O’Neill’s Hitting Spree Has Dodgers Seeing Red

Some years ago in a game at Dodger Stadium, Roberto Clemente pounded out his 2,000th major league hit. They stopped the game and presented the ball to him.

Over in the Dodger dugout, Manager Walt Alston was puzzled.

“What are they doing?” he wanted to know.

“Clemente just got his 2,000th hit,” he was told.

Alston frowned.

“He’s got only 2,000 hits?” he fretted. “My God! Did he get them all off us?”

If Walt were around today, he might be surprised to learn that the Reds’ Paul O’Neill has only 459 major league hits. It would probably seem to him they had all come against Dodger pitching. Actually, an awful lot of them have--59.

Paul O’Neill had hit 54 home runs up to this year. Eleven of those had been against the Dodgers.

When the Cincinnati Reds came into Dodger Stadium last week, O’Neill was batting a sickly .233, