Quiet Leader

By Steve Henson

July 12, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Mike Edwards watches from the corner of his eye in the dugout. Jayson Werth takes a peek over his shoulder in the clubhouse. Jeff Weaver looks over to calm himself from the mound.

Learning from Jeff Kent doesn’t involve ears so much as eyes. His teammates observe the way he navigates a deceptively complex game and a road map becomes clear.

Kent has distilled baseball’s numbing routine to its essence. From the time he climbs into his pickup truck and takes the identical route to Dodger Stadium until he answers reporters’ postgame questions with an economy of words, there isn’t a wasted movement, an unnecessary gesture.

“Everything about him screams winner,” said Werth, a second-year outfielder. “I follow his lead because I know he’s going in the right direction.”

In the twilight of his career, Kent, 37, has emerged as an unlikely leader on a struggling team.

Kent’s path is as straight as a line drive to center field. Although he has long been surrounded by the laid-back and liberal, having grown up in Huntington Beach and attended Cal and now living on a large ranch near Austin, Texas, he is old-fashioned, earnest and conservative in the classic sense.

“My upbringing was a big part of it,” he said. “My dad is a retired police officer, and it was comparable to a military routine.”

When Kent broke into the major leagues with the powerhouse Toronto Blue Jays in 1992, the clubhouse was peppered with positive role models. Kent was the only rookie, and he sought advice from the likes of Dave Winfield, Joe Carter, Jack Morris and Jimmy Key.

“They made an impact on how I look at the game,” Kent said. “That was the best team in baseball, and I wanted to act like those guys.”

Fourteen seasons and five All-Star berths into a profession that invites constant scrutiny, Kent remains an enigma, the Mona Lisa of the middle infield.

Is that a smirk, a smile or a sneer? Even his teammates aren’t sure.

The Dodgers are his sixth team, and his clubhouse persona has evolved from cheeky youngster to audacious curmudgeon to eccentric recluse to wise elder. Yet on the field, each season is a replica of every other season -- and has been for more than a decade.

Amid the near-total breakdown of the Dodgers, Kent has continued an inexorable march toward Cooperstown.

“I try to do the right thing, to do my job the best I can,” he said. “I’ve been criticized my whole career because I’m quiet. I don’t act like anybody else in the game.

“I’ve been described as arrogant and aloof, and I don’t see myself that way. It’s been hard for people to understand me, when I’m just trying to be professional in my job.”

He leads all second basemen with 60 runs batted in while batting .304 with 15 home runs. He is third in the league with a .387 average with runners in scoring position and is batting .556 with the bases loaded.

He is on his way to knocking in 100 runs for the eighth time, which would make him the all-time leader among second basemen. He is tied with Hall of Famers Charlie Gehringer and Tony Lazzeri.

Kent, the NL most valuable player in 2000, is the only second baseman to have hit 20 or more home runs in eight consecutive seasons. He ranks first at the position with 293 homers and has 317 in all.

“There are some guys who come to the ballpark hoping the situation presents itself to walk to home plate with the game on the line,” Dodger Manager Jim Tracy said. “Jeff Kent is one of those guys. He’s as good a run producer as I’ve seen.”

The numbers alone earn him the respect of his new teammates, but it is his daily routine that most intrigues the young players trying to grasp what it takes to be consistently successful.

He has no use for the endless card games, the ear-splitting music, the needless bantering. He learned long ago that his energy must be directed toward what it takes to win as many games as possible over a six-month season.

“When you get older, you find the things that don’t work and brush them aside,” he said.

The younger Dodgers aren’t adopting Kent’s quirky mannerisms -- they recognize that gruffness doesn’t equal greatness. They don’t want to become loners who won’t socialize with teammates and sit in front of a corner locker reading motorcycle magazines before games.

They do, however, want to emulate Kent the ballplayer.

“He goes after it every day the same way,” said Edwards, a rookie third baseman. “He plays hurt. He wants to shoulder the load. You have to respect that.

“He welcomes the big situations. He doesn’t feel pressure, but you can see his intensity increase.”

Until recently, that was enough. He never believed mentoring was in his job description.

After winning the 2000 MVP award with San Francisco, he asked that his locker be moved from an area reserved for veterans to one filled with prospects. Kent told reporters he wanted a chance to set an example but later admitted he’d moved only to get out of a high-traffic area in the clubhouse.

He remained a mystery man when he signed with the Astros before the 2003 season. Young shortstop Adam Everett was distraught that his double-play partner never spoke to him but would cuss to himself after making an out.

“One day, he wasn’t real happy with himself and I had to take him his glove,” Everett said. “I said, ‘Are you yelling at me?’ ”

Kent was taken aback and replied that he was upset only with himself.

“That broke the ice,” Everett said. “When I would swing at a bad pitch or be out of position, he’d talk to me. He’d say, ‘What are you doing? Are you thinking it through?’ ”

Kent has become increasingly comfortable tutoring youngsters. He’s never going to be Mister Rogers, but in his own way he gets the message across.

“He’s the kind of person who isn’t vocal, but if he wants to come up and talk, he will and it’s always for a reason,” Edwards said. “He does it in a professional way. It’s just not rah-rah.”

Recently Kent has been the first infielder to the mound when a pitcher is struggling.

The Dodgers’ spiral to a 40-48 record grates on him. His instinct is to play to the best of his ability and go home, but he knows this team requires more.

He speaks up at players-only meetings. When he does, teammates say the rest of the room is silent. He commands that kind of respect.

“I take the responsibility seriously,” he said.

“I don’t say a whole lot of things. When I do, I try to be as influential as I can.”

To some who have experienced his abrupt, surly side, the idea that he could be a leader is laughable. To those who observe him from afar, though, leadership is obvious. A longtime Southland high school coach, Frank Mutz, held up Kent as an example of an effective leader in a recent talk to his team, saying players want to follow outstanding performers.

Kent knows who is watching, and he’s fine with it. Deep down he believes that anyone wanting to succeed in baseball can follow his blueprint. The results speak for themselves.

“My own four kids see me do something and they’ll do exactly what I just did,” he said. “That blows me away. I want my kids to be better than I was. I want them to do things that make me proud.

“The kids on [the Dodgers] are no different. I appreciate the fact that they might take advantage of my knowledge and example.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

BATTING ORDERS

Lineups for tonight’s All-Star game at Comerica Park:

American League

1-Johnny Damon...CF

2-Alex Rodriguez...3B

3-David Ortiz...DH

4-Manny Ramirez...LF

5-Miguel Tejada...SS

6-Vladimir Guerrero...RF

7-Mark Teixeira...1B