THE YEAR OF THE OLD SPORT : Bob Boone, 39, Does a Lot of Squatting but Little Sitting

On a Saturday morning last summer, Robert R. Boone, the 39-year-old Angel catcher, found himself with conflicting appointments at the same early hour.

Boone had learned better than that at Stanford, where he earned a B.A. degree in 1969.

But after going hitless the previous night, he made plans to take extra batting practice at Anaheim Stadium at 9:30 the following morning, when he had also promised to watch his son Aaron play a Little League baseball game.

What does a devoted father do in this crisis?

“I didn’t really have a choice,” Boone said. “My work takes priority over their (his sons’) games every time. It always has.”

And, he said, it always will, as long as he catches.

That could be the rest of this decade, if not the century.

Indefatigable, apparently indestructible, Boone led the American League in games caught last year--again. Midway between his 38th and 39th birthdays, he caught 144 games at an age when the careers of most catchers are long finished.

Unheard of for others, the achievement was ho-hum for Boone. Remarkably, he has led the league in games caught every year for the last five years. Since joining the Angels in 1982, he has caught an average of 142 games a year.

He’s the only baseball player to catch more than 700 games after age 34, the league office said. Knees being knees, catchers in their middle and late 30s, if still active, are usually backups.

Not Boone.

Next season he expects to overtake Al Lopez as baseball’s all-time champion in a distinguished category: most games caught, lifetime. The Lopez total is 1,918. After catching Philadelphia Phillie and Angel pitchers in 1,808 major league games, Boone is 110 behind.

Last year he overtook Gabby Hartnett, Johnny Bench, Bill Dickey and, among others, Yogi Berra.

Boone is a civil, soft-voiced student of baseball who pronounces those names reverently. Solidly built, standing 6-foot-2, with dark hair and classic features, he looks younger than 39 but seems older.

“For the last 10 years, I’ve prepared myself to catch indefinitely as an every-day player,” Boone said.

After his career as a starter is over, Boone said he plans to be a backup catcher.

In the following question-and-answer session, Boone talks about his catching philosophy and off-season conditioning program.

Question: How does one prepare for such a challenge?

Answer: It only takes three things to last as a defensive catcher. First, you’ve got to have the genes. Second, you have to stay in top condition the year around. Third, it doesn’t hurt to make yourself invaluable as a handler of pitchers. That’s really the key.

Q: How often do you work out in the off-season?

A: Every day, including Christmas--for an hour, at least, up to four hours. I used to take Christmas Day off, but as I get older I feel that I can’t afford to.

Q: Is a conditioning program of this kind more important to your future than the mental part--handling pitchers, and so on?

A: You’ve got to do it all. It’s all essential. Handling pitchers isn’t quite the right term, by the way, although we all use it. As a catcher, my goal is maintaining a proper relationship with every pitcher on the staff--not dictating to them but getting them to think like I do. It’s a fine line.

Q: Getting pitchers to think like you do about what?

A: How to get the hitter out. In every instance, against every hitter in the league, I know how the ball should be pitched, and where. After watching a guy hit a few times, I know how to get him out if the pitcher can put the ball where I want it.

Q: Do you tell the pitchers exactly that?

A: No, I don’t go over a hitter’s strengths or weaknesses with them. A hitter’s weakness can change slightly in the same game. For example, I couldn’t tell you how Dave Kingman stands in the (batter’s) box. But I can tell you if he’s changed his stance--even slightly--since the last time. And my job is to translate what Kingman is thinking for the pitcher.

Q: What specifically do you look for when you watch Kingman or any hitter?

A: I want to know how they approach the baseball, how they make their moves at the ball in certain locations. I’ve been at this so long that I know where to go on every pitch. Sometimes the guy will hit it, and I’ll groan oh, oh. But I mean, every time I put down a finger, I have a good reason for what I do. Every pitch.

Q: How do you know this? Where do you learn?

