ANAHEIM, Calif. -- There are two groups of people who really don't much like Gary Sheffield.
One is opposing pitchers. The other? Many fans who have listened to Sheff pop off before leaving one city and shuffling off to the next and immediately pegged him as a temperamental jerk.
|
|
| Gary Sheffield is off to a cold start, but he's not alone in Detroit. (Getty Images) |
Things became so bleak that Detroit manager Jim Leyland gave him a day off Sunday just so he could clear all of those 6-3's and K's from his head. Then Leyland eyeballed the lineup and saw lifetime .300 hitter Sean Casey at .180, Craig Monroe at .186. Brandon Inge at .125 and delivered a Southern California sermon.
"People have got to get away from Sheffield," Leyland growled on Monday. "We've got a whole lot of guys not hitting. We've got to talk about our team. Our team is not hitting.
"We've got to get away from zeroing in on Sheffield."
Fair enough, except that Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski pulled off what everybody thought was the steal of the winter by acquiring Sheffield from the Yankees in November. The deal was made specifically to fill one of the few weaknesses in the defending AL champions' lineup.
Now, what you won't see in Sheffield's box score line along with all of those other low numbers are these: Zero toilets smashed, zero Gatorade jugs pounded and zero fits of clubhouse rage.
Which brings us to that other group who would rather see Sheffield continue struggling: Fans who blanch at his outspokenness, be it his daily ripping of the Dodgers before the 2002 season to force his way out of Dodge or his accusing baseball this spring of being on a "witch hunt" to get Barry Bonds.
Common public perception of Sheffield: That of a ticking time bomb who will explode at the slightest provocation.
But here's the thing that speaks volumes and plays hard into that .297 lifetime batting average, 456 career homers and .398 career on-base percentage: Even with a steam shovel, you couldn't dig up an ex-teammate or current teammate who has even the slightest bad thing to say about the guy.
Sheffield might be more misread than any current player in the game, and now that he's struggling, it's especially instructive because it is part of what is certain to lead him out of the darkness and back into the spotlight.
"He's a professional, he knows he's going to hit," Casey said. "I remember one time already this season, I came back to the bench after an out like, 'Uncle', and he told me, 'You've gotta keep grinding it out.'"
