Cardinals camp tour: McGwire has staying power, thanks to teaching
JUPITER, Fla. -- It is 6:15 a.m. when the most controversial batting coach in the majors pulls into a mostly empty parking lot, exits his Chevy Tahoe and pushes his way through the last gasps of darkness. Dawn is somewhere just over the horizon as the lonely figure steps into the St. Louis Cardinals clubhouse and edges another day deeper into his brand-new life.
When full-squad workouts begin in a few days, he figures he'll probably have to adjust and arrive even earlier. Maybe 6. Maybe before that. Mark McGwire prefers to knock off his own workout before the Cardinals, young and old, begin arriving and, like a professor keeping office hours, the rest of his day fills up with hungry students stacked with questions.
"It's like I told my wife," McGwire says. "I said, 'Hey, listen, if I'm doing this, I'm doing it 150 percent.' I told her, 'You know how much I enjoy teaching.' And I told all these kids, if you want me here at the crack of dawn, I'll be here at the crack of dawn. If you want me until the sun goes down, I'll be here.
"The way I look at it, hitting is such a process, it takes time. But if they can take one percent, two percent of what I've just explained to them and they can work on this in the seven weeks of spring training, I know they're going to be a better player. That's the way I look at it. Because nothing ever happens overnight. It doesn't happen in a year. And it's such a process.
"But, to put them into the right position that I see where they see it, they feel it and they understand it, it's very gratifying."
That McGwire is here at any hour is the subject of howls of derision in many corners of the baseball world.
That he is here at all hours mostly thrills the Cardinals, who are rallying around their fallen icon as the long road toward the World Series -- and the long road toward McGwire's image rehabilitation -- begins with the first steps of spring.
"You can see the passion he has for the game," says second baseman Skip Schumaker, who has worked under McGwire's tutelage in the winters in Southern California since 2006. "He's going to be great for everybody. He loves to teach. He's willing to teach forever. If you want him, he'll stay forever.
"He's only ready to leave when you've had enough."
The Cardinals, unsure of what to expect, have staffed extra security and hired a member of the Jupiter, Fla., police department. The officer mainly patrols the grounds around McGwire, escorting him to the back fields when the schedule calls for it and making sure there's no trouble.
But we've already traveled down those dirty steroid roads many other times in many other columns.
Today, what we've got is post-confession McGwire. Unplugged.
"Teaching hitting," McGwire says quietly. "I really, really enjoy doing it."
He is overjoyed to be back in uniform. He talks at length about the learning curve he expects. He rhapsodizes about how there is an "art to coaching, which I have to experience and learn."
As ever, manager Tony La Russa has his back.
"He's already explained and apologized more than anyone else in history," La Russa was saying the other day. "As we go forward, anybody tries to interrupt what he's doing in getting the team ready is going to be stiff-armed."
And how are the working conditions in your office?
Thwack!
It is 11:20 a.m. and the most notorious batting coach in the majors is surrounded by the music of his craft, conducting the rhythm of his office. The batting cage, located roughly 50 yards from the door of the Cardinals clubhouse, is alive with the crack of the bat, the echoes of the past and the optimistic chatter of hitters planning for career years ahead.
At the center of the activity is McGwire, 46, working in a small group with NL MVP Albert Pujols and journeyman outfielder Ruben Gotay. McGwire carefully places baseballs onto a tee for Pujols to whack, and together the two make their points to Gotay -- who intently watches Pujols' textbook swing.
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THINGS TO KNOW
"All of it is muscle memory," McGwire says.
Thwack!
"Put yourself in the same position each time."
Thwack!
"The tee will tell you everything you're doing right. And the tee will tell you everything you're doing wrong."
Thwack!
"The way I look at it is, guys hit at the baseball instead of through the baseball," McGwire says. "Only one or two guys have energy swinging all the way through the baseball: Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez."
Odd thing is, he says none of his teammates ever asked him about hitting when he played. Maybe the crush of the media kept them away. Maybe a few were as intimidated by the behemoth as some of the opposing pitchers who gave up 583 McGwire home runs. Perhaps it was his .263 career batting average.
Maybe, they just figured McGwire was too busy chasing after ghosts.
"Nobody ever quizzed me," McGwire says. "Nobody ever asked me questions."
When he retired in 2001, he really hadn't thought much at all about coaching. He hadn't thought much about teaching. It wasn't until Eric Karros called in his waning days as a Cub in 2003 and asked him to take a look at his swing that McGwire really even considered himself as a mentor.
What he found was, he loved it. Really, truly loved it. And not long after Karros, Chris Duncan, the former Cardinals outfielder and son of St. Louis pitching coach Dave Duncan, came to McGwire for advice. His brother Shelley, followed. Hey Mark, would you mind? Sure. Be glad to.
