Chapter 2

Miguel Tejada, after several banner years with Oakland and an MVP award, had spent the latter half of his career with the Orioles and had established himself as the team's leader on the field.

That was fine by me. I recognized that he had been around longer, not only in the Game but with the Birds, and that he had experienced more seasons as a top-drawer performer than I had. I was perfectly content to play second fiddle to a man of his abilities.

But I was six foot three inches tall, weighed 245 pounds, and could break a baseball bat over my knee, just the way that Bo Jackson had done it, back when Bo had been a muscular two-sport terror. And I had weighed 235 pounds, even when I broke into pro ball after college.

After my first full year in the majors, I had initiated the practice of voluntarily -- and very publicly -- submitting to a drug test every season, starting during the first week of Spring Training, and repeated every other month until season's end. I wanted to demonstrate to all the world that there weren't any steroids in my bulky body.

I mention this by way of explaining that I am not exactly a shrinking violet. Miguel Tejada deserved to be the Orioles' team leader. But I was going to be, by self-appointment, his top lieutenant.

Tejada was a good-natured guy. He led by example, more than by barking at other players or pushing people around. Obviously, this is the best way to do it. I was a good-natured guy, too. Most of the time. I had no interest in being a bully, or in throwing my excess weight around in the clubhouse. None. I could be a sweetheart, to anybody who would give me half a chance.

Maybe, though, I was a little easier to piss off than Tejada was. First week in March, in only our fourth exhibition game, this kid up from Ottawa, Clewis Chambers, hit a ground ball to shortstop and, when the Marlins' infielder picked it up cleanly and prepared to throw to first, Chambers immediately quit running and started trotting. It was like he was giving the Marlins time to be sure they could get the ball over to first before he arrived.

Oh, I knew it was just a routine play and I knew, as well as anybody, that Chambers would more than likely have been out at first, no matter what he had done. Didn't matter. I was Old School, and nothing pissed me off quicker than seeing a ballplayer -- especially a kid like that -- failing to hustle.

When Chambers came back into the dugout and found a seat, I got up and sat down right beside him, where nobody could hear me except the rookie. "What you doin' out there?" I asked him.

"Wadayah mean?" Chambers says.

"I mean trottin'. Trottin' to first base, like you got all day."

"'Guy had me by a yard."

"Shit, he had you by three yards, when you quit runnin'."

"Don't worry. Any time I've got a shot, I'll run my ass off."

"No, Rookie. You'll run your ass off, every time you make any kind of contact with your bat on that ball. And if you swing and miss on a third strike, you're gonna look back real quick, and make sure the catcher caught it clean. And if he didn't, you're gonna run to first like your ass was on fire, and keep on runnin' until you see the first baseman catch the throw ahead of you."

"Paul Warren hasn't said anything to me."

"Well, why don't you go ask Paul if it's OK with him for you to drag ass to first base, whenever you don't think the ball you hit was pretty enough to merit running full-out?"

"Who made you the boss of me?"

"I'm not your boss. I'm your teammate. At least I am until they send you back to Canada. You want to see April up here, I suggest you put a little more effort into your daily tasks, Sonny."

"Shit. You weren't such a big fucker, I'd tell you where to put your advice."

"Yeah. But I am such a big fucker. And if you weren't such a puny little piece of shit, I'd take you down the corridor there, and kick your ass."

"Shit."

"Right. Shit."

Chambers was a surly little bastard, but I noticed he didn't dog it, the next time he hit a ground ball.

Still, the whole incident with the rookie asshole soured me on self-appointment as the club's policeman. Ballplayers had been dogging it to first base since, probably, the Red Stockings took the field in 1876, or whenever the hell it was. Who was I to tell the kid how to play the game? He'd either figure it out, or he wouldn't. Or maybe he'd be so damned talented that nobody'd ever bother to tell him he was a disgrace. Lot of that going around.

So I decided I'd be Mr. Nice Guy, in and out of the dugout. Maybe the kid was right. Maybe if Paul Warren hadn't said anything, I shouldn't have, either. And who was I to be confrontational? Make waves? Tejada had it right. Lead by example, not by mouth.

By the time the club broke for home and our April 4 opener against Toronto, I was Mr. Serenity. Everybody on the club, I think, liked me. That didn't include Clewis Chambers, but that was OK. He was back in Ottawa, freezing his ass, I hoped, for another month in a continuing Canadian winter.

Well, the season opened nicely for the Orioles. We won four of our first five games, and I was really seeing the ball well and getting my hits. It wasn't one of those insane starts where a guy hits .500 for a couple of weeks, and then slowly comes back to earth.