Newfield Is Hoping for Better Days in Milwaukee

ANAHEIM —  At first, Marc Newfield wasn’t sure if it was a really bad dream, a really bad joke or an out-take from “Cops.” The only thing missing was the guy with the hand-held camera and the bad-boys-whatcha-gonna-do music.

In Detroit for Milwaukee’s season-ending series with the Tigers last year, he had just signed for a package at the door of his hotel room when nine--count ‘em nine--undercover officers rushed in.

Acting on an anonymous tip, they had a search warrant. And when they opened the package, they found less than a half-ounce of marijuana.

Pretty much a bust as drug busts go, but it had monumental implications for Newfield.

“It was the scariest moment of my life,” the Milwaukee outfielder said Friday before the Angels-Brewers game. “I came really close to fainting. I didn’t know what would happen to me. They obviously had bad information and thought it was something else. They kept asking me where the cocaine was.”

Newfield, the Seattle Mariners’ first-round pick (sixth overall) in the 1990 June free-agent draft when he was a 17-year-old out of Marina High, says he has never been much of a drinker and used marijuana to relax after games.

The package came from a friend in Huntington Beach and Newfield admitted that he knew what it contained. But the media reports that followed hurt him more than the legal consequences--he had to shovel snow in Detroit for six hours one Saturday as community service.

“All those stories blowing it out of proportion, about how much I had, about me selling it and and stuff, that really hurt,” he said. “What I did wasn’t smart, but it wasn’t that horrible. I’ve always had a decent image and people who know me know I’m a decent guy. But I’m sure I can earn that respect back.”

Newfield, who submitted to six random drug tests during the offseason, says he hasn’t smoked marijuana since that fateful evening in the Hyatt Regency in Dearborn, Mich. He has dabbled with yoga for relaxation, but would really prefer to be working harder and relaxing less.

Traded to Milwaukee by San Diego on July 31 last year, Newfield got his first chance to play every day and responded by batting .307 with 15 doubles, seven home runs and 31 RBIs in 49 games with the Brewers. He was looking forward to his first full season as a regular--and the chance to live up to the can’t-miss label he has carried since he was drafted--when he pulled a hamstring going from first to third in the Brewers’ final spring-training game.

“Then I started trying to use my upper body too much in my swing, got into some other bad habits and it was a snowball effect; I just kept tumbling down,” said Newfield, who has only two hits in his last 24 at-bats and has played in only four of the last nine games because of a combination of shoulder, hamstring and slump woes.

“I’ve got bursitis and inflammation in the shoulder but I got a cortisone shot and it feels fine now,” he said, “but the hamstring is still only about 60% or so. It got to the point where I wasn’t getting to some balls I should in the outfield and since I haven’t been swinging the bat, well, you can’t go very long in this game giving up more runs than you’re producing.”

Nobody figures that will be a problem for long. Newfield is only 24, he has had only 702 major league at-bats and has a muscular 6-foot-4, 205-pound frame stretching his double knits. Brewer Manager Phil Garner says Newfield is a “superior talent” who has only begun to scratch the surface of his potential.

So Garner has him working to regain his stroke and says he may re-insert Newfield, who grounded out as a pinch-hitter Friday night, in the starting lineup as early as today. But Newfield figures to get another day off on Sunday when knuckleballer Dennis Springer starts for the Angels.

He’s young and very eager to please, but Newfield is beginning to understand the virtues of patience and perspective. He has already been on three teams in his short career--he was traded from the Mariners to the Padres on July 31, 1995--but both times he was the prospect sent in return for the high-salaried, big-name veteran acquired for a contender’s pennant push.

“I know it’s a compliment to be traded for players like [Greg Vaughn and Andy Benes], but I couldn’t help but feel like nobody wanted me,” he said. “Now I’ve come to understand it’s part of the economics of the business and when I realized what a great opportunity this is for me, I was really happy to be here.

“I have to remember that I’m only 24, that I don’t have to try and get too far too fast.”