Shelby Plants Himself in Center Field

Before John T. Shelby came along, the Dodgers changed center fielders the way the Yankees used to change managers. They tried Ken Landreaux. They tried minor leaguers. They supposedly thought about trying Steve Sax. They probably thought about reactivating Duke Snider. They considered everybody this side of John Fogerty, the guy who sang that “Center Field” song, in which a ballplayer begged: “Put me in, Coach, I’m ready to play.”

Then, one day in May, the Dodgers made a trade with the Baltimore Orioles for Shelby. They put him in. He was ready to play. He was ready, willing, able, eager, anxious and hungry to play.

Now, nobody can get him out of there.

They’ve tried. They’ve asked. When the Dodgers were murdering the Cubs, 12-0, on the last day before the All-Star break, Tom Lasorda went up to the new center fielder, who, since being acquired on May 22, had played every inning of every game.

“Want to come out? Take a little rest?” the manager asked.

“I’ll rest during the All-Star break,” Shelby said.

There is just no convincing the guy to leave center field. The Dodgers undoubtedly send a guy to the stadium at night to see if Shelby has set up a cot out there.

After the 12-0 game, the All-Star break did, in fact, come. Shelby spent the time at home with his wife, Trina, who is eight months pregnant, and with John T. Shelby III, who will soon turn 2.

A guy sitting alongside Shelby in the Dodger dugout before Saturday’s game with the Pirates said: “Good thing you didn’t go to the All-Star game. You probably would have played every inning, like Dave Winfield.”

Whereupon Shelby, who has fooled just about everybody since coming to the Dodgers, fooled us again.

“I hope I never have to go to one of those,” he said.

“To an All-Star game?”

“Yeah. I hope they never pick me,” he said.

It is not every day that you hear someone say he prefers not to make the All-Star team. But John Shelby’s got his reasons, and they are good ones. “I’d much, much rather spend those days with my family,” he said.

Since so many of Shelby’s loved ones still live in or around his hometown of Lexington, Ky., the guy sitting next to him mentioned that maybe Shelby might not mind making the National League All-Stars in 1988, when the midsummer classic will be played in nearby Cincinnati. “You could drive to the game and still see everybody,” it was proposed.

Shelby shook his head.

“It’s just not the same,” he said.

The funny thing is how the idea of the Dodgers putting a center fielder in an All-Star game suddenly is not so far-fetched.

OK, perhaps Shelby’s first two months with the club have been misleading. After all, he was a career .240 hitter going into this season, with 30 career home runs. Nobody mistook him for Mickey Mantle. His manager in Baltimore, Earl Weaver, was reluctant to even let his switch-hitting center-fielder bat left-handed.

But in the two months since joining the Dodgers, Shelby already has had a 13-game hitting streak; has hit 10 home runs, including one inside the park; has stolen seven bases, and has stabbed everything that has come his way with that coal-black mitt of his.

And just for the record: Among National League center fielders, from May 22 to the All-Star break, Shelby is first in doubles (14), tied for first in homers (10), tied for second in hits (55) and third in RBIs (27). Remember, this includes Eric Davis, Willie McGee, Chili Davis, Billy Hatcher and the rest.

It might be a mirage, but for the present, at least, applications are no longer being accepted at Dodger Stadium for the center-field job. The position has been filled.

On the day the Dodgers got him, John T.--for “T-Bone,” his teammates say--Shelby was waiting around before a Friday night game with Baltimore’s Rochester farm team, wondering whether he would ever make it back to the major leagues.

Then the telephone rang, and just like that, Shelby no longer worked for them. For 10 years, he had been an outfielder in Baltimore’s organization, but now, he had been traded to a team on the other coast.

Fred Claire, the guy who replaced Al Campanis as chief of staff for the Dodgers, filled him in on some of the details. The Orioles said they needed Tom Niedenfuer, the relief pitcher. The Dodgers, in return, needed a center fielder, and Baltimore also tossed in a pitcher, Brad Havens.

Claire told Shelby to report as soon as possible. Shelby told Claire he would like to take a few days, because his wife was expecting a baby and all, and they needed time to make plans, and Albuquerque was so far away, and...

“John,” Claire interrupted, “we don’t want you in Albuquerque. We want you in New York. We’ve got a game tonight.”

Shelby was so accustomed to being neglected that he thought he was headed for the minors. He hustled to New York, reported immediately to center field and has not been out of the lineup since.

“Pressure? No, I don’t feel any pressure. I felt a lot more pressure in Baltimore, sitting around all the time,” Shelby said. “Since I’ve been here, they’ve just let me play and do my best.

“I went through a stretch here where I was probably 2 for 23, and they kept sending me out there. If I ever went 2 for 20-something with the Orioles, I’d be finished. By the third day, somebody would be pinch-hitting for me. By the next day, I’d be pinch-hitting for them.

“The other day, when I was in the middle of my hitting streak, somebody asked me how it felt to hit in eight games in a row. I said: ‘I don’t know. It seems like it’s been so long since I played eight games in a row.’ I mean, this is great.”

There is a side benefit, too.

“I’m finally playing in the National League,” Shelby said. “All my family back in Kentucky, everybody, they’re all National League fans. Me, too. Unfortunately, we’re all Cincinnati Reds fans. But now, when I call home, they don’t have to ask, ‘How are you doing?’ any more because so many National League games are on TV down there. They get the Reds, the Cubs, the Braves, the Mets. When we played the Reds and Braves last trip, I think they saw every game I played.”

And if they cheered for Pete Rose and jeered Lasorda, well, you can’t really blame them.

“Yeah. That has to be my secret,” Shelby said. “Can’t tell Tommy I was ever a Reds fan. I want to keep playing.”