The next year (in 1977) I go to spring training and the Royals have it in their mind that they are going to make me into a switch hitter. It was really kind of weird because I had never really considered it. But I was willing to try because, in my brain, if I tried hard and was doing what they wanted me to do I would have a better chance to make it to the big leagues.
They told me early in spring training that I would be going to AAA where I could learn to switch hit. But I stayed on the wall a long time that year, and I was going to try like hell to hit left-handed and do what they told me to do. Whitey took me aside and told me that even if I was hitting a dollar-and-something (in the .100s) just keep at it.
I had never hit .300 in the minor leagues, but I always had a lot of stolen bases. So, when I get there that spring they were thinking about me with the idea if I could steal that many bases hitting .250 or .270 like I had been – how many more could I get if I was hitting even .290? I don’t think they ever had in their mind that I could hit .300.
I couldn’t hit a slider. I could always hit a fastball. But the slider, I couldn’t ever hit that consistently. When I got there they kept talking to me, talking to me about moving over to the other side and learning how to switch hit.
A slider from a right handed pitcher breaks away from a right-handed batter. It starts at you, then a really good one only breaks a few inches. It looks like a fastball when it leaves the pitcher’s hand, and in the minor leagues with those wild guys I would always be a little tentative. If you were batting left-handed, then the slider from a right-handed pitcher would be breaking in toward you just a couple of inches. And you wouldn’t have a tendency to bail out like you would as a right-handed batter.
Every morning at spring training Chuck Hiller and I would come out and go to the batting cage for 45 minutes while everyone else was exercising. We would be down there hitting left-handed. I had never hit left-handed, professionally ... I mean, I would do it in softball games or just fooling around, but I had never done it against a pitcher. And it wasn’t just me they wanted to make a switch-hitter. U.L. Washington was down there with me.
I don’t know why it was Chuck Hiller who was working with me. I think Charley Lau had to work with a lot of hitters and just didn’t have time to be going one-on-one with me. He had 12 other guys to take care of. And maybe Whitey thought that Chuck and I would get along a little better.
The Royals may have saved my career when they made me learn how to switch hit.
I’m down there in the batting cages trying to figure out how to hit left-handed. I’m getting jammed with pitches right on my hands. I’m getting beat up. My hands are killing me because I’m in the cage so long. Trainers are wrapping my hands like a boxer’s because they are just torn up. It was before everybody was wearing gloves all the time. Guys are laughing at me, joking at me, all this kind of stuff. They all knew I was hurting.
But I was actually having a pretty good spring that year, and I actually thought I could make the team, be one of those guys who jump from AA right to the major leagues. The outfielders were AO in center, AC (Al Cowens) in right. In left field they had Pokey (Tom Poquette) and Joe Zdeb. So, I really thought I could make it.
But they had plans. Whitey (Herzog) tells me after spring training that he’s going to send me to AAA because he knows I can be in the lineup every day. And he says, “No matter if you hit .100 don’t quit trying to become a switch hitter.” I was like, “OK, if that’s what you guys want me to do.”
So, for the first time in my career I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to not failing. Becoming a switch-hitter was something I was going to work on. Maybe because I was naïve about a lot of stuff, but I didn’t put any pressure on myself. I was already moving up every year when I was hitting .250 or .270 something. So, maybe this could help me move up.
All the pitchers in the league knew I was hitting left-handed for the first time ever. So, they would throw the ball right at me, and I didn’t know how to get out of the way. When you are not used to hitting on that side, you are not used to rolling with the pitch or how to bail out. I would just open up and it would hit me in the chest or the face or something. I would just freeze.
I don’t even remember who was pitching this particular day, but he threw it right at me. I couldn’t move. I didn’t know which way to go, so I just yelled, “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!’ I looked at him, and I got really mad. He threw another fastball inside, and I just swing at it as hard as I could. It shot over the third-baseman’s head. It hit the line fair, popped into foul territory and went out and hugged the wall. I circled the bases and then I went:, “Hey, this thing might work.”
I ended up hitting .281 I think, stole 70-some bases. It was just so much fun because I was getting on base. Even if I didn’t get a hit I was getting on base because of an error or something. Guys who were fielding the ball were rushing because of my speed. Sometimes I wouldn’t get credit for a hit because the scorers would make it an error, but I was getting on base, and when I got on base I was causing havoc for those guys. The catchers hated it, and we were winning.
