At 12:45 p.m. Thursday the great goateed whale finally was sighted in the Sonoran Desert. David Wells required two SUVs, the second presumably to transport his love handles. Into the White Sox parking lot he pulled. Through the mini-cams he strode wearing a tail-out T-shirt, shorts, cap and the look of a man with something to prove.
What the media saw was much less than expected of David Lee Wells.
Maybe this was how the Blue Jays tried to get even for the trade that left them with shorted-out Mikes, the injured Sirotka and Williams. Maybe the Blue Jays hung on to part of Wells–say, 40 or 50 pounds. They can keep them. Considering his Orson Welles-sized image, this Wells looked so svelte and swell that you wondered if he were some injured Toronto minor-leaguer posing as No. 33.
But no the giant goatee looked real and–as manager Jerry Manuel observed–“dangerous.” If Wells wanted, he could take batting practice with that thing. But fat? If Wells is fat, a slimmed-down Frank Thomas is obese and Sox pitchers from Early Wynn to Wilbur Wood to Terry Forster should have been harpooned and their ambergris used to make perfume.
If Wells is fat, he’s fit fat. No unsightly paunch. Nothing soft or pudgy about him. “He said he’s never felt this good at this time of the year,” Manuel said. For Wells, who finds spring training unnecessary after 19 pro seasons, this was an early arrival and commitment.
This Wells carried himself like a broad-backed, power-legged 6-foot-4-inch athlete. People who make fun of his weight, he said, are just jealous that he’s “larger than life and very successful.” Is he ever. Wells has the presence of one of the purple Santa Catalina Mountains that backdrop the Sox’s facilities.
The more he talked, the more you realized Wells just might have dropped into the White Sox lap at the perfect time in his life and their growth. The chip on his shoulder appears to weigh much more than he does. Joining his fifth team in six years finally has forced him to take a long look in the mirror.
“I’ve had great years the last six [a combined 98-54 and two All-Star Game starts] and I keep getting traded,” he said. “Is it my mouth? My physique?”
For now Wells seems committed to improving both. At 37 he surely could have an All-Star season or two left, maybe even another memorable postseason. Who knows? Maybe baseball’s David Lee Roth is growing up instead of just growing. Accompanying Wells was his new model-thin wife. Maybe she has introduced him to low-fat cooking just in time to take some pressure of his gut-induced bad back.
Also in tow were his most powerful incentives, young sons Brandon and Lars.
“I want them to say, `Hey, dad’s kicking butt. He’s not bad for an old guy.'”
Turn up one of the forever-young heavy-metal bands that inspire him. Hell’s bells, you have to love this Wells. “Boomer,” as he’s called, wants to go whirling back at Toronto like a boomerang.
“They tried to stick it to me [by not granting his wish to go to the Mets],” he said, “and they got stuck [with Sirotka and Williams].”
Yet he made it clear he was “all smiles” upon hearing the Sox had come out of left field to land him. “A fightin’ team a pitch or two from going all the way last year,” he called the Sox. Wells could throw those pitches.
Wells could bring this team the tattooed, bald, gimme-the-ball star power that Frank Thomas could not in Seattle’s three-game sweep of the Sox. Thomas can be a frightened child trapped in a big, gifted body. From 60 feet away, Wells looms even bigger than advertised.
Opponents know this lefty is a little too crazy to be scared. He already is itching to pitch the opener at Cleveland, where he loves the challenge and hates the fans who yelled insults about his dead mother.
Gimme Wells, even for one season. Let me pour some of this guy into Thomas and Sammy Sosa and Cade McNown and Ron Mercer. In Thursday’s 75-degree heat, let me freeze him just the way he was.
Sure, maybe he’ll turn back into the gout-plagued malcontent who alienated managers from Davey Johnson to Joe Torre. Maybe he’ll again fall prey to the only guy who can consistently beat him–himself. Maybe he’ll demand the contract extension he threatened to in Toronto. Maybe, on his best first-day behavior, he was a desert mirage.
But I sure liked what I saw, and didn’t see.
