I wish the Astros would have kept this guy...

Late bloomer


By Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY Baseball Weekly


LUIS GONZALEZ TIPTOED out of the Arizona Diamondbacks' clubhouse, walked through the kitchen and opened the door into the hallway.

He was in a crummy mood, still seething over his 0-for-4 night, killing a potential game-winning rally by grounding into a double play.
The minute he opened the door, he looked into the faces of those adorable triplets whose third birthdays are a month away, and the bad mood was as gone as quickly as a Sno-cone at a Little League game.

Megan, the one they call "Miss Mom," with her exuberant and outgoing personality, offered Dad a cookie. Jacob, the sole boy, who calls his bedroom a dugout, wanted to talk about the game. Alyssa, the shy and serious one, simply wanted to give Dad a hug. The kids were a little down themselves. No, not because Dad didn't hit his historic home run in the month of April, but because they didn't get to see their favorite player — D. Baxter the Bobcat, the team mascot.

"How can you be mad after you see them?" Gonzalez says, his eyes dancing. "They put it all in perspective.

"People always ask why I'm a different player now, why I'm having the success I do. My whole life changed when the triplets were born.

"And, you know something? So did my career."

Gonzalez, 33, sat back in his locker and laughed, still having difficulty believing how everything has changed. Hadn't he bounced around to five teams in five years? Wasn't he told by the Detroit Tigers two years ago that he would be nothing more than a part-time outfielder and DH? Wasn't he traded to the Diamondbacks for a kid named Karim Garcia, who these days can be found at Triple-A Buffalo? Wasn't it just a few years ago when 15 home runs meant a good year for him?

Now, here he is, sitting atop the baseball world, doing his finest impersonation of Mark McGwire.

Luis Emilio Gonzalez, the son of a Cuban immigrant, finished the month of April with the greatest power-hitting display in National League history.

Gonzalez slammed 13 home runs, tying Ken Griffey Jr. for the most home runs ever hit in April. He hit them off everyone from four-time Cy Young winner Greg Maddux to Rule 5 draftee Jose Nunez to ERA champ Kevin Brown to 20-game winner Darryl Kile.

"To say he's locked in right now is an understatement," says Atlanta Braves two-time Cy Young winner Tom Glavine.
"He's in one of those grooves guys dream of getting into.

"You know how some guys will get a mistake, and just miss it, fouling it back. Some guys hit 'em for singles. Well, Luis is hitting them for homers."
Gonzalez laughed, knowing that, yes, now that he thinks about it, he is ahead of Big Mac's record-setting pace in 1998. If he somehow broke McGwire's record, they'd have to make a new movie, 71*, because guys who aren't home run hitters aren't supposed to be hitting home runs.
Gonzalez, who is hitting .315 with 27 RBI, never hit more than 15 homers in a season before 1998. Now, he's on pace to hit — gulp — 84 home runs.

He knows it's crazy to even think he could maintain this pace. If he hits another 13 homers before the All-Star break, it would exceed his wildest expectations. No matter what happens, he has a feeling that his life may never be quite the same.

He goes out to lunch almost every day with his wife, Christine, and the triplets, with the favorite cuisine being Chuck E. Cheese's. The day he hit his 12th and 13th home runs, they ate at a local Mexican restaurant, Don Pablo's, only to find a tortilla with a note attached saying, "Hit No. 14."

He arrived home at about 11 that night, picked up the telephone and heard some stranger breathlessly say, "Hit two more," and hang up.

He was sleeping the following morning when a neighbor stuck a potato "tree" in the front yard — 13 potatoes on a stick. The flag atop of the potatoes said: "Luis Gonzalez, King of the Taters."
He arrived at the ballpark on Friday. Waiting for him was a slab of ribs from Friday's Front Row Sports Grill. When he looked closely, carved out of the meat was "No. 14."

"It's been crazy, absolutely crazy," Gonzalez says. "It's been nice and all, but people are really going nuts over this."

It was at 11 p.m. Saturday night, nearly 1 1/2 hours after the Diamondbacks' loss to the Braves. He was the last to leave the ballpark, and he thought everyone had gone home — only to find a waiting reporter, a security guard who wanted an autograph for his son and a TV employee who asked if he could introduce his 9-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter to him. Gonzalez not only was patient obliging every request, but he looked almost honored to be asked.

