8701120412
DETROIT FREE PRESS
870310
Tuesday, March 10, 1987
STATE EDITION
1D
MITCH ALBOM
SEE ALSO METRO FINAL EDITION 1D
Copyright (c) 1987, Detroit Free Press
HERNDON HOPES TO TURN THE PAGE ON HIS CAREER
LAKELAND, Fla. -- If this were Rolling Stone magazine, the following might
be titled "HERNDON -- THE INTERVIEW!" Not that you'd likely find Larry Herndon
in Rolling Stone's colorful pages. He is not quite the earring and
leopard-skin type.
Actually, if magazines were people you might find him in Gentlemen's
Quarterly. Maybe Family Weekly. Certainly not Commentary. Talking has never
been Herndon's favorite activity, at least with reporters. Setting up an
interview with him is not merely like pulling teeth, it's like waiting for
them to grow in.
But to be honest, this never bothered me, for two reasons: 1) I figured
maybe he just had nothing to say, and 2) as far as I know, he has never been
rude about his silence. Ever. I think most reporters respect a guy's quietness
if he is consistent and honest about it. And Larry Herndon is both. He will
shake your hand and exchange pleasantries from now until doomsday, or until
you pull out the notepad, which is sometimes the same thing. Then he'll say,
"I'd rather not," and shy away.
Which is why I did a double take last week when I saw a TV crew doing a
interview with none other than No. 31.
"What gives?" I asked him afterward. "Are you softening your stance?"
"Aw," he said, laughing, "I . . . uh . . . naw . . . I'll talk to people in
the spring."
"You will? An interview? Print media?"
"Uh . . . yeah . . . OK . . .
"Today?"
"Well. . . . "
Untrue story is put to rest It wasn't that today. It was a few todays
later. But we did sit down to talk. The only other time I had written about
him was after his grand slam home run against Boston last year. In that
column, I repeated an old story that two people that day swore to me was true
and which in fact is not: how Herndon, after hitting the game-winning home
run in Game 1 of the 1984 World Series, was so embarrassed by the mob of
reporters around his locker, he snuck out through the trainer's room in his
uniform.
"That story," Herndon said, shaking his head, his long, taut frame resting
on a bench outside the clubhouse. "It's just a total untruth. But it went all
over the country.
"Vin Scully read it and said it on TV the next night. Even my mother
called me up and asked why I left in my uniform. I said, 'Mom, you know
goodness well I wouldn't do that.' "
The truth was, he had his clothes brought to the trainer's room, and he
exited looking quite civilian. "Why didn't you correct everyone the next
day?" I asked. "Why didn't you tell Vin Scully?"
He shrugged. "I don't know Vin Scully."
Larry Herndon, 33, is of the School of Quiet Expectations. Had "Tender
Mercies" been about a ball player, he could have played the lead. "I would
never spread a lie about someone," he said. So he could never understand how
that World Series story could have moved so freely. And he had no retort.
Just keep quiet.
This, after all, is a guy who grew up smalltown, Mississippi, a place,
ironically, called Sunflower. As a kid he idolized an older cousin named
Bobby Bennett, who provided for Herndon the guidance and inspiration a father
usually provides. Because Bennett was crazy about baseball, Herndon became
crazy about it, too.
Did you know he was once a top-flight sprinter? Dave Collins recalled
Herndon as "the fastest man I'd ever seen in the minors." In 1974 Herndon
stole 50 bases in one minor-league season.
And then his speed was carved away by a surgeon's knife. "Two knee
operations," he said, "that was before the arthroscope. I got the scars.
"I remember running when I came back and saying to myself, well, things
ain't what they once were. I got to develop another part of my game."
As Herndon talked, I had a picture of him running as a child, and in high
school, winning 100-yard dashes, and then one day on a base path reaching for
the speed and finding it gone. And not saying anything. It was a sad picture.
In adversity, no excuses These days he faces another loss, at least a
temporary one -- that of people's patience. Where, the fans want to know, are
the numbers he showed in 1983? A .302 average, 20 home runs, 92 RBIs. He has
not had a season like that since.
Sparky Anderson has stuck with him, although Herndon now only platoons in
left field. The front office signed him as a free agent this year, but for
much less than he had been making. In short, his professional graph has
dipped. And Herndon, true to form, refuses to offer excuses. Or explanations.
"I hope to put it together this season," he said.
There is more. Of course there is. Every player has his angers, his
rationales, his finger-pointing. But every player has the right to keep that
inside. "Ahhnn . . . " Herndon began, then he stopped and looked away. For
now, that's where we were going to leave it.