Eric Young never has seen his face on a billboard in Tokyo. He never has earned $11 million in a single season. And he never has chatted up the First Lady after hitting 66 home runs.
But more than any player in baseball, Young can identify with Sammy Sosa, who caused a stir Tuesday because he blasted his manager, Don Baylor.
Young played for Baylor in Colorado for more than four years and that provided ample time for the two to butt heads.
“Don and I had our little disagreements,” Young said, “and at the time I was a little teed off. But it’s all in how you respond to it. I took the attitude of `I’ll show you’ rather than taking it personally, as if he didn’t like me.”
When Young reported to spring training before the 1995 season, the notch on his belt buckle had to be adjusted after an easygoing off-season.
“He said I came to camp overweight, but I didn’t know he felt that way until I read this big article in the paper,” Young recalled. “So I went in [to his office] and said, `If you have a problem with my weight, why don’t you just come and tell me?’ Yeah, I’m a little heavy, I admit it.’ And I got [my weight] down.
“You would read [criticism] in the paper, and then if you were man enough you would go and talk to him about it and understand his point of view. I realized [later] that when he was doing that to me, I had my best years, in ’95 and ’96.”
Like Young, Sosa felt slighted by comments he read in the newspaper, beginning in the days after Baylor was hired. The new manager said his star right-fielder needed to become a “more complete” player.
Sosa’s anger peaked Sunday when he read a comment in the Tribune attributed to an unnamed Cubs official, who mocked his defense by saying, “Sammy might drive in 150 runs, but he might let in 45.”
Even though Baylor did not make the remark, Sosa lashed out at him, saying his manager had “no class.”
Baylor’s response?
“I never said those things,” he said. “Sometimes guys read into things. As a player, I did that, and if I had a problem I could always go in and talk to the manager about it.”
That’s what Sosa did late Wednesday afternoon. He and Baylor met for 15 minutes in an effort to hash out their differences.
“I deserve more respect,” Sosa had said earlier in the day. “If you have a problem with me, I don’t want the fans to read about it in the paper. If they read that, the fans will turn against me. I’ve worked hard to try to make people happy. And I don’t want that relationship with my friends ruined.
“Maybe people sometimes take advantage of my dignity, but behind the nice guy, I’m a man. And I know how to deal with my problems. You [should] never criticize a player who comes here every day and plays hard. I’m still trying to find out the answer: Why?”
The answer, clearly, is that Baylor is trying to make Sosa a better player, or at least a better defensive player. Most baseball observers believe that while Sosa might not be a liability in right field, he is certainly below average.
Sosa’s glovework of late hasn’t altered that perception. By botching Tony Womack’s seventh-inning single Wednesday, Sosa committed his third error in his last four games.
Sosa said he understood Baylor’s desire to make him a more complete player, but he didn’t approve of his methods.
“When the manager wants somebody to be better, he should tell him one-on-one, like father and son,” Sosa said. “[He should] not go in the paper and say what he said.”
Sosa said that he and Baylor had not had a prolonged talk since spring training and some of Sosa’s teammates agreed Wednesday that Baylor could do a better job of communicating with them.
Baylor said he met with players in his office “all the time,” but when asked for names, he mentioned only those who had played under him in Colorado: Young, Larry Walker, Andres Galarraga and Vinny Castilla.
“To change my personality, I’m not changing it,” Baylor said. “That’s just the way it is. That’s me. I’m always pushing players to be better, not worse.”
But it’s how Baylor pushes players that’s the issue. Young said he doesn’t necessarily like Baylor’s forthcoming nature with reporters, even though it has helped Young prosper.
“Personally, I don’t agree with it,” he said. “I’d prefer a manager to call me in his office and call me an [idiot] and everything else as opposed to reading it in the paper.
“But I’m the type of person who can take the truth. There were some knocks on my defense, so I made it my business to become the best second baseman I could be. I took the attitude of `I’m going to show you.’
“The thing you have to ask is this: Is [Baylor] criticizing Sammy because he doesn’t like him? No, it’s not that. Is he trying to challenge him to be an even better player than he is? Is that harmful? It worked with me, but it doesn’t work with everybody. I got mad, but when I looked at my baseball card I realized that when I was mad, I performed.”
It would be easy to take a moment from the Cubs’ 9-4 victory over Arizona Wednesday afternoon and say that Baylor’s methods had worked again.
In the sixth inning, Sosa launched a titanic home run into the center-field bleachers off Brian Anderson. Wrigley Field officials estimated that the ball traveled 520 feet, or 30 feet farther than Glenallen Hill’s rooftop shot against Milwaukee last month.
“That was very impressive,” Mark Grace said. “It was the longest one I’ve ever seen to center field, and Glen’s was the longest I’ve ever seen to left.”
For his part, Baylor said he still believes he could build a winning team with Sosa–and this was hours before the two met in his office.
“One of the reasons I came here was to be a part of what was here,” Baylor said. “And Sammy is a big part of what’s here.”
