FEAR NOT, Rey Ordonez, there is hope. You don’t have to go through your whole career as a banjo-hitting shortstop who makes all the plays and so, so many outs.
You don’t have to go through life with the middle name “all-field, no-hit.” You can change your ways. You can become a force with the bat. Who knows, maybe you can even lead the league in RBIs more than one month into the season.
Impossible? Of course it is.
Yet, something nearly as strange is going on in the American League. The major league leader in RBIs came to the Stadium last night wearing an Orioles cap. His name isn’t Albert Belle or B. J. Surhoff. It’s not Cal Ripken Jr. or Brady Anderson. It’s not even Harold Baines, Charles Johnson or Jeff Conine.
He doesn’t bat third or fourth, fifth or sixth. He’s not a designated hitter or a left fielder, a first baseman or a right fielder.
The major-league leader in runs batted in, going into last night’s games, was none other than Mike Bordick, No. 9-hitting shortstop for the Orioles. The man who moved Ripken off shortstop with his glove is tearing up the league with his bat. The Orioles had Surhoff batting third, Belle in the cleanup spot and Baines in the No. 5 hole last night against Orlando Hernandez. Those three hitters had combined for 35 RBIs from the traditional RBI spots in the lineup. Bordick had 30 RBIs batting ninth.
This from a player who signed with the A’s as a non-drafted free agent in 1986 out of University of Maine, which Bordick helped get into two Colege World Series. Even at that, Bordick is the first to ackowledge he was only signed to fill out a roster for the A’s affiliate in Medford, Ore.
Bordick had eight home runs in six minor-league seasons. He had seven home runs going into last night’s game, or as many as Belle and Anderson combined. That would be the same Belle and Anderson who are memebers of baseball’s still relatively exclusive 50-home run club.
“Tremendous, tremendous representative of the old-fashioned, American work ethic,” Orioles general manager Syd Thrift said as Bordick ran past the dugout during batting practice. “Non-drafted free agent who never stops working. That’s a great American success story.”
Like any American success story, Bordick will cash in on his new-found power. He is a free agent at season’s end. Timing is everything.
Bordick’s power surge began last season, when he knocked in 77 runs and somehow made enough adjustments to go from being the worst hitter in the league against left-handed pitching to the best, based on batting average. In ’99, Bordick hit .406 against lefties. In ’98, he batted .184.
“Maturity has a lot to do with it,” said Bordick, who led American League shortstops in fielding percentage (.989) and total chances (797) in 1999.
Maturity; hear that, Rey?
“Players mature and now what to do in certain situations, what to look for,” Bordick said. “That comes with experience.”
Bordick was rewarded for his career-best season by getting bumped in the batting order from second to ninth.
“A lot of players would complain about that,” Thrift said. “He looks at the positives.”
Such as?
“With Will Clark getting on base all the time and Charles Johnson swinging the bat well, they don’t want to face the top of the order, so I see a lot of good pitches,” Bordick said.
Still, you have to capitalize and Bordick did that so well in the month of April he shattered Frank Robinson’s club RBI record by five (29-24).
Any day now, Rey Ordonez will be swatting Mike Piazza out of the Mets’ record books.
Sure he will.