AA-Statesman article on Chris Burke

Sucks about this guy. Didn't realize he was originally a leadoff man. Hey, at least Biggio's about to get 3000 hits.

http://www.statesman.com/sports/content/sports/stories/other/05/27/0527bohls.html

COMMENTARY: KIRK BOHLS

Burke flustered by up-and-down career with Astros Back in Round Rock, Burke seeking express trip back to Astros
After suffering in silence over a slow-starting career, promising prospect expresses doubts about future

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF


Sunday, May 27, 2007

ROUND ROCK — No one would fault Chris Burke if he were looking for the blight at the end of the tunnel.

Baseball has dealt him a bad hand, relatively speaking. OK, two pair. Any player who signed for an initial $2 million bonus, has a pretty wife, is expecting his first child in four months and has a job anywhere should count his blessings as much as he does his base hits.


Burke does. And he's all about leaving the past in the past, even if he is revisiting it in a return trip to Round Rock.

By now, the former first-round draft pick figured he'd be an established regular with the Astros. But all he's established is a tortured career in which he wonders if he's a 27-year-old, washed-up major-leaguer before he's barely made it through the rinse cycle. After all, he's played in a scant two-plus major-league seasons, counting 28 games this spring, and has played four times as often in the outfield as he has the middle infield, for which he was drafted. He's not even arbitration-eligible yet.

He's played a position occupied by ironman Craig Biggio. When Astros second baseman Jeff Kent left for the Dodgers to raise Burke's hopes, Biggio moved from center back to second. After he was named the starting center fielder, Burke was bumped again after just a month when the sagging club needed offense and the savior (Hunter Pence) happened to play center field.

Burke isn't bitter. Irritated, definitely. But bitter is for has-beens, never-weres and Jose Cansecos.

"Everybody sees life from their own two eyes," Burke said. "The organization doesn't revolve around me."

Revolve? At this stage, he wonders if it even includes him.

And he told that to Astros general manager Tim Purpura and manager Phil Garner in a 30-minute rant two weeks ago, when he was told of his demotion to Triple-A. The thing he remembers most from that vent session?

"Their silence," he said.

It wasn't just because he did most of the talking.

In a span of six weeks, Burke went from a job as the Astros' starting center fielder to the team's bench to the minor leagues. His head's still spinning.

One day, he was playing for a Houston team that had won five straight games and was in first place. Six days — and six losses — later, he was mired in a 3-for-21 skid and was told Pence would take his place. The following Friday, he was sent down to Round Rock.

"Inside, I'm boiling," he recalled. "I was hitting only .219 after 72 at-bats, but you can come up with an All-Star team with guys hitting .219 after 72 at-bats."

His situation remains murky at best. While Pence has burst upon the scene as a Rookie of the Year candidate after only a month of Triple-A experience, Burke returns to the place where he was the team's MVP in 2003.

As Garner said, Burke was the victim of some "rotten circumstances." The club understands his frustration. Purpura said Burke still figures in their plans as a second baseman or a corner outfielder and thinks he could play either in the bigs.

Burke ought to do so now. Today. The Astros owe him some of the loyalty they've bestowed on the struggling Morgan Ensberg, Jason Lane and Adam Everett. The club is hitting so poorly — 25th in the majors with a .247 average and no production from five positions — that Burke should return to the majors now to spell a slumping Biggio or break up the ineffective Lane-Luke Scott platoon in right field.

"I felt like I was a little blindsided," Burke said before an Express game, munching on a banana-and-jelly sandwich. "I guess I overestimated my importance to the team. It's unfortunate the way things unraveled."

He was drafted six years ago as a prized shortstop out of Tennessee. But the organization questions his arm strength and range. So he was groomed as the eventual replacement for Biggio.

Problem is, Biggio hasn't wanted to be replaced. He continues his Hall of Fame career, just 29 hits shy of 3,000.

But the Astros insist they would consider sitting Biggio, a fan favorite whose average hovers around .240, even before he gets his historic hit.

"I wouldn't rule out any possibility," Purpura said. "I think there is a chance of that. We are trying to win."

That would be welcome news to Burke, but he'll have to produce more than his current .176 average in Round Rock. Until then, he'll wonder what-if because the glut of second basemen in the majors probably preclude a trade to a better situation.

"I was drafted as a middle infielder and leadoff hitter," he said. "The great majority of my career, I've played the outfield and hit at the bottom of the order.

"If I had it to do it over, maybe I would have made a stink about a playing opportunity at shortstop or been more of a jerk, and they'd run me out of town. I'm more concerned with where I go from here. But my hope is I'm playing for the Astros for a long time."