Anybody else and he would have been laughed out of town, but Michael Jordan has been rewarded with a minor-league contract and an invitation to the White Sox spring training camp. And as I was watching him prance through his “workout” and listened in on his press conference, a fellow baseball writer, Phil Rogers of the Dallas Morning News, said:
“Michael, you’re going to find out how good a ballplayer Mike Huff really is.”
My sentiments, exactly.
Huff, an accomplished outfielder with nine years of professional experience, is once again on the bubble. Last year, on the final day of spring training, Huff was bumped from the White Sox roster, to make room for Bo Jackson. If Jordan makes the club, which I doubt, Huff may have to go down again.
Still, Huff, who hit only .182 last season, is by far the better ballplayer in all areas of play. He is an outstanding fielder, ideal in his role as a late-inning defensive player. He can make a diving catch, knows how to hit the cutoff man, and what base to throw to. And though he has only occasional power, he is a much stronger hitter.
Jordan, at best, will be concentrating only on making contact. It will be a triumph every time he doesn’t strike out.
“Everybody guesses,” Jordan insisted.
The popular and erroneous belief, obviously held by Jordan, is that big-league hitters, to survive, are “guess hitters”-that is, they try to guess what the pitch will be. For example, if they guess it will be a curve, they can adjust by delaying and adjusting their swing. If it’s a fastball, they start their swing an instant sooner, etc.
I respectfully recommend that Jordan get a copy of a newly published book, “Pure Baseball” (Harper-Collins, $21), by the recently retired Keith Hernandez, who had a long and distinguished playing career.
Page 118:
“If the hitter tried pure guessing very often, he’d be looking for another job because guessing, unlike looking, is all-or-nothing and good hitters rarely guess at the plate. If you set up mentally for the breaking ball or the changeup but the fastball comes in instead, you’re dead.
“If you set up for one zone on two strikes and the pitch comes into the other zone, that’s guessing and that’s dumb, because you can’t take that pitch. You have to protect the entire plate and you’re not likely to get the meat of the bat on the ball.
“Another type of guess is when you’re so confident of a zone that you alter your stance radically in preparation. If it works, you’re brilliant; if it doesn’t you’re wiped out.”
Hernandez recalled a game he saw on television between the Dodgers and the Expos:
“Stan Bahnsen was pitching for the Expos. Steve Garvey was batting. I forget the inning but remember what happened clearly: Exactly when Bahnsen checked the runner on first base, Garvey took one quick step away from the plate. I’d never seen anyone do this after the pitcher had taken his stretch, and the timing was so perfect Bahnsen didn’t see Garvey do it.
“This step away from the plate could mean only one thing. Garvey was looking (for a) fastball inside, and the step away would bring that inside pitch right into his power zone. He got that pitch and pounded a two-run homer.
“Not long after that when I saw Steve, I said, `You sly dog.’ He just looked at me. I added, `I saw you on TV against Bahnsen.’ Then he knew I knew and laughed.”
This is not to suggest that a big-league rookie should be expected to be as wise as Steve Garvey. It has been said many times that baseball is a game played by little boys in the schoolyard. But it isn’t a boys’ game at the professional level.
If he makes the spring training cut, Jordan will discover, to his apparent surprise, that there is considerably much more to big-league baseball than meets the eye. As Andre Dawson often has said, “There’s the game the fans see and another game inside the game.”
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Jordan emphasized that he’s very serious about a major-league baseball career. “It’s no gimmick,” he insisted.
I can understand his desire. What I can’t understand is why General Manager Ron Schueler, who certainly knows better, and some of the White Sox players insist on prolonging the myth.