Behind the Mask, Greene Knows It’s Proving Time

TEMPE, Ariz. —  Todd Greene, Angel catcher, can throw a baseball 150 feet. Since a catcher needs to throw a baseball 60 feet 6 inches to the pitcher’s mound and about 127 feet to second base, this is good news, isn’t it?

“I don’t know,” Greene kind of growls as he rubs his shiny, bald head. “I’m not going to be into daily evaluations.”

This is a conversation Greene is polite about having. It is a conversation he doesn’t want to have.

Built along the lines of a compact car and with a competitiveness that allows him to smile only once in half an hour of chatting--when he recalls his high school baseball team’s 62-game winning streak--Greene is 27 now and can no longer be the promising youngster. Next step for Greene could be middle-aged catcher with a sad-sack arm and a disappointing career. It is not a big step anymore.

As he sits, holding a bag of ice on the surgically repaired right shoulder that cost him most of the 1998 season, fellow catcher Charlie O’Brien teases Greene, interrupting to say, “It’s time to fulfill potential.”

That’s about all anybody asks Greene about. That and asking the catcher who hasn’t really squatted behind the plate for the Angels in 18 months if he’s injury prone.

So Greene seems to sink into his locker, recoiling from the questions he knows will come, but understanding them too.

Once Todd Greene hit 40 home runs in a minor league season. He could swing for the fences. He was a rough and tumble guy from rural Georgia, kind of crude, kind of crazy. But also kind and gentle, a man who married his high school sweetheart, Vanessa, and melts when he sees his 3-year-old daughter Aryn and his 10-month-old son Jacob.

His raunchy humor is welcome in any baseball clubhouse and so is his eagerness to be on a baseball field as much as possible, to get as many at-bats as he can, to, as he says, “be competing every minute.”

Because of his strong bat and because Greene just seems like a baseball player, because he was minor league player of the year, because he has been compared, for goodness sakes, to Johnny Bench, it is easy now to forget that Greene never played catcher until the Angels asked him to.

In grade school and high school and for four years of college at Georgia Southern, Greene was an outfielder. Always had been and yet, after the Angels chose him in the 12th round of the 1993 draft, Greene was asked to consider becoming a catcher because the Angels thought they had plenty of outfielders.

“I said yes,” Greene says. “Has it hurt me, hurt my arm, hurt my career? I don’t know. How can you tell? Would I do it again? Yeah.

“If I had my choice, right now, in a perfect world, what would I play? Catcher. Without a doubt. When you’re a catcher, you’re in on every play. That’s what I want. To play every play.”

These words are spoken defiantly, as if Greene feels the need to prove to someone, anyone, everyone, that he is a player. That he wants to play.

Since that brilliant minor league career, Greene’s major league career has been mostly one big injury.

After being recalled from Vancouver on July 3 of 1997, Greene hit .304 in his first 30 games. On July 16, he had his first two-homer day.

“Man, things looked good,” Greene says.

Then . . . in August he broke a bone in his wrist when a foul tip hit him wrong.

While he was waiting for the wrist to heal, Greene mentioned that his right shoulder also had been a little achy.

Why had he not spoken of it earlier, Greene is asked.

Giving a look of dismay at the stupidity of such a question, Greene says, “I was finally a starting catcher in the major leagues. My dream come true. I was going to complain about a sore shoulder?”

Well, it turned out that shoulder needed surgery. There was some fraying of nerves and muscles, wear and tear problems, but after beginning the 1998 season on the 15-day disabled list, Greene ended up not returning until Aug. 7. And he never did catch. Was the DH some, played some first base.

And now nobody wants to make predictions. Manager Terry Collins says he hopes Greene might be able to start slowly, catch twice a week and gradually improve until he can catch four times a week. Collins says this cautiously. Greene won’t make any predictions about himself.

The pain? “Almost gone,” he says. “As good as it’s gonna get.”

How much does he want to play?

“Every day.”

How much is he going to play?

“That’s not up to me.”

He knows there is no room for him at first base now that Mo Vaughn has arrived. There’s not a lot of room for him to DH, what with the outfield being a little crowded too. And, truth be told, Greene doesn’t want to DH. He’s not made for part-time duty.

“Don’t say this,” Greene says, “but I’ve got to play every day, hit every day. I need to.”

He says this as if it is some dirty little secret instead of something to be proud of, this need to compete.

The Angels need a catcher, certainly. With the addition of Vaughn and pitcher Tim Belcher, they are being considered, if not favorites, then very strong contenders with Texas and Seattle for the American League West title.

They don’t have to have a Roy Campanella or Johnny Bench or Carlton Fisk but they do need a catcher, preferably one who can work more than two, or even four, times a week.

And if it can’t be Greene, will 11-year-veteran Charlie O’Brien, acquired from the White Sox last July 31, be good enough, durable enough? Or can journeyman Matt Walbeck suddenly become a starter? Or somebody else?

But more than that, what will become of Greene if he doesn’t make it through this season? Is this his last chance to be a star?

“I don’t think about stuff like that,” Greene says. “I love to play the game. I love to compete. But if I can’t play baseball, then I [will] go out and support my family some other way. I can do that too. Whatever it takes.”

With that, Greene turns to face his locker. The day is over. Until tomorrow.

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Randy Harvey is on assignment.