I’m assuming the team photo still is on display, somewhere in the nifty press box overlooking the manicured ball field in Taylor, in the heart of Downriver. It’s where they play the Junior League World Series every August.
The JLWS is the version for 13-year-olds that isn’t nearly as popular, or as famous, as the Little League version, for 12-year-olds, played at Williamsport, Pa. The LLWS gets plenty of face time on ESPN and in the newspapers and on the Internet. Of course, it’s been around a lot longer than the JLWS has been.
I’m no expert, but I have some history with the JLWS tournament, run spectacularly well by Greg Bzura and his crack staff. From 1986 to 1993, I directed TV coverage of selected games that week for Maclean Hunter cable television, which became Comcast – as did just about every cable system in this country, it seems. For eight years, I saw wonderful baseball and dramatic championship games played by kids representing different geographical regions of the country, plus Canada, Asia, Central America, and Europe.
Hard to imagine them today, as men in their mid-20s to early-30s. Or women. That’s right – there was at least one girl, that I know of, who was allowed to play. For years, the tournament allowed one team from Michigan, being the host state. And in 1987, the Michigan team had a girl – first name Jennifer (last name forgotten, sadly). I remember she got into a game and played right field. I’d be tickled to find out what she’s doing today, as a 33-year-old.
The tournament pre-dated me by about five years or so. And in the press box (the new one; the old one burned down just weeks before the tourney in the early-1990s, but that’s a whole other story) were displayed the team photos of the past champions. One team photo had always struck me, and I was sure to look at it every year when we were setting up our cameras, lights, and microphones.
It was the 1982 championship photo, of the team from Tampa, Fla., representing the South Region. The photo intrigued me because it included a genuine success story. No need to wonder what happened to one certain first-time teenager.
Gary Sheffield was in the back row, smiling broadly. He was undoubtedly a key cog on that Tampa team. I wonder if he waggled his bat menacingly in the batter’s box back then, too.
When I was first aware of the significance of Sheffield’s participation in the JLWS, he was still a young major leaguer, maybe all of 25 years old. I was nearing the end of my run as a TV director, and Sheff was just getting rolling at becoming a future Hall of Famer at the highest level of professional baseball.
I always sought out the Tampa team photo with Gary Sheffield, because I thought it was very cool that he performed on the quaint diamond in Taylor, complete with its berms and grandstands.
Little did I know that he would still be in the big leagues, some 14 years later. And still mashing those unsuspecting baseballs.
Sheffield swings and connects with a ferocity that I’ve never seen by any other dude of his ilk. He deposits homeruns with such rapidity and efficiency that they are as if shot out of a cannon from home plate. No high, majestic fly balls – at least hardly ever. Instead, a Gary Sheffield homerun is off the bat and over the fence so fast, the poor outfielder reacts like a deer caught in the headlights – spooked, but unable to react. Let’s put it this way: a mortal ballplayer’s homeruns are like the line at the Secretary of State’s office at lunchtime. Sheffield’s are like the self-serve checkout when you have one item – and no one in front of you.
It’s not just homeruns, either. Everything Sheffield hits – and I mean everything – is swatted as hard as advanced trigonometry. Even the outs. He doesn’t just swing the bat; he uses it as a weapon of mass destruction.
When the Tigers acquired Sheffield last November from the Yankees in a trade involving a pitching prospect, I knew his history, certainly. I knew of the menacing bat-waggling. I knew of the vicious swing. I knew of the episodes of petulance and insolence with other employers. I just had no idea how much of a positive effect he would have on the Tigers lineup.
Magglio Ordonez is flirting with a batting title. Nowadays he hits in the stratosphere of .360, .365, .370. Numbers of Tony Gwynn, or Wade Boggs. Or Tyrus Raymond Cobb. Or Teddy Ballgame himself, Ted Williams. Never has Ordonez, a fine hitter, come anywhere near the average he messes with today as a Tiger All-Star starter. But never before has he had someone of Gary Sheffield’s brilliance hitting in front of him, either. Coincidence? I’ll have to give you a big, fat NOOOO on that one.
Sheffield, quite simply, makes the entire batting order, from one thru nine, better. That’s it. Nothing fancy. No more eloquent prose than that. He makes every batter better. Maybe that should be his slogan. “Gary Sheffield: Making Every Batter Better Since 1988.”
It was in ’88, as a skinny 19-year-old, that Sheffield debuted in the big leagues, with the Milwaukee Brewers. The game was played at Tiger Stadium. A few days later, he smacked his first homerun. The date was September 9, 1988. Ronald Reagan was still in office, for crying out loud. His most recent dinger – number 475 – came Thursday afternoon off Cleveland ace C.C. Sabathia. In between the Brewers and the Tigers, there have been stops in San Diego, Florida, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and New York.
Part of the reason for his vagabond-like resume has been the lasers that come out of his mouth, instead of his bat. It’s been his unfiltered honesty that’s gotten him into hot water in other baseball cities.
But you won’t find Gary Sheffield ducking anyone, or anything. When he was struggling to hit his weight in April, he answered every question about the slump patiently and completely – and with some charm.
I was one of the questioners in the season’s young weeks, and we spent ten minutes together, chatting about a variety of baseball items. Then he went out and took another 0-for-5 collar.
I saw him again, on Thursday, before the Tigers stomped all over the Indians. He is in a slump no more. He is Gary Sheffield again. And I had meant to ask him about the Tampa JLWS team from 1982, but I forgot. I’ll hit him with it next time. Mainly I want to know when and why he started waggling his bat.
It’ll be like asking John Hancock why he started signing his name that way, I’ll bet.
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