as Ozzie Smith.

  Purists and Reds pitchers knew how special Larkin was. I guess I was one of the purists because I felt something weird when we worked together—kind of like meeting a twin you never knew you had. I’d be diving for a ball up the middle, chasing one behind the first baseman, or charging a bunt, and I knew where he was. I could sense it. Lark knew where I was, too. There were times when we made no-look throws to empty spaces, tosses that should have rolled into the outfield or foul territory, and the other guy was there. If one of us broke his toe, the other would probably holler in pain.

  Not too many second basemen and shortstops have that kind of mind-meld, but the ones who do turn a lot of double plays.

  Every double-play combination’s different. Some guys like to shovel the ball underhand, while others set themselves for an overhand throw with more zip. Some like a chest-high relay toss, some like the ball a little higher. Some push off the bag and jump to make the throw to first, others stay lower and cross second base while they throw. And all our preferences go out the window when we have to improvise, reacting to the speed of a grounder, the speed of the batter, and the runner sliding—or barreling—into second base to break up a double play.

  There’s a code to cover that situation. You won’t find it in the rulebook. The code is an unwritten set of rules that ballplayers understand because…well, just because. There’s no rule against stealing a base when your team’s ahead 10–0, but you don’t do it. It’s against the code. It’s wrong and stupid to show up the other team, especially in baseball, where tonight’s losers can blow out the winners tomorrow night, and if you’re the guy who stole with a ten-run lead, tomorrow’s starting pitcher might stick a fastball in your ear. Which would also be against the code. Usually.

  The code says you don’t throw at somebody’s head—except in retaliation for serious code violations by the other team, like throwing at somebody’s head. You don’t walk a guy late in the game if he’s working on a hitting streak of 15 or 20 or more games (unless the game is on the line). You don’t bunt for a hit against a pitcher who’s working on a no-hitter (unless you hate his guts). Because you’d be a jerk if you did. A busher, an amateur. The code comes down from veterans to rookies, generation after generation. It hasn’t changed much since Dad’s day, or Gramps’s day, and it has nothing to do with fans, managers, agents, reporters, or anybody outside the foul lines. It prevents more fights than it causes.

  Like I said, one subsection of the code covers the double-play pivot. The shortstop or second baseman taking the relay throw is often a sitting duck. Sometimes he’s in midair, sometimes he’s pushing off second base with one leg. A clean, hard slide can disrupt the double play but a dirty one can hurt or even cripple the fielder. If my spikes catch in the dirt and a runner crashes into me, rolling up my ankle, he could snap my leg in half. I want to avoid that, and as a fielder I’ve got one weapon to fight back with. I’ve got the ball.

  A minor-league coach of mine, Marty Martinez, had a saying: “Somebody screws with your family, you screw with his.” By family, Marty meant your health, your career, everything family relies on. A runner barreling into second with his spikes high, or going ten feet out of the baseline to knock you down, or blocking your throw by waiting too long to slide, he’s antifamily. You have every right to throw the ball between his eyes.

  I practically killed a guy on a play like that. This was in Double-A ball. A runner came charging
into second as I was making the relay throw, and I don’t know if he was mad or just absentminded, but he did not slide. Now, you don’t need the code to know that nobody breaks up a double play standing up. So I did what I was supposed to do. I fired the ball at his face. It’s his job to get out of the way. The next thing I heard was a crunchy clanging sound. The ball banged right off the bill of his helmet. It bounced all the way to the first-base stands on the fly. He stood there blinking like the ball just woke him up. Lucky guy—he needed a new helmet instead of a new nose.

  Best of all, the ump called him out for runner’s interference, so we got the double play.