Soon, it became like that television commercial. Tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and they tell four friends and ... well, it wasn't long before an unofficial extension course was being offered in the batting cages at the University of California-Irvine, not far from where McGwire lives, and at a couple of other nearby cages.
"I just loved doing it," McGwire says. "Players who lived in the area would say, 'Hey, would you like to come and watch me?' That's how it started."
Schumaker, the Cardinals' second baseman, joined the club. Veteran outfielder Garret Anderson sometimes showed up to work. Infielder Garrett Atkins. Slugger Matt Holliday.
"A mixture of guys came in," McGwire says. "I'd see them. Not that I'd work with all of them."
One day two winters ago, a couple of UC Irvine players -- Bryan Petersen and Tyler Vaughn -- heard the sound of wood bats in the cages, heard Holliday was swinging and went to check it out. Schumaker, who attended UC Santa Barbara but lives near Irvine, was there, too.
"We sat and watched for about two weeks," says Petersen, now a top prospect with the Florida Marlins who is in major league camp this spring. "One of us finally asked a question. Mark talked to us and said, 'Hey, pop in if you have another question.'
"He'd get there around 12 o'clock every day. So we'd somehow find ourselves there about 12 o'clock, too."
Somehow.
The more McGwire offered, the more Petersen listened.
"It's a real simple swing," Petersen says of McGwire's philosophy. "A straight line, down to the ball. He really preaches that the quickest distance between two points is a straight line. He's super-big on the mental game, and on vision.
"As far as knowledge, you're not going to find anyone better. I thought it was great, because I'd just sit and listen. Then my roommate and I would go home, watch SportsCenter at night, have our bats in our hands and sit around talking and figuring out what he was saying."
Your eyes tell your mind what to do, McGwire would tell them, and then your mind tells your body -- the key principle that Mac had taught himself back in the days when he was chasing ghosts. Ahem.
"He's an incredible person, man," Petersen says. "I have nothing but good things to say about him. His generosity of time ... he didn't have to do that. Especially with us."
What McGwire discovered during these informal and sometimes impromptu sessions was that the more he gave, the more he actually received.
He found himself watching more baseball than he had since he retired in 2001. He TiVo'd games just so he could lock in on the at-bats of those with whom he'd worked. Schumaker. Holliday.
Why, last season he even found himself ordering the MLB Extra Innings package so he could get every game on television at home, he was so into it. Certain at-bats led to text messages or voice-mail exchanges with Schumaker and others. Vision. Straight line to the ball. Put yourself in the same position each time.
"Tony had always talked to me about Mark," Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak says. "Even I had some correspondence with Mark in the last year-and-a-half, centered around his insights into different hitters."
Those insights astounded Mozeliak.
"Just the fact that he was watching, paying attention in detail," the GM says. "The substantial knowledge he had, to me, was extraordinarily impressive."
Phone call by phone call, text message by text message, what was happening was, the exiled icon's return to baseball was taking shape the old-fashioned way: Really, he was selling himself. Without even realizing it.
"That's exactly what happened," Mozeliak says. "In essence, with what he was saying, he was more than qualified. He was reaching out to us with insight."
Insight he began accumulating in earnest in 1992, when his own favorite batting coach began imparting wisdom that stuck with McGwire through the years. It was Doug Rader, the Red Rooster himself, who really first reached him.
"He made me realize that this game, as difficult as it is, let's not complicate it," McGwire says. "That's where I started thinking more about the mental game than the physical. Some coaches had given me things to do, but never a purpose. I never knew why they told me to do things. With Doug, I knew. He explained it."
It is 2:30 p.m. and perhaps the most thankful batting coach in the majors, having just emerged from the cage for the last time on this day, is seated at a picnic table between the Cardinals clubhouse he once dominated and the cage that's now his domain. His past now rapidly melting into his future.
"I didn't know if I'd ever get back into the game," he says, quietly. "Timing is everything.
"When Tony sent me a text message last year saying he was considering a change in hitting coaches [from Hal McRae], I was tickled to death he would even consider me."
There is no police escort this late in the day. There are neither spotlights nor television cameras. Most of the players scattered for the afternoon long ago. Having overseen the final swings of the last player in the cage -- today, it was outfielder Nick Stavinoha -- McGwire, against a backdrop of sunny skies and chirping birds, talks of the rainbows he sees up ahead.
During the course of a wide-ranging, 30-minute conversation, I ask whether he thinks he'll ever reach the point where he's yesterday's news.
