8601090864
DETROIT FREE PRESS
860302
Sunday, March 02, 1986
METRO FINAL
1G
Photo Color MARY SCHROEDER
MITCH ALBOM
SEE ALSO STATE EDITION
Copyright (c) 1986, Detroit Free Press
A LITTLE TIGER, A LITTLE SNAKE
LAKELAND, Fla. -- The subject was fear, and Kirk Gibson was coming up
empty.
"Heights?" I asked.
"Nah," he said.
"The dark?" I asked.
"Nah," he said.
"Fast cars?"
He just laughed at that one.
"Snakes? Scorpions?"
He paused for a second. "Well, I don't like snakes," he said, "but if I saw
one, I'd just . . . kill it."
His voice went a little high on the "kill it" part, as if it were so
obvious he really needn't bother saying it. And hey, what are you going to do
with a snake, really? Rehabilitate it? You could run or scream. You could hide
in the closet. Or you could kill it. And I think, right here, you have a big
chunk of Kirk Gibson's approach to life.
If there is any fear in this guy, no one seems to be able to find it. And
that is what makes him different. He is not, at 28, what you'd call a pure
hero -- he's probably screamed at one too many sports writers and told one too
many fans to get the hell away from him. But he has hero potential. It's on
him like an ink stain. And it's there in people's minds -- in a picture of
Gibson leaping high after the home run he hit to clinch the 1984 World Series.
How many of us, after all, could have done that?
But now it is spring, the Tigers are here, warming up the engines, and, as
usual, there are a lot of questions about Gibson, the team's top hitter (.287)
and base stealer (30) last season. Is he different? Is he bitter over his new
contract? Is he remorseful? The answer is, he is being easier and more
accommodating than everyone else expected. And everyone else is about the same
as usual. Last week a Detroit newspaper ran a big story claiming the first
full day of Tigers spring training was all Gibson -- so much so that the other
players might as well have been "invisible."
That wasn't true. It wasn't even close to true. But it happens all the
time. Gibson is liquid headline. There is a compelling attraction that can
make him the center of focus even when he is yawning.
Why is this? I'm not sure. I remember once hearing a safari hunter say,
"You can't take your eyes off of a tiger. Not even if you want to. The danger
is too fascinating." I suspect that kind of thing has something to do with
it.
Anyhow, the tiger is back -- in right field, wearing old No. 23 -- after
an awkward tango with free agency in the off-season. It ended with a midnight
phone call to his agent from a restaurant in New Zealand, where Gibson was
honeymooning.
Although months of negotiations had passed, Gibson says he "had no idea" he
was going to accept the Tigers' offer when he placed that call minutes before
the signing deadline.
"Something just came over me," he said. "I realized there was no place else
for me to play, really. I didn't want to be in some place I didn't like on
some bleep team. Winning means too much."
The conversation was brief.
GIBSON: "Listen. Call them up, get what you can, and take it."
AGENT: "Whaaa? Wait. Let's talk about it."
GIBSON: "Bleep it. I've made my decision. I'm through talking about it.
Call." (Click.)
He returned to his table, ordered four bottles of Dom Perignon -- for he
and new wife, JoAnn, and their co- honeymooners, Dave and Sandy Rozema -- and
toasted the future.
Now, it takes a certain type of cool to decide a career over a restaurant
telephone. Especially when others are waiting to use it. But see the snake and
kill it. Things are that black and white. And it is here that a lot of us
lose Kirk Gibson, because most of us are afraid of something, afraid of making
the wrong decision, of missing a key fact, of offending or disappointing
someone, and he apparently is afraid of nothing.
That means sports writers, autograph hounds, his reputation,
disappointment, regret, and, most notably, opposing pitchers. Last season
Gibson took a fastball in the mouth -- he needed 17 stitches to hold the flesh
together -- and the next day he homered in his first at-bat. Not everyone can
do that.
Nor is it everyone who will say: "If my best friend was the shortstop and
I had to break up a double play, I'd hit him as hard as I could." You can
admire this or disdain it. Gibson, now in his seventh major league season,
simply cannot stand to lose. It is a pebble in his shoe, an itch in the middle
of his back, a high-pitched ringing in his ear that won't go away. All things
annoying and aggravating.
"You have never, ever, ever met anyone who hates losing as much as me,"
Kirk Gibson says. And I am inclined to believe him.
Especially when he looks you in the eye. Say what you will about Gibson.
The man has presence. I doubt there would be as much fuss over him if he were
short and squat and had acne and a head like Kojak's. But he doesn't. Looks
are a part of the deal and Gibson was blessed with ferociously good ones:
blond hair, a surfer's countenance, deep-set eyes that can dance or snarl, and
a grin just made for getting in and out of trouble. All this on top of your
standard issue 6-foot-3 hunk of athletic body. You want to kill him.