He got into his Hummer and called Christine to see who still was awake.
Yep, just like always, everyone was waiting for Dad to get home.

"I'll save you a spot in bed, Daddy," Megan said.

And yep, just like every night, Luis and Christine went to bed on their two queen-sized mattresses, pushed side by side so the five of them could drift off to sleep.

"It's been that way since they were born," Christine says. "You get a few knees and elbows to the face.

"Hopefully, they'll outgrow it this year, and they'll sleep in their own rooms."

Welcome to the Gonzalez family, where Luis might be the home run king of baseball, but at home he is just clinging onto dear life, trying not to fall out of bed and hoping he'll never awaken from this dream season.

DESPERATELY SEARCHING for a young outfielder in the winter of 1998, the Diamondbacks called the Detroit Tigers in hopes of acquiring Bobby Higginson. They called Pittsburgh about Jose Guillen; Cleveland about Richie Sexson; Montreal about Rondell White.
Nothing doing.

Tigers general manager Randy Smith called a few days after Christmas and was adamant that Higginson was staying put. Yet, since they were about to sign Gregg Jefferies, they had a nice consolation prize for the Diamondbacks: a spare outfielder named Luis Gonzalez. The Tigers wanted only Karim Garcia in return, a former prize prospect who was becoming a bust. Just to make the deal fair, the Tigers would kick in $500,000 to help pay for Gonzalez's $2 million salary.

This has made the Lou Brock-Ernie Broglio deal almost look like a fair swap. While Gonzalez has emerged as one of the elite outfielders in all of baseball, Garcia plays for the Cleveland Indians' Triple-A team.

"We felt like we had somebody who could hit .275 to .280, and maybe have 20-plus home runs," says Diamondbacks GM Joe Garagiola Jr., who engineered the trade. "We figured we'd have somebody who could platoon with (Bernard) Gilkey. That was pretty much what we hoped.
"I don't think anybody realized he'd become a player like this."

Gonzalez, who had a career .268 batting average and was averaging 13 homers a season, suddenly became Joe Hardy of the Damn Yankees when he reached Arizona. He immediately went on a 30-game hitting streak in his first two months and hasn't stopped hitting. He batted .324 with 57 homers and 225 RBI his first two seasons with the Diamondbacks, and the scary part is that he keeps getting better.

"I've never seen anybody in my life that had a mediocre career and almost overnight became a star like this guy," says a veteran National League scout.
"This guy was nothing more than an opposite-field, ping hitter. Instead of a 10-home run guy, (now) you're talking about a legitimate 40-homer guy.

"You used to be able to jam the hell out of him with inside pitches, but he's opened his stance up, and now he turns on them and launches them into the seats. He reminds me of Todd Helton the way he's hitting."

The Braves considered it almost miraculous that they shut him down for three games last weekend after he opened the series with two home runs. Then again, it wasn't as if they completely stopped him.

Gonzalez hit a double in the third inning Sunday, and in his final at-bat of April, came within a few feet of a record-setting 14th homer, hitting the ball 415 feet, but to the deepest part of Bank One Ballpark. Just a few feet to the left or right, and it would have reached the seats. The ball instead sailed over Gold Glove center fielder Andruw Jones' head, and Gonzalez had a stand-up triple.

"I told him that he should have just done the Little League thing and kept running," Diamondbacks starter Curt Schilling says. "You know, just keep running until somebody tags you."
Schilling laughed, remembering back to 1991, when Gonzalez was a rookie and they were teammates in Houston. The Astros gave up on Schilling, trading him to the Phillies for Jason Grimsley. The Astros did the same four years later with Gonzalez, trading him and catcher Scott Servais for catcher Rick Wilkins. It would be the first of four change-of-address cards that Gonzalez would need in the next 42 months.

"You think teams would try to figure it out before they trade him," Schilling says. "Oh well, their loss. But you know something, good things happen to good people.

"And this guy is one of the nicest human beings you'll ever meet in your life."

The Arizona chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America might as well just rename their annual "Good Guy" award in Gonzalez's honor. He has won it each of his two years there.

