Perhaps the most talented player in the National League was close to signing with the Dodgers in 1993, but left their camp in the Dominican Republic for one day to attend a tryout camp held by the Expos. He arrived on the back of a motorcycle driven by some guy who delivered prospects to camps.
|  | | Guerrero hit a franchise-record 42 home runs last season, surpassing the 38 he hit in 1998. |
He had his workout stuff in his lap, and was wearing two different shoes, one of which had a sock stuffed in the toe to make it fit. He ran a 6.6 60-yard dash (that's moving) and threw exceptionally well from right field. In one at-bat in the scrimmage game, he grounded out, then pulled a groin muscle. Fred Ferreira, an Expos scout, had seen enough. He signed the kid right there, and paid his biker friend $200 for bringing him around.
A year later, at the Expos' Dominican Summer League in his first year as a professional, the kid was so good, he had to take batting practice last each day because he would hit balls so far, he would lose most of them ... which meant no one else could hit.
That's how Vladimir Guerrero began his journey to the major leagues. Seven years later, he is a star at age 24, a player so skilled, says Mets manager Bobby Valentine, "it's ridiculous, it's sickening." Guerrero has the strongest throwing arm in the game, great speed, hits the ball as hard as anyone and loves to play. Two years ago, Gary Hughes, then a Marlins scout, said, "He's the best player in the game. Not potentially. Now."
Maybe he was right. Last year, Guerrero hit .316 with 42 homers and 131 RBI, finishing fifth in the NL in RBI despite playing for a team that was 14th in the league in runs scored. This season, he's hitting .460 with five homers and 18 RBI. Impressive numbers, but what makes them even more amazing is that Guerrero struck out only 62 times last year -- by far the fewest strikeouts by anyone with 40 home runs. This year, his first strikeout came Wednesday night -- his first since Sept. 25, 1999.
| |
|
| |
| 2000 SEASON STATISTICS |
| AB |
HR |
RBI |
BB |
SO |
OBP |
SLG |
AVG |
| 50 |
5 | 18 |
7 | 1 |
.534 | .860 | .460 | |
|
One strikeout. Indians first baseman Jim Thome has already struck out 22 times this year, including nine in a three-game span, one short of the major league record. Joe DiMaggio's single-season high for strikeouts was 39 -- Thome struck out 39 times last July.
But it's not just Thome who is punching out, it's virtually every major leaguer: 71 players struck out 100 or more times last year; Seattle's Jay Buhner set a major league record for fewest at-bats (266) by anyone in a 100-strikeout season. Jose Canseco recently recorded the 14th four-strikeout game of his career, tying Andres Galarraga for most among active players. The major league record is 17 four-K games, held by Rob Deer. That will be passed by a half dozen players, many of whom swing as hard as they can in case they hit it.
And then there's Guerrero. He swings at everything also, and swings unbelievably hard at almost every pitch, but he doesn't strike out. How? Well, he stands right on top of the plate, meaning he can cover the outer portion because he dives across the plate so well. He was susceptible to the ball inside as a younger player, but as he has matured, he has learned to handle that pitch. He still swings at pitches out of the strike zone, but not as often as he used to.
Plus, he loves that first pitch. Last season, he swung at the first pitch 50.8 percent of the time, the highest rate in baseball (interestingly, two other really good hitters, Larry Walker and Matt Williams, had the second and third highest rates). Guerrero hit .361 when he hit the first pitch, the fifth-highest average in the NL. This season, he's again swinging at the first pitch (18 times in 50 at-bats), but he's had a .500 average on the first pitch.
Whenever Guerrero swings, he just keeps getting better and better. Last season, when his strikeout total dropped from 95 to 62, his walk total increased from 42 to 55, and he already has walked seven times this year. He has an amazing body -- 6-foot-2, 205 pounds of sculpted steel -- one that keeps getting bigger, harder and stronger, but not bulkier in any way.
With the start Guerrero is off to this year, he's got a chance to become the fourth player in the last 45 years to strike out fewer than 40 times in a 30-homer season: Yogi Berra and Ted Kluszewski in 1956, and Don Mattingly in 1986-87. DiMaggio did it seven times, including 1941 when he hit 30 homers and struck out 13 times. That's fitting because DiMaggio is really the only player to have posted similar numbers to Guerrero at such an early age.
"I'm still not sure the guy on the motorcycle knows who he brought us that day," Ferreira said.
What he brought the Expos was one of the best players in the game today.
ESPN The Magazine's Tim Kurkjian writes a weekly column for ESPN.com. | |
ALSO SEE
Stats Class: Power and contact
Audio chat wrap: Tim Kurkjian 
|
