Dodgers Are Gambling Wisely by Taking a Chance on Daniels

Kal Daniels is a cocky, moody, brooding, missing-pieces baseball player, by some accounts, who at face value seems to be just what the Dodgers needed least--another outfielder with dents all over his fenders, who does not play defense all that well even when he does manage to make it into the lineup. Chavez Ravine already has enough of those.

But--and this is a big, big but--Kal Daniels is a gamble worth making and a player worth taking, for several reasons, not the least of which is that when this guy digs his spikes into the batter’s box, he arms himself with just about the most beautiful swing that you have ever seen.

If he plays, and plays every day, Daniels could be the steal of steals, easily worth the asking price of pitcher Tim Leary and infielder Mariano Duncan that the increasingly desperate Dodgers forked over Tuesday to the Cincinnati Reds. Daniels within a year or two might very well become the first Dodger to win a batting championship since Tommy Davis in 1963; he’s that good.

What’s more, he gives Tom Lasorda a leadoff man at last, one not only as catalytic and swift as Steve Sax used to be, but one who knows how to take ball four on occasion and who, in the manner of Barry Bonds and Rickey Henderson, also knows how to tag the ball clean out of the yard. Those 26 home runs he whacked in 1987 came in only 108 games, folks. That’s a 39-tater pace for a guy who also happened to hit .334 that season.

We are not sure how eagerly Dodger management pursued Henderson and Lenny Dykstra and others of their ilk, but evidently they did listen when the Reds, making like a certain Long Beach car dealer, sang out to them: “If you want a better deal, go see Kal.”

Trouble is, Daniels has knee trouble. Lots and lots of knee trouble. And, with the bad gams of Kirk Gibson, combined with the chronic ailments of Mike Marshall, combined with the current ouches of Chris Gwynn, combined with the contact struggles of John Shelby and Jose Gonzalez, the Dodger outfield tends to look more and more like a dispensary for the infirm and inadequate.

General Manager Fred Claire made a reference in the press box Sunday to the “unpaid consultants” who pelt him with advice about trading for Wade Boggs and such, so, taking the hint, we would hate to be presumptuous by suggesting that the Daniels’ gamble won’t pan out. Hell, you know how much trouble you can get in prejudging anybody from Cincinnati.

Let us just say, then, that the Dodgers did exactly what they had to do--namely, dealing for a hitter who was simply too promising to resist. Kal Daniels has Hall of Famer written all over him. He has Mickey Mantle’s ability and legs.

As an Air Force brat, bounced from town to town as a child, the hitter to whom Kalvoski Daniels took a liking was an older gentleman, name of Ted Williams. Kal got hold of the Splendid Splinter’s instructional book on the science of hitting, and simply could not put it down. He immediately proclaimed Williams and Reggie Jackson his heroes, and fully expected to have his name linked with theirs forever.

“They’re the past,” Daniels said in a 1987 interview, “and I’m the future.”

A month away now from his 26th birthday, Kal is still a kid, in many ways, who is still every bit as mercurial as he was from Little League on. Once, at that age, a teammate’s face was bloodied by a bad-hop grounder, and next day Daniels warned the adults that he was going home if they didn’t have somebody drag that infield to make it smoother. Somebody did.

In a junior college game one day in Georgia, Daniels was on first base with two out, and ticked off at being denied permission to steal second. When the batter popped up, Daniels jogged around the bases. When the pop-up fell, Kal, who could have scored, was barely heading into third.

Oh, sure, kids pull this sort of thing all the time, but Daniels’ desire has come into question at Cincinnati as well, as when he reportedly approached Pete Rose before a doubleheader and asked: “Which game do you want me to play?” While his knee problems are very real, the Reds sometimes wondered about Daniels’ willingness to play hurt, just as Dodger radio announcer Al Downing did recently with regard to Mike Marshall.

Certainly nobody questions the devotion to duty of Kirk Gibson, who more than once has demonstrated, in word and deed, his devotion to duty. The Dodgers, though, are putting even more strain on Gibson’s aches and pains by playing him in center field, and that’s why it still hurts a bit that they couldn’t use Tim Leary as bait to land a center fielder.

Let us be hopeful, then, that Kal Daniels turns out to be more splendid than splintered, and that he makes the most of a sweet, sweet swing that Ted Williams would have been proud to call his own. And let it be said that as long as the Dodgers are willing to take a chance, the least we unpaid consultants can do is give them a chance.