  By the middle of 1994 Lark and I had settled in as one of the best double-play combos in the league. Some people would go further than that. They’d say “the best in Reds history, one of the best ever.” I’m way too polite to disagree. We made tough plays look routine. Our footwork was like clockwork. When it broke down due to a bad hop or a swinging bunt or a ball that got tipped by the pitcher or another infielder, we improvised. Double-play balls or other force plays at second meant one thing to me: get the ball to Larkin ASAP. Nothing means more to a middle infielder than an extra split second. On a grounder between me and Hal Morris, the first baseman, I’d go into short right field for the ball, then spin toward center field with my back to the plate to make the throw to second. If I knocked down a shot up the middle and my momentum took me past the ball, I might try to kick it to Barry. Whatever it took to get him the ball. He did the same for me. The difference between us and an ordinary shortstop and second baseman might be an extra out every game or two, but the difference adds up. Sometimes I’d actually smile in the middle of a double play, knowing we were turning one that most teams wouldn’t.

  I was happy to be in Cincinnati, fired up about the Reds’ future. The main weirdness we had to deal with was when the owner stuck a dead dog’s fur in our pockets. Marge Schott, the colorful, chain-smoking, maybe slightly crazy owner, adored Schottzie, her St. Bernard. Schottzie was Marge’s good-luck charm. He used to romp around Riverfront Stadium, peeing on the Astroturf. Till he died. She kept a bunch of his fur, and told us it was lucky. I’d be coming down the tunnel from the clubhouse to the field when I felt a hand in my back pocket. It was Marge, sticking some Schottzie fur in there. “Boonie,” she said, “you’re going to have a big night.”

  Larkin was an All-Star in 1994, as usual. Maybe I should have been, too, but the National League second basemen that year were Craig Biggio, the Dodgers’ Mariano Duncan, and the Pirates’ Carlos Garcia. (Carlos Garcia? I was hitting .310 at the break with 49 RBIs to his .267 and 20.) I wound up the season batting .320, fourth in the National League. Davey Johnson’s Reds led the NL Central wire to wire, but we picked the wrong year to win the division, because our toughest opponent wasn’t the second-place Houston Astros. It was a bunch of old men we couldn’t beat. The owners.

  Remember my worries about having Dad on the Reds’ bench? Forget ’em. I should have known we’d be fine because he’s the ultimate pro. At the park he was purely professional. We were player and coach. He never looked at me or spoke to me any differently than he dealt with anybody else. Then we’d go to dinner and be father and son again. He’d fill me in on what the rest of the family was up to back home in Orange County. Matt was a freshman at Villa Park High School, where he’d soon be a pro prospect, and Mom was busy driving to his high school ballgames, keeping score as always.

  Aaron had gone on to star for Mike Gillespie at USC. (What a copycat!) He sat by the phone during the major-league draft that June, but didn’t have to wait as long as I did in 1990. The Reds selected Aaron in the third round, 72nd overall, making Cincinnati the game’s first three-Boone franchise. Nomar Garciaparra, Paul Konerko, and Jason Varitek went in the first round that year. A. J. Pierzynski, who was still catching for the Braves last time I looked, went one pick ahead of Aaron. A few weeks later my little bro Arnie started his climb to the majors by reporting to rookie ball in Billings, Montana.

  Dad and I sat in the home dugout at Riverfront Stadium, looking forward to the playoffs. In August we were half a game ahead of an Astros club featuring Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio, and then the season stopped. The players went on strike. We walked out and stayed off the field. Why? Simple: The collective bargaining agreement between owners and the players’ union was about to expire. The owners wanted a better deal in the next agreement—a historically, radically, screw-you-dumb-jocksically one-sided deal. They had colluded—cheated—to hold players’ salaries down in the late 1980s but swore they were losing money. They said there’d be no new agreement unless the players accepted a salary cap. That was the one thing we’d never agree to. Baseball had never had one, and never will as long as sports’ best union exists.

  Our leverage was limited. The players could wait till the off-season to negotiate, or we could stage a walkout, threatening the owners’ fattest cash cow, the pennant races and postseason, with their megamillions in ticket sales, concessions, and TV revenue. We figured that Bud Selig, the Milwaukee Brewers owner who was the game’s acting commissioner, and his fellow owners wouldn’t want to screw the fans by refusing to negotiate in good faith. That might threaten or even eliminate the playoffs and World Series.