That was a really good team in Omaha. Clint Hurdle played right field, U.L. Washington was the shortstop. Rich Gale was pitching on that team. A lot of guys on that team made a little pit stop in the Major Leagues. But those four of us came off that team and we were together quite a few years on the Royals.
AAA was the stopping point for a lot of guys who didn’t make it to the Major Leagues. So, the guys you were playing against were pretty good players.
I came up at the end of the season to the Royals, again, and I hit .324 in that last month with a couple of doubles and six stolen bases. I was feeling pretty good about where I was. Then the light really came on in the off season that year when I went and played in the Dominican Republic.
You know those years when I was struggling to get even one hit I think it was mostly mental. I was confused. You have all kinds of guys telling you stuff, Chuck Hiller, Charley Lau, Whitey Herzog, other players ... you’re even talking to yourself. You have a lot of stuff going on. You’re trying different things with your swing because people are all suggesting stuff. Then, when you start hitting the ball you ask yourself, “What are you thinking about?” The answer is nothing. When you’re thinking you’re hesitating to be aggressive. Once I figured out I could just react and not think everything started to take care of itself.
But I had to grow up a little. I had to get confidence. Once you get a little confidence, you go up there, see the ball, hit the ball. In the minor leagues you are trying to please everybody to get to the next level. You’re trying to do all the things everyone is asking you to do. But you can only do so much and then you begin confusing yourself. You get aggravated because you aren’t doing the things that you know, in your brain, you’re capable of doing.
So, I came up again at the end of the year with the Royals, and I got to play quite a bit more this time. It was really exciting because it was the first time I got to play when the games meant something in clinching the playoffs. It made me concentrate. It made me want to be there even more.
I was so naïve that I thought because I was there at the end of the season I was thinking, “Crap, man, I’m going to get on their roster and go to the playoffs.” As I found out, that’s not how it works. But I did go to the playoff games. I bought the package of tickets.
When the season was over I had this guy drive my car back to New Jersey, and then I got on the plane with the fellas and we flew to New York – which was really like home. I was sitting in the third deck at Yankee Stadium, just hunched down in my seat – no Royals gear, no nothing like that.
One of those games is when I see Hal McRae on first base, and he’s waving his arms all over the place. I found out later he was talking to Freddie (Patek). But Hal’s just swinging his arms around. What he was telling Freddie was that if the ball was hit, he was going to take the guy out at second and that Freddie should go all the way home. That’s when the Hal McRae rule came into baseball. Hal would just go flying into people when he would break up a double play at second base.
That series was when Chris Chambliss hit the home run ... that was bad ... that wasn’t a good sight. That year was the first time I really felt like I was part of the team. The next spring, I just wanted to do as much as I could to make the big league club.
I went to the Dominican at the end of the year – between the 1977 and 1978 seasons and played for Tigres de Licey, one of the teams from Santo Domingo. I was playing on a team with Manny Mota.
It was actually a great experience for me because I could be a little more relaxed. I wasn’t in the big leagues. I didn’t have 50,000 people watching me, or newspaper people looking at everything I was doing. And Manny was on that team. A lot of people don’t know he was a .300 career batter in a 20-year career in the Major Leagues.
I took Charley Lau’s methods with me to the Dominican, and Manny helped me refine it. I’m not saying Charley Lau’s methods of coaching me didn’t work, but I seemed to mesh with Manny a little better. He just taught a little different than Charley; that you had to be quick and relaxed. When he put his hands on your shoulders it was just a little different than the way Charley put his hands on your shoulders as he was coaching you. I had some success in AAA and success in September. Manny just made me a little more knowledgeable about what I was doing in picking out pitches and all that.
Charley’s main student was George (Brett). Manny seemed to make me his main student. I wasn’t ever able to talk to Charley like George talked to Charley, how to pick out pitches, how to do this or how to do that. I could do that with Manny. You know things like:
“You foul one off, do you think he’s going to come back in there with the same pitch?”
“What do you look for with two strikes?”
“Does this guy like to backdoor you?”
He really kind of taught me how to study pitchers. He just happened to be there at the right time and place for me. A lot of people put in a lot of hard work and time with me. But it just seemed to click with him. It’s like a boyfriend and girlfriend. One just sort of clicks. The others just don’t get to the same point.
I don’t know what my batting average was that winter, but I was starting to feel really comfortable. So, I had more confidence coming in to spring training in 1978 because I had just had a complete year of switch-hitting in AAA, got a taste of success in September and then worked with Manny in the Dominican League. I was really looking forward to spring training in 1978.