Of course, Gibson admits, sometimes the feeling is mutual. He'd like to
kill you back. There is a nastiness in him that, as with other emotions, he is
not afraid to unleash. Anytime. Anywhere. Above his locker, next to his name
plate, is a sticker of an orange cat with a sour expression. "I'm Ornery," it
reads. Consider that fair warning.
"Right now I'm pretty easy to get along with," he said, drying off from a
shower. "But once I get my mind on certain things, well, there are times I
think you guys (the media) should respect me. It's like, I don't sign
autographs until I get out of here. Not before. I respect the fans' right to
an autograph, but they have to respect my time, too.
"When I first come in every day, I've thought over the day before, and what
I got to do today. It's on my mind. Sometimes I just want to think about
that, and I'll say to someone, 'Just leave me be, OK?' If they can't respect
that, I can really be an S.O.B."
He slipped on a T-shirt and blue jeans -- although as the nation now
knows, he could afford cashmere underwear if he wanted it. "If I make $1.5
million a year," he said, "it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean I'm not human.
I'm gonna make mistakes. All my money isn't gonna buy me out of making
mistakes. But my mistakes are going to be aggressive ones. And if people don't
like it, tough. When I make a play, they love it. I know that."
On went the sneakers, a jacket, a cap. He kept talking. "A lot of people
who don't like me don't know me. But I choose to have it that way. It's fine.
It's intentional at times.
"A lot of people get on me for one reason or another, but I'll tell you
what" -- the eyes danced now -- "I hope they have half as much fun as I do . .
. because I'm having a riot." What can you say to that? I suppose half of us
would like to slap Kirk Gibson and the other half trade places with him. This,
by the way, is the trouble with headlines, which Gibson makes as often as
President Reagan in Detroit. Headlines, if they are lucky, contain one
thought. And Gibson cannot be summed up so simply.
Here is a guy who drips macho, who barks unforgivingly at female sports
writers, and yet the other day he stood along the outfield fence in a
friendly arm-in-arm with Tigers trainer Pio DiSalvo. Arm in arm? Two men?
Yeah. What about it? Here is a guy who will tell a heckler -- in no uncertain
terms -- where he can stick his advice. Loudly. Yet on Friday I saw him
leaning over trying to sign an autograph on a kid's back, and the kid kept
moving and moving and Gibson stuck with it, trying to get the thing right.
"I don't feel like talking," he might say at one moment, and the next he'll
be telling you a story about not eating beets as a kid. This is probably part
of his appeal. He is an odd concoction, a dash of Brando, a dash of Dick
Butkus, a dash of Joe Party Animal at your favorite college campus.
But he is a force. Pitcher Dave LaPoint, a newcomer to the Tigers'
clubhouse, noticed it quickly: "You can sort of tell that a lot of guys wait
for Kirk or Darrell (Evans) to laugh and then they know it's OK to laugh."
"I bring it on myself," Gibson said of the attention he gets. "I'm
flamboyant, abrasive, I have a different personality. It draws attention."
It will continue to do so, no matter how loudly people said they had sworn
off Gibson during the whole contract deal. There will be Gibson stories.
Gibson headlines. He knows it. "Just tell people I'm very happy to be back,"
he said.
Yes, he is married now, and he hinted a child may already be on the way.
("If I wanted to tell you definitely I would tell you," he said. But he was
smiling.) Certain people may mistake that for mellowing, I guess -- although
mellowing is something that happens to cantaloupes, not ball players -- but
anyhow, they've got the wrong guy.
"We lost a lot last year," he said, "and losing hurts me. I don't go out
there to say, 'Well, we lost, but we played a helluva game.' Who gives a
bleep? It's like a pitcher who pitches a no-hitter for 8 2/3 innings and
loses. Who gives a bleep? You lost. I go out for one reason. To win."
And there it is. I don't know whether there's a heart of gold underneath
his bravado. All I can tell you is there is something on fire down there, and
it doesn't lose any heartbeats over nervousness or regret, and that is why
some of us will never fully understand Kirk Gibson. And that's OK.
He says his only goal this year is a world championship. Detroit fans will
buy that. And you can dance to this: They'll be watching him. Like that safari
guy said, you can't take your eyes off a tiger. And there is one on the prowl
down here again, and it ain't scared of nothin'. Not even snakes.
CUTLINE:
Kirk Gibson talks shop with a top Tiger hitter of the past, Al Kaline.
DTIGERS;KIRK GIBSON;INTERVIEW