His Pack Led Him to His Power

By ROSS NEWHAN

July 10, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SEATTLE — His continued emergence among the game’s power elite has been partially obscured by Barry Bonds, but Luis Gonzalez may be producing the more historic season.

He may even be reaching a point where he doesn’t “still laugh sometimes” when he sees his name listed second to Bonds’ among National League home runs hitters and knows, as he was saying Monday, that people are sitting at home, scanning their sports section and asking, “Who’s that guy?”

If he keeps up his offensive pace, those same people may soon have a better idea. They may even have a better idea after tonight, when Gonzalez, who hits third for the Arizona Diamondbacks, will be the first batter in the 72nd All-Star game at Safeco Field. Manager Bobby Valentine said Gonzalez was given the honor of batting leadoff for the National League because, “He’s having one of the great years of all-time and will probably have more than two at-bats . . . so the national audience can see him.”

Times change, of course.

It wasn’t long ago that Gonzalez went to the park, any park, with no assurance he would be hitting anywhere in the lineup. It wasn’t long ago that he considered reaching double figures in home runs a successful year.

Now, not only is he being credited with one of the great seasons of all time, but Monday night he won the home run contest and tonight--on a national stage--will bat leadoff for the first time in his 12-year major league career.

If, as Gonzalez suspects, there are those people who haven’t noticed his development or have no idea where he came from, it may be because, “I’m not a real flashy guy. I don’t drive a gold-rimmed car. I don’t wear flashy shirts and hats and have jewelry hanging out. I’m just kind of a regular Joe, the guy next door.”

Maybe, but it’s hard to miss the flash of those numbers.

As Bonds noted Monday, “He’s far and away having a better year than I am. He’s doing it with a team that leads the division and he’s doing it in every way possible. He’s easily the MVP to this point.”

Gonzalez is batting .355 with 35 home runs and 86 runs batted in. He could be the first Triple Crown winner since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, could break Babe Ruth’s 80-year-old record for total bases in a season and if Bonds, having hit a home run wall at 39, is admittedly “mentally fried” by the media attention, Gonzalez admits to “riding a wave” behind him--his 35 homers already a career high and projecting to 65.

“Barry is taking all the headaches, all the pressure,” Gonzalez said of the media microscope. “I’m sitting in the perfect spot, close enough to keep it interesting but clearly the dark horse. I mean, there’s no way I would have expected to have 35 homers at the all-star break, so I don’t think anyone else expected it either.”

A .268 hitter and part-time outfielder in nine seasons with the Houston Astros, Chicago Cubs and Detroit Tigers, a player traded by Houston to Chicago for catcher Rick Wilkins and by Detroit to the Diamondbacks for faded phenom Karim Garcia, the 6-foot-2, 190-pound Gonzalez didn’t suddenly become Superman in the Arizona desert.

He did get the opportunity to play regularly in left field and refined an open stance that the Tigers had encouraged him to adopt in 1998 in an effort to take advantage of the short right-field porch at Tiger Stadium. He also hired a personal trainer and was taught how to put the game in perspective by Megan, Jacob and Alyssa Gonzalez, the triplets born in 1998.

“Whether 50,000 people are cheering me or booing me, they don’t know the difference, and that’s what makes it fun,” Gonzalez said. “I used to come home and sit up all night, thinking about the game. I have a much better perspective now.”

In other words, Gonzalez said, while people wonder how this contact hitter suddenly hit 26 homers for the Diamondbacks in 1999 and 31 last year and is now challenging for the major league lead, it wasn’t really “alien abduction or miracle serum” but hard work, an altered stance, a bit more strength and lots more hugs at home.

Said Curt Schilling, an Arizona teammate who will start on the mound for the National League tonight and who was a Houston teammate during Gonzalez’s rookie year in 1991, “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anybody evolve as a complete player to the extent that Luis has, and you’ve got to give him credit. Not many players can make those adjustments in their 30s. Now, it’s past the point of when is he going to stop but what is he going to do next?”

Indeed. Gonzalez is on a pace to join Ruth, Hack Wilson and Jimmie Foxx as the only players to collect 200 hits and 50 homers in a season. His total-base pace through 87 games projects to 458, which would put him beyond Ruth’s big league record of 457 in 1921. The NL record of 450 was set by Rogers Hornsby in 1922, and no National League player has had more than 416 since Stan Musial in 1948.

“To get that Ruth record,” Gonzalez said, “they’d have to dust off the record books, and it would probably mean more to me than any home run record because it reflects the total package.

“Can I keep it up? Well, I’m seeing the ball good, using the middle of the field and trying to keep it simple. If I can keep doing that, I don’t see why not.

“I’m also in a great environment with a lot of good hitters around me and my focus is strictly on what we do as a team.

“It doesn’t matter if I hit 50 homers or 30 or 40 if we win.”

Once a Florida high school teammate of New York Yankee Tino Martinez, the man known as Gonzo has developed power in his personality, besides his bat. He has become a clubhouse leader for the NL West leaders, a liaison to the Latin players and a player of whom Manager Bob Brenly said, “He takes the guys on the fringe and brings them into the circle and takes the guys who are in the circle and knocks them down a little. He knows how to keep it loose.”

At 33, the maturing Gonzo believes he has the ability to keep himself loose, insisting that he is excited by what he is accomplishing and having fun, unaffected if there are 10 people at his locker or if there were 10,000.

The emerging Gonzalez laughed and said he has no doubt but that he would still be viewed as the “bat boy” if he were to pose between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, but he also knows the bat boy doesn’t bat leadoff in the All-Star game.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

THE LINEUPS

NATIONAL LEAGUE

RF Luis Gonzalez, Arizona: .355, 35 HRs

1B Todd Helton, Colorado: .314, 26 HRs

LF Barry Bonds, San Fran.: .305, 39 HRs

CF Sammy Sosa, Chicago: .312, 29 HRs

DH Larry Walker, Colorado: .343, 27 HRs

C Mike Piazza, N.Y.: .276, 21 HRs

3B Chipper Jones, Atlanta: .308, 25 HRs

2B Jeff Kent, San Fran.: .297, 12 HRs

SS Rich Aurilia, San Fran.: .356, 12 HRs