BATTLERS. That’s what baseball people call baseball players who aren’t big enough to hit a ton of home runs, aren’t fast enough to steal very many bases, aren’t acrobatic enough to win Gold Gloves. They are called battlers because
there is no better way to describe why they hold jobs in the major leagues.
Let the sluggers and leather magicians and burners grab the headlines and the big money. Just let the battlers have uniforms. That’s all they want.
Sometimes the label fits. Sometimes it doesn’t. In the case of Joe McEwing, Rickey Henderson’s replacement in the leadoff spot, it fits as perfectly as an infielder’s glove does on Rey Ordonez’ left hand.
Don’t consult the box score that
shows McEwing twice doubled and once homered off of Randy Johnson in the Mets’ 7-6 sweep-clinching win over the Diamondbacks in front of 38,826 at Shea Stadium.
Instead, consider this statistic. On a damp, dark day in which Johnson compiled 13 strikeouts, 11 of the swinging variety, the 5-foot-10, 170-pound McEwing saw 27 pitches in four at-bats against the 6-10, 230-pound Big Unit. Not once among those 27 pitches did McEwing swing and miss.
Battlers foul off balls. McEwing hit 13 foul balls against Johnson. Battlers step out between pitches. They kick the chalk off the batters’ box. They don’t take gigantic cuts they hope result in SportsCenter moments. They make certain to put wood on it and see what happens from there.
Battlers annoy pitchers. They gain begrudging respect of opponents. They win the admiration of more talented, more secure teammates.
Even Johnson, in the wake of what was by far his worst start of the century and he has made 10 of them, had it in him to throw a compliment McEwing’s way.
“He’s a good little ballplayer,” Johnson said.
A good little ballplayer who had a great day at the expense of the best pitcher in the National League. In doing so, McEwing joined the club of little guys who have had big days against Johnson. Guys like Rex Hudler and Bill Pecota, Neifi Perez and Jeff Reboulet.
“You’ve got to want that situation as a professional,” McEwing said. “You want to go out there and beat the best.”
Wanting and doing are worlds apart when Johnson is standing 60 feet, 6 inches away at the start of his windup, so much closer at that point of release. He can be so intimidating. Battlers don’t scare easily.
McEwing’s first major league hit was against Johnson Sept. 9, 1998 at the Astrodome when McEwing played for the Cardinals. No brag. Just fact.
“I’m a very humble person,” said McEwing, who unlike many fond of saying that, practices what he preaches on that front. “I’m not going to sit here and brag about myself. I’m also a very confident person. I believe in my ability and I go out there and battle every day.”
McEwing, traded by the Cardinals late in spring training for ancient Jesse Orosco, then demoted by the Mets, started the season in Norfolk. Johnson started it with such dominance he took a 7-1 record and 0.97 ERA into yesterday’s dreary day at Shea, one packed with exciting baseball, start to finish.
The Diamondbacks scored a run off of Rick Reed in the first and the temptation was to put the win in the standings for them with Johnson, long locks bouncing from side to side, menacing game face in place, walking to the mound for his first-inning warmups.
Then McEwing started fouling off pitches. Two balls and three McEwing foul balls into his day, Johnson delivered a pitch McEwing smoked to left field for a double. Derek Bell and Edgardo Alfonzo followed with doubles and before Johnson had retired a batter he had lost a lead, the first of three leads Big Unit would lose.
Not that he didn’t have a dominant stretch. Starting with Todd Zeile in the third and ending with pinch hitter Benny Agbayani in the seventh, the Mets went 1 for 13 with one intentional walk (Mike Piazza) and 11 strikeouts.
That streak started after Piazza muscled a homer six rows into the green seats in left field and it ended when McEwing cleared the fence in left, beneath the blue seats. The one hit during the 1 for 13 streak? A McEwing double to left, leading off the fifth, an at-bat that thus far just might have been the at-bat of the century for the Mets.
Three pitches into the 12-pitch at-bat, McEwing had two strikes on him. He fouled off eight pitches, including the last five, before doubling. One of those foul balls was inches from becoming a double down the line. The crowd moaned. McEwing dug his spikes in a little deeper and used his slingshot of a bat to slay the giant again.
“Good little ballplayer,” Johnson said of McEwing again, looking back on the marathon at-bat.
A good little ballplayer who came up big again after Johnson had left the game and a strikeout pitcher of much different ilk was in the ballgame.
Side-winding Byung-Hyun Kim gets his strikeouts (32 in 182/3 innings) on horizontal movement. Three pitches into his ninth-inning confrontation with McEwing, the Korean reliever had two strikes. McEwing worked a walk out of it, stole second and scored on the sort of hit to right field from Derek Bell that makes broadcasters say, “Nice piece of hitting.”
The winning run was scored by a winning ballplayer, a good little ballplayer. A battler. A gladiator.