"Once everything gets going, the thing is, I'm not playing," McGwire says. "That's the deal. ... I'm not on the field, I'm in the dugout. To me, it's never bothered me if the media didn't talk about me. If you don't talk about me, you're not going to hurt my feelings. If they never bring up my name again, it won't hurt my feelings.
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Sleeper ... Brad Penny: He has never been an ace, but under the tutelage of pitching guru Dave Duncan, he could have one of his better seasons, perhaps even winning 15 games. He probably won't cost you much even in NL-only leagues. Bust ... Ryan Franklin: He isn't a bad reliever, but he didn't impress with his average of 6.5 strikeouts per nine innings, especially when most closers at least approach a strikeout per inning. The role demands a pitcher be nearly unhittable, and turning 37 only figures to make Franklin's stuff more ordinary. Pitching for a contender helps his case, but not if he doesn't pitch well enough to keep his job. Breakout ... Colby Rasmus: At age 23, Rasmus probably won't hit his stride for a couple more years, but he at least figures to take a big step forward this year. If they Cardinals let him run more than he did last year, a 20-20 season is possible. -- Scott White Top Cardinals Prospects (2010 destination) 1. Jaime Garcia, SP, Triple-A 2. David Freese, 3B, Majors 3. Allen Craig, OF, Majors 4. Shelby Miller, SP, Class A 5. Daryl Jones, OF, Triple-A |
| Cardinals outlook | 2010 Draft Prep Guide |
"There's too many great things happening in this game, too many great players in this game, to not talk about them."
For all of the sound and fury in the immediate aftermath of his confession, the media blitzkrieg appears to have moved on. Over the course of two recent days here, it's pretty much been, as Mozeliak says, "business as usual." The most bored man in camp has to be the policeman shadowing McGwire.
"It's been good," McGwire says. "Like I told people time and time again, it's time to move on and turn the page. Let's move forward. Quite honestly, I think the general public is really tired of the subject. MLB and the players association are doing a great job with the testing. It looks like they've got a great policy in place, with suspensions. Let's move forward. So far, so good."
Back in Cardinals red, No. 25 again on his back, McGwire at once looks comfortably familiar yet uncomfortably awkward. He's noticeably less bulky than he was in the late '90s. Noticeably. Yet he appears trim enough to step into the cage to take a few hacks -- something La Russa ominously suggested could happen during the winter.
No, a decade ago McGwire never would have envisioned sitting at this picnic table as the hitting coach of the Cardinals. Then again, he never could have foreseen a few of the other, uh, twists and turns his life has taken, either.
"It's life," he says. "We always have bumps in the road. We have good highways to run on, but it's just life. You know what? The man upstairs only gives you what you can handle. That's the way I look at things. Life's never easy. It's not like I sat back and said, 'This is what I want to be doing.'
"But you know what? One thing I was doing, I started another family. That's why I retired. My kids are at a great age. They sort of know what dad did, but not really. ..."
Now he gets to share it all over again with Max, 7, and Mason, 6.
But the tradeoff is, now they have to share him with his 25 other "kids."
One of the great things about having McGwire in the dugout, Schumaker says, is that now they won't have to communicate through texts and voice mails. Now, Schumaker's favorite consultant will be right there alongside him in the dugout, lessons available after each at-bat.
The prospect of moments like those is no small part of what re-ignited McGwire's baseball pilot light.
"The unfortunate thing is when you work with somebody like that and then can't be with him all the time to make changes," McGwire says. "That's the tough thing. Like Skip said, we can make adjustments in person now."
"It's kind of surreal, to tell you the truth," says rookie David Freese, the leading contender to win the Cards' third-base job this spring. "Being a kid growing up in St. Louis who got a chance to watch him ... I think all of us are really pumped up that he's bringing his knowledge to us."
There is no blueprint for this. There is no sanitized script. They think they have a pretty good idea of how it will go, but none of these Cardinals -- not La Russa, not Schumaker, not McGwire -- can be sure of a blood-less ending.
McGwire by far is the highest-profile player busted for steroids who has apologized and subsequently been granted re-entry into the game. Somewhere, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds must be re-thinking their strategies.
"I don't have any expectations," McGwire says softly. "We'll just see how it goes.
"I'm sure there will be some angry people, but there are a lot of people I run into in the street who are happy that I came forward and did what I did. So that's all yet to be seen. But it goes back to what I said earlier: It's really time to move on."
It is the dawn of a new day, and Mark McGwire is in a place he never planned on being, in a sleepy Florida town he figured he left for good long ago, and at the beginning of a second chance that he never thought would arrive.
This must be what the view is like from the other side of the prison wall.
This must be what fresh air smells like after the storm front has moved through.
As Schumaker says, if you want him, he'll stay forever.
You bet he will.