  So we went on strike. On August 12, the players refused to play. We invited the owners to sit down with us and hash out an agreement in time to save the postseason.

  I was 100 percent behind the union. In fact I was the Reds’ assistant player representative, working with player rep Hal Morris. That was unusual for a guy my age. Unusual and risky, since I was still establishing myself in the big leagues. I was a third-year player, new to the team, and management didn’t like uppity players. Most union reps were older, better-known guys who couldn’t disappear without making news. Younger players who got active in the union tended to get traded or sent to the minors for mysterious reasons.

  Why did I take the risk? Pride, for one thing. I’m conservative by temperament, a Republican my whole life. I’m pro-business. When Democrats say we should take from the rich and give to the poor, I say, Why? This is America—we’re all about competition. Let’s compete and applaud the winners because they earn it.

  Sports is different. Pro athletes aren’t interchangeable workers. We’re entertainers. Nobody expects Tom Cruise, Taylor Swift, or Jay-Z to settle for a pay scale, and ballplayers are no different. We’re the top 1 percent of the 1 percent of college players who sign pro contracts. We’re the ones you pay to see. In fact, I’ll bet you never once said, “I can’t wait to see my favorite owner’s team in action.”

  Over dinner one night, Dad told me about his work with Marvin Miller in the 1970s. Miller, the players’ union chief, went to federal court to beat the reserve clause tying players to their teams forever. His legal victories over the owners led to free agency, arbitration, and all the other manifestations of players’ right to a fair slice of Major League Baseball’s $10-billion-a-year pie. As we finished eating, Dad urged me to get involved in the union. “Educate yourself,” he said. “It’s your turn.”

  That’s what I did. I joined Morris, our team’s player representative, on conference calls with union chief Donald Fehr and player reps from the other twenty-seven clubs. Fehr was one of the sharpest men I’d ever met. His mastery of the legal issues, the game’s economics, and our long- and short-term strategy blew me away. I was also impressed by union leaders like Steve Rogers, the Expos pitcher. Veterans like Rogers, Tom Glavine, Paul Molitor, and Doug DeCinces proved they were true leaders as the strike went on for weeks and months. It helped that we were in the right, while management was greedy and selfish enough to blow up the game if it helped break our union. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and Orioles owner Peter Angelos were exceptions. “The game’s healthy. Let’s make a deal and get our teams back on the field,” Steinbrenner said. Acting commissioner Selig and most of the others disagreed, with White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf leading the union-haters. They were will
ing to risk the playoffs, the World Series, and even the 1995 season to put us in our place.

  How could Selig, the Brewers’ owner, be “acting commissioner”? Good question. Ever since Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a federal judge, became the first commissioner in 1920, the commissioner of baseball was supposed to be an impartial figure who could act “in the interests of baseball.” Not the interests of owners or players, but of the game. Still, the owners had the power to hire and fire commissioners, and in 1992 they fired Fay Vincent for being impartial. Vincent called the owners’ collusion in the ’80s “a $280 million theft by Selig and Reinsdorf from the players. I mean, they rigged the signing of free agents. They got caught and had to pay $280 million to the players.” He was the last independent commissioner. Once they dumped him, the owners gave the job to one of their own.

  Now they were threatening to hire more than seven hundred “replacement players” and go on without us. Did they really think fans couldn’t tell the difference between the best players in the world and a bunch of minor-league scabs? We didn’t. We knew we could win if we stayed unified. That’s why I got so angry at players who griped about the union. In almost every case, they knew nothing about the issues.

  “Boonie, we’ve got to get this over with. It’s costing me money.”

  These were teammates, even friends. Guys I used to respect. They weren’t interested in how players in Gramps’s generation got swindled their whole careers. They didn’t care about the sacrifices Dad’s generation made while Marvin Miller and players like Curt Flood, Andy Messersmith, and Catfish Hunter won the court battles that were making us millionaires—battles that we were now fighting for ourselves and the players who’d come up after us. They didn’t know or care that the owners had broken the law by colluding to hold our salaries down. All these guys cared about was their next paycheck.