Broad-Shouldered, Like Chicago

By Tom Callahan

Ron Kittle of the White Sox aims a good deal beyond the fences

Chicago, a city not overrun with heroes, is embracing a new candidate, a long-ball hitter named Ronald Dale Kittle, who has been stunning the American League. He is close to homegrown, coming from 25 miles away in Gary, Ind., where his father is an ironworker. After failing with the Los Angeles Dodgers at 20, the son also walked the skeletons of buildings for a while. Kittle is constructed on the order of a building: long lines and sharp angles, 6 ft. 4 in. tall, a look of granite. He is like Chicago.

Billy Pierce, the ideal White Sox pitcher of the 1950s, rediscovered him on a sand lot. Kittle was playing semipro baseball, after a day's heavy work, for a Chicago team identified beguilingly as AHEPA, which, even some of the players forget, stands for the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association. Any White Sox scout might have found Kittle, but the fact that it was Pierce means something to South Siders, who are also pleased to recall that it was Peg-Legged Bill Veeck who signed the young slugger. For Veeck still owned the team in 1978 and was presiding at Comiskey Park on the famous September day when Ron Kittle came to try out.

In a scene from Damn Yankees, Kittle played Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo., hitting so many batting-practice homers that witnesses now insist the hits were all homers and five of them landed in the upper deck. He was packed off smartly to the minor leagues. The only question: Why had Kittle hit so poorly in the Dodger organization? The answer was that he had a broken neck. That is, without realizing it, he had two crushed vertebrae that pinched a nerve in his neck and numbed his right arm. On his own he underwent a spinal fusion in 1978. How Kittle was injured is still unknown. "But it must have been playing baseball," he says, "because I don't remember being hit by a car." This is how he talks.

Just swinging a bat could have done it, the way Kittle swings it. In a Double A league at Glens Falls, N.Y., two years ago, Kittle had 40 home runs; at Edmonton, Alta., in Triple A ball last year, he hit 50 homers, two in one inning. Over the two seasons, Kittle amassed 90 home runs, 247 runs batted in and a composite batting average of .336. At 25, he reached the major leagues this year to some acclaim.

For two months now the rookie has been on or near the American League lead in home runs, the first player to harvest a dozen. According to Charlie Lau, distinguished batting theorist of the White Sox, Kittle has yet to hit a home run that is merely a home run. "They're all emphatically home runs," Lau says emphatically. "Ron is strong, but he doesn't 'muscle' the swing. It's rhythmic, natural. In his mind, I think he's just so sure he can hit, the pitchers can strike him out, make him look foolish, and there's still that trace of a smile. He knows he's going to get them." Tony LaRussa, the manager, says, "You can't tell looking at Kittle after the game whether he struck out three tunes or had three hits. And he's played at least an average left field every night, sometimes above average."

Kittle is a big friendly lug, accommodating (the promotions department is thunderstruck at how cheerfully available Kittle is for supermarket openings) but direct. The first week of the season, immediately after his first gargantuan homer, Kittle was asked if he had been surprised, and he replied, "Should I have been surprised?" Someone wondered why he wore spectacles, not contact lenses. Kittle said, "I'm not that crazy about sticking my finger in my eye." So far, the major leagues hold no chill for him. "It's about what I expected, the same old baseball game. I'll ad mit I was looking around Yankee Stadium during batting practice and almost got hit in the head. I was thinking of Mickey Mantle. Going into Fenway Park the first time, I guess you can't help but think of Ted Williams. But when you get down to it, they're still ballparks, and I like to see the ball fly out of the yard."

Stepping up to home plate, Kittle stirs a buzz of anticipation that signals the possibility not just of a homer but of a huge one. "A lot of times I don't hear anything out there," he says, "and sometimes I hear everything, hear guys spitting. But that sound at the plate can make me think of the fan who maybe comes to one game a year. If you hit a home run that game, may be he'll like you and follow you."

This season several rookies have been acquiring followers, including Baltimore Centerfielder John Shelby, who is batting around .300, and Pitchers Craig McMurtry (7-2, 2.88 earned run average) of Atlanta and Matt Young (7-4, 2.14) of Seattle. Though he is hitting only .179 with three home runs for the Mets, Darryl Strawberry's promise has made him a celebrity in New York City. Greg Brock, obliged to replace Steve Garvey at first base for the Dodgers, is batting scarcely .240 but has eleven home runs. Kit tie's average has held at around .270, while he has been at the head of the league not only in home runs but runs batted in.

Kittle is proud to have hit .345 for the Edmonton Trappers last year, though averages have never warmed his cockles as much as the sight of a ball in flight. "I always followed the home-run hitters, anybody who could yank the ball out of the park," he says. "In Little League, I was the same size as the other kids. But I always had the heaviest bat." Never one for watching a game if he could be playing another, Kittle followed his heroes in the agate type, "checking out the box scores, looking for the guys who hit the homers." He says, "It's nice to be one of them now."

Of course, he is regularly advised that the pitchers will solve him the next time around, the same warning he heard in Ed monton. "As soon as you get a few home runs anywhere," Kittle says, "you don't see too many fastballs any more. The pitchers will challenge you with whatever is their best pitch. I'll just try to drive it as hard as I can in any direction." For instance, the Sears Tower. That's a good direction.

-- By Tom Callahan This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.