Going into the big four-game White Sox-Cleveland series, there was general agreement on two things. First, unless either team sweeps it will not be a crucial weekend. Second, Kenny Lofton, the Indians’ center-fielder, is likely to develop into baseball’s best leadoff hitter since Rickey Henderson.
At 36, and often on the bench with injuries, Henderson appears to be fading fast and it seems appropriate that Lofton, who is out of East Chicago, Ind., succeed him on the leadoff throne. During a pregame interview Thursday, Lofton said when he was a boy he followed both the Cubs and White Sox but didn’t have a particular hero on either team.
But lying awake at night, tossing in his trundle bed, he often thought of his baseball idol.
“I hoped someday I could be as good as Rickey Henderson-the best leadoff man in baseball history,” Lofton said.
Lofton has a way to go. This is only his third full major-league season, but he is headed in the right direction. He opened the second half with a .378 batting average, third highest in the American League and, with 42 stolen bases, is likely to led the league in thievery a third time.
The record for most seasons leading the league from the start of a career in steals is held by Luis Aparicio of wonderful White Sox memory. Whether Lofton can match Aparicio’s perseverance is not known. What is known is that Lofton is a hard-working young man who has risen from an apparent impoverished background into national diamond prominence.
When asked about his mother and father, Lofton instead spoke with considerable affection about his grandmother, Rosie Person. Which is how it should be.
“She raised me-10 or 12 of us,” Lofton revealed. “Outstanding woman. Sometimes we were pretty bad. But she had that switch out.”
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Sports helped keep Lofton out of trouble. “I played whatever ball I had in my hand-basketball, baseball, football, soccer. I was always playing ball.”
He earned a basketball scholarship to the University of Arizona. A 5-foot-11-inch playmaker, Lofton was a collegiate cage star and didn’t play on the school’s baseball team until the end of his senior year. Then, he appeared in only five games, most of them either as a pinch-hitter or runner.
Still, the Houston Astros selected him on the 17th round in the 1988 summer amateur and free-agent draft. After three years in the Houston system, the Astros were convinced he didn’t have a big-league future and dealt him to Cleveland. This was the trade that helped change the Indians from perennial pumpkins into a contender.
Asked if the trade depressed him, Lofton replied: “I didn’t know what to think-if it was good or bad. I just went along with the flow.”
Joining him in Cleveland, at the same time, was Davey Nelson, a long-time major-league infielder who, after much study, knows everything there is to know about basestealing. “I didn’t have to work with him much,” Nelson recalled. “He’s a natural.”
But the Cleveland coaches and manager Mike Hargrove taught Lofton to be more disciplined at the plate, that his power would increase if he took a pitcher deep into the count. The lessons are now paying off. Lofton has hit 10 home runs this season, four more than his combined total for the previous two years.
“He’s become a terrific all-around player,” observed Cleveland pitcher Jack Morris, a veteran of 17 big-league seasons. “There isn’t anything he can’t do.”
Morris says Lofton is as good a center-fielder as Toronto’s Devon White. “Devo might have a little more speed,” said Morris, “but Kenny has a better arm. They’re both awesome.”
Morris also emphasized that there are few good defensive outfielders today, mostly because an outfielder’s defensive ability is seldom taken into consideration during the salary arbitration hearings. “It does for an infielder, but not for an outfielder,” Morris observed.
Morris and Dennis Martinez, both 39, were signed as free agents last winter and, as General Manager John Hart anticipated, have improved and stabilized the usually mediocre Cleveland staff. They have eight victories each and, together, are seven games over .500.
Both have had distinguished careers, especially Morris, who has pitched on four American League pennant-winning teams: Detroit, Minnesota and Toronto (twice.)
I asked if the current Cleveland club was made of the same stuff.
“Oh, yes,” Morris said. “This team does have what it takes-if all the players apply themselves.”
Morris agreed with what appears to be the unanimous opinion that the four-game series here-along with another four-game set in Cleveland next weekend-won’t necessarily be crucial.
“I don’t think it’s going to mean a lot unless one team dominates and wins six or seven of the eight games,” Morris said. “If it’s 4-4 or 5-3, we’ll be right back where we started from.”
White Sox slugger Frank Thomas also joined in the chorus: “You can’t put too much emphasis on what happens here and in Cleveland. We’re just starting the second half. If we’re going to win the division we’re going to have to do more than beat Cleveland.”