A: I watch the hitters in tapes and in batting practice, and I discuss them with (scout) Cookie Rojas, (pitching coach) Marcel Lachemann and (manager) Gene Mauch. The discussions with Gene are the most important. The catcher is the extension of the manager on the playing field. My role is simply to translate Gene’s philosophy to the team.

Q: Does your longevity depend on a good translation?

A: Directly.

Q: So you could play until you’re 45 or 50?

A: I’ll still have to be able to hit some, and I’ll still have to be able to squat.

Q: How much time do you spend watching films or tapes of other teams and other games?

A: Whatever it takes. I carry tapes with me on the road and go over them ahead of every series. The Angels have a satellite dish now. I see every team regularly.

Q: Then why watch batting practice, too?

A: If you’re getting a good hitter out, he’ll be working on something to counteract that. I’d like to know what it is, so I’m in the dugout every time the other team takes batting practice.

Q: Do you write any of this down?

A: No, I carry it in my head.

Q: And your job when the game begins is to make the pitcher believe in you.

A: No, my job is getting him to believe in himself. Especially a young pitcher--I don’t want him to feel intimidated into doing it my way. I want him to have a mind of his own, and then learn that the best way to be successful is to stick with me.

Q: As you say, it’s a fine line between that and actually dictating to the pitcher.

A: But there is a difference. A pitcher will never mature if he blindly throws whatever I call. When they shake me off, I’m not averse to that. They’re often shaking off the location, and when I call time and go out there, it’s to tell them, here’s why I don’t think you should do that. What I want them to get to understand is that when I put down a finger, it’s the very best thing they could throw in that spot, every time.

Q: How often do you practice with a young pitcher?

A: Never and always. In a game, you’re always practicing, or, rather, experimenting. Can this young pitcher throw a curveball on three and two? You have to find out in an actual game. The catcher has to keep balancing the percentages.

Q: What percentages?

A: Take one of our good young pitching prospects. The percentages are that his best curve will get the hitter out almost every time. But it’s also true that, at this stage in his career, the percentages are low that he can throw his best curve in this situation. Maybe he doesn’t yet have command of the pitch I want.

Q: Is this what separates prospects from veterans?

A: It’s one of the main things. Don Sutton can make any pitch in any situation. That’s the ticket to staying in the big leagues.

Q: How do you attack a great hitter with a good young pitcher?

A: You avoid doing the same thing twice, and you keep trying to find a weakness. You’re constantly judging the pitcher. What pitch does he have today? What are his second-and-third best pitches today? Stuff helps. Ordinarily, stuff will do it.

Q: Can any old catcher with a sure knowledge of all these things hang on in the majors awhile?

A: Yes, I think so, if he isn’t a total washout as a hitter, and if he spends his winters getting ready for the season.

Q: What do you do in the winter?

A: My whole off-season program is designed simply to keep me in top physical condition every day of the year. I love the feeling of feeling in shape.

Q: What kind of working out do you do?

A: I was into Kung Fu in Philadelphia, but in the last couple of years I’ve been getting into a different kind of program designed by a friend of mine here, Dr. Bill Puett.

Q: What are the essentials of this one?

A: It’s a coordinated program covering everything for my particular, individual case. There’s eye training and hand-eye training. There’s speed training and power conditioning with light-weight dumbbells. One of Bill’s programs is called plyometrics, which is systematic jumping or hopping to develop power in the leg and stomach muscles. Nutrition and food supplements are part of it. So are naps. And so on.

Q: No weightlifting?

A: Not with heavy weights. The idea is to extend the career by raising the performance level with power-oriented exercises rather than the usual strength and endurance exercises.

Q: Don’t you hate to waste an hour or two every winter day, or sometimes four hours as you say, exercising?

A: When the alarm goes off at 6 a.m., I drag myself up by reminding myself that this will help me next August. I want to spend every summer at the ballpark. Winter is to get ready for summer.