Columnist Ron Kantowski: Baseball isn’t all choked up

Thursday, April 3, 2003 | 10:21 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron @ lasvegassun.com or(702) 259-4088.

I haven't had a favorite ballplayer since Bombo Rivera retired in 1982, but I may have to adopt David Eckstein.

Eckstein, the shortstop for the world champion Angels, plays baseball the way I used to, albeit on a much grander scale. His arm is so weak that he has to use the pitcher as a relay man on balls hit to the hole. And I love the way he chokes up on the bat handle some 4 or 5 inches.

He's more old school than Run DMC. But as Eckstein short-stroke a nasty slider into center field for a single on opening night, I wondered why more of today's players -- especially the ones who hit. 232 against rag-arm pitching -- don't choke up.

Has it been that long since Nellie Fox and Felix Millan and Don Kessinger and Bud Harrelson and virtually every other middle infielder you can think of were dumping Texas Leaguers into right field, or slapping ground balls through the open spot at second base on hit-and-run plays?

A generation ago, even guys with pop in their bats -- Rusty Staub immediately comes to mind -- used to choke up, especially with two strikes. Pete Rose choked up, and he's baseball's all-time hit king. Bill Buckner, a player's player who had a career batting average of .292 (against the likes of Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan, et al) and hit 169 home runs in 19 big league seasons, choked up. Noticed I said "up."

Today, guys who choke up are more rare than a complete game or a regularly scheduled doubleheader. There's Eckstein and Mark Grace, who is so old school he refused to wear batting gloves, even when the wind was blowing in off the lake in Chicago. And if you look real closely, you'll detect about a half-inch of wood between Barry Bonds' bottom hand and the knob on his Adirondack Big Stick.

I'd say choking up -- even if it's just a little -- has worked well for him.

Like shooting jacks or hopping scotch, some believe choking up is a lost art, although I would consider it more style than art. But it may be back in vogue at Cashman Field this season, at least when the count goes to two strikes on home team batters.

"It's interesting that you should mention that," said new Las Vegas manager John Shoemaker as the 51s prepared for tonight's season opener against Salt Lake. "We've put in an organizational rule this year, that when the count goes to two strikes, we're going to shorten up on the bat and try to make contact."

Well, we'll see how long that lasts, because I can't see a guy like Shawn Green forsaking a chance to pad his home run total, even if it means fewer strikeouts. Shoemaker isn't quite so skeptical.

"We were using it all spring. I don't think it'll be a big issue," he said.

In fact, Shoemaker said big-league teams are as much to blame as big-league players for the grip-it-and-rip-it mentality. At some point, Earl Weaver must have put a bug in every manager's ear, because the three-run homer became much more popular than the hit-and-run.

Otherwise, Shoemaker said, "I really couldn't give you a good reason (why players don't choke up). Maybe a lot of guys don't feel comfortable doing it."

Or maybe, as more than one Bronx Bomber has said, it's because Cadillacs are at the bottom of the bat handle. Up where the pine tar begins, that's Chevy Malibu country.

And let's not forget that chicks dig the long ball.

I'm not sure if Mickey Mantle was the first to pick up on that. But I know for sure it wasn't Tony Kubek.