JIM EDMONDS RETRO FLASHBACK

Baseball Digest, July 2000 by Mike Eisenbath

With a new team, center fielder hopes to produce a season like he did for Angels in '95

JIM EDMONDS' first day as a Cardinal was nothing to call home about.

He did a bunch of interviews. Shook a lot of hands. Pulled on a Cardinals jersey for the first time late last March after being traded from the Anaheim Angels.

Oh, there was that RBI single during an exhibition game against Baltimore. And the warm ovation from Cardinals fans that followed. Maybe he would find a way to tell that story. Maybe he would talk about hitting coach Mike Easler, who talked nonstop with praise about Edmonds' sweet swing during a session in the batting cage. Maybe he would talk about one interview he did in front of a TV camera as he was asked how he thought the Cardinals would do this season.

"I don't even know who my teammates are," responded Edmonds, a slightly mischievous tone in his voice.

He was joking. Edmonds knew plenty about his new team. He knew he could win their affection with the way he plays. He also knew this would be a fresh start and a golden opportunity to dispel the doubts that have dogged his career.

The essential nature of Jim Edmonds? Play hard, play to win, but never forget that it's play.

"I just have fun, laughing on the field and smiling with the guys," Edmonds said. "Maybe not as much right now (learning a new team), but I'm just not going to change my game. I'm just going to play hard and stay healthy. By no means am I going to keep my head down and walk around here like I don't belong.

"It's a lot of fun being on the field. I get excited to play. I mean, why not? It's a great game. It's a good job to have."

And if Edmonds can play at the level he showed in the opening weeks of the season, the Cardinals and their fans will all have fun in 2000. Edmonds hit .382 with eight home runs, six doubles, 22 RBI, 23 runs scored and a .776 slugging percentage during the month of April.

Edmonds is a center fielder now--some say the best in the business--but he played left field for the Angels in his first big league game in 1994. He made an immediate impression by throwing out Detroit's Tony Phillips at the plate.

By the next season, Edmonds was a full-fledged star. He batted .290, hit 33 home runs, drove in 107 runs and scored 120. He won the Gold Glove Award as one of the best defensive center fielders in the American League in 1997 and 1998.

And little by little, the baseball world came to see Jim Edmonds as a unique individual. He slammed into walls to make catches. He trotted off the field beaming after a particularly stunning diving grab. He stood at the plate and appreciated his home runs.

"Jim's a show," Angels outfielder Tim Salmon once said admiringly.

"I have to be this way," Edmonds said, "to survive."

It all seems so natural for the handsome, muscular native of Southern California. A seasoned baseball observer recently watched Edmonds play in a game, marveled at the way he roamed the outfield smoothly, gracefully. He thought Edmonds looked "a bit like a young Mickey Mantle."

Edmonds carries himself like he was meant to do this. Former manager Terry Collins called it a "gait of confidence."

"I've seen Jim make a dozen plays where you just say, `Wow, that's amazing,'" Salmon said. "He has such a beautiful swing, I'd get jealous of it, and in pressure-packed situations he seemed so relaxed. He has that flair."

Edmonds has looked back at his 1995 season and said there is no reason why he can't match it or do even better. But he's not a natural. "I wouldn't be a career .290 hitter if I was," he said. "I'd be hitting .400.

"I just go out and play. Whatever I do, I do. It's not something I think about. What you see is what you get."

Some things you might like to know about Jim Edmonds:

* He took an eye test shortly after the Angels drafted him in seventh round in 1988, out of Diamond Bar High School (California), that revealed he had 20-1.5 vision. "Better than perfect," his mom said.

* He throws and bats left-handed, but he's ambidextrous. Edmonds used to take grounders at second base as a right-hander--just for fun. Surgery on his right shoulder has ended that amusement.

Edmonds grew up in Diamond Bar, within walking distance from his grandparents and aunts and uncles. When he started a family and bought a place to live, it was in that same general vicinity. "There's security," he said then. Close to the high school where he was a three-sport star. Close to his parents. Only 15 miles from where the Angels play baseball.

His entire support system, including two daughters, is in Southern California.

"I'm not really concerned with that now," he said. "I'm concerned with getting a chance to play. I'll try to arrange for my kids to come up, try to arrange for my parents to come in and spend some time here (St. Louis).

He's used to their presence. They remember him playing in the high school Southern Section championship--at Anaheim Stadium that senior year, when he batted .548. He also pitched for his high school team, once striking out 19 of 21 batters faced. Edmonds played quarterback for the football team and starred on the soccer team.

Even then, Edmonds was misunderstood.

"He doesn't always look like he's putting out a lot of effort," his high school baseball coach once said. "There were many times when we were frustrated by that. But there was always one thing about Jimmy. He knew where he was going."

Some in the Angels' organization doubted he would get there. He didn't show any real power or speed his first four pro seasons. Some within the organization questioned his approach.

In the spring of 1992, Angels' hitting coach Rod Carew took a special interest in Edmonds. A warm relationship developed between the two, in part because Carew understood.

"He took the rap of being lazy," Carew, a Hall of Famer, said a year ago. "I told him, `Same thing I took for 19 years.'"

Although he basked in playing at home for the team he watched play as often as three times a week when he was a boy, Edmonds had more than his share of aggravation in Anaheim. There were the persistent trade rumors, which began several years ago when the Angels had a pile of talented outfielders.

And there have been the verbal shots from former teammates who think he has been an underachiever since 1995. He has had to deal with a variety of injuries--strained abdomen, sprained thumb, strained rib cage, strained groin, shoulder surgery--that has caused him to miss the equivalent of seven months during the past four seasons.

Chuck Finley, now with the Indians, said Edmonds always teased with his talent but simply didn't get all he could out of it. Jim Leyritz, now with the Yankees, questioned Edmonds' desire.

"I was disgusted with how he acted sometimes," Angels shortstop Gary DiSarcina said. "But he's like a little brother. You just have to wait until he matures. I think we saw that when he played with two knee injuries in 1997 and played 154 games in 1998."

In 1998, Edmonds batted .307 with 42 doubles; 25 homers, 115 runs, 184 hits, 91 RBI and he won a second Gold Glove. The Angels were in a race for a division title that year, and Edmonds batted .340 with 20 RBI and five homers during September.

Still, he grated many teammates when, the day after the Angels were knocked out of contention, he had the same old happy attitude when he showed up at the ballpark.

Not everyone was annoyed by his attitude, and no one disputed the vigor he showed on the field, sacrificing his body to get to any fly ball within reach.

"He'll give you the shirt off his back in a heartbeat, and I'm not just talking about him in a baseball perspective," former teammate Troy Glaus said. "The man will do anything he can to help you out. He's a great, great teammate."

That's what the Cardinals got for Kent Bottenfield and Adam Kennedy. Essentially, one of the best players in the game.

And he still might get better. Edmonds has an ability to do anything it seems. For instance, he hit 34 home runs his first seven pro seasons. He hit 33 in the eighth season--in the major leagues.

"I got a lot stronger, and I changed my swing," Edmonds said. "I went home in 1994 and said, `This is what I've got to do.' I wanted to learn to pull the ball a little bit more. It just happened overnight. Very surprising. I knew I had power. I just wasn't able to hit the ball in the air to right-center field as much. That's where I changed.

"I wasn't trying to hit 30 home runs. I was just trying to get the ball up in the air with some back spin."

Ever since, Edmonds has been expected to live up to that 1995 standard. He has come close. He's not satisfied with close.

"I love that expectation," he said. "I want to be an all-around player."