"That's why everybody's so happy for him," says Roger Riley, the Diamondbacks' traveling secretary. "This couldn't happen to a better guy."
Gonzalez long has been the favorite among visiting clubhouse attendants, says Bob Doty, the Diamondbacks' equipment manager. He thinks nothing of picking up the dinner tab, handing out a $100 bill for the guy who'll run across the street to grab him a burger, or hanging out with the clubhouse guys and batboys on the road. There are peanut vendors at Bank One Ballpark who have bigger egos than Gonzalez, who's one of the game's best bargains with an annual salary of $4 million.

It's this down-home personality, where Gonzalez will treat the kids at the McDonald's drive-up window with the same respect as Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo, that has made Gonzalez perhaps the most popular athlete in Phoenix. Oh sure, he's not nearly as recognizable on the street as teammate Randy Johnson. He wasn't a college hero in town like Cardinals quarterback Jake Plummer. He's not flashy like Jason Kidd of the Suns.

Yet, there certainly is no one more genuine, no athlete more approachable, and no one more beloved in all of Arizona. It's why the fans rose from their seats when Gonzalez came to the plate in the seventh inning Sunday, realizing it likely would be his final chance to break the record. After the inning ended, and he jogged out to left field in the eighth, the fans gave him a standing ovation, thanking him for the wonderful ride in the month of April.
"You know, the funny part of this is that Luis actually gets embarrassed by all of the attention," Diamondbacks catcher Damian Miller says. "He's become a superstar, but he wants to be treated just like he always has.

"He's never changed, so he figures why should anyone else?"

LUIS AND CHRISTINE WERE ECSTATIC with the news. They were going to have twins. Christine, a twin herself, had in-vitro treatments, making it possible to have as many as five or six kids, but the doctors said to expect two kids. Well, the original ultrasound was wrong. They were having triplets.

"They told us to come back for another ultrasound," Gonzalez says. "I told them: 'I'm not coming back. Every time I come back, you keep adding more.' "

The triplets were born June 26, 1998, and life for the Gonzalez family hasn't been the same since. They're up every morning by 7. If Christine is cooking, it's pancakes or waffles. If it's Luis' turn, it's a quick trip to McDonald's.
"I know all of the people at the McDonald's drive-thru by heart," Gonzalez says.

Their home has been turned into a virtual amusement park for the kids. There are video games, arcades, dolls, cars and toys everywhere. Inside the formal living room is an air-hockey game, a children's pool table, a tree house and a puppet house. The garage can't accommodate a single car — there are too many toys, electric cars and Play-Doh tables in there. The backyard features a pool, trampoline and huge jungle gym. Frequently they'll rent an inflatable trampoline for their kids — and any neighborhood kid who stops by — to jump on all day.

"A lot of the things Luis buys, he says they're for the kids," Christine said. "But really, they're for him. He loves playing with those things more than the kids do."

Gonzalez's humble attitude, unpretentious personality and work ethic are traits passed on from his mother, Ame, who left Cuba at age 8, when her parents found work at a Tampa cigar factory. Gonzalez says his family will always be his greatest motivator. He never was the biggest kid, the fastest or the strongest, but his folks told him never to give up on his dream.

"I was taught that you have to appreciate what you have," Gonzalez says. "You can have anything if you can work hard enough. But once you stop working, you can have everything taken away from you at any time."

Dodgers outfielder Gary Sheffield grew up playing Little League ball against Gonzalez in the Tampa area, and they continued to meet through high school. "You could see that drive he had back then," Sheffield said. "He was never a power hitter, but he made himself a heck of a hitter."

It just took longer than most for everything finally to click, but while the 6-2, 200-pound Gonzalez hears people debate whether it's his strength, batting stance or maturity that's most responsible for his renaissance, he insists it's the family.

"I used to stress out and sit up all night thinking about the game," Gonzalez says. "I'd go nuts if I made an error or threw an at-bat away. Now, I'm just dad."

Says Christine: "I sense a whole lot more contentment for Luis. Before we had time to dwell on games. Now, there's not enough time to talk about it.

"When you've got triplets, there's not a whole lot of time for anything.

"We wouldn't trade it for the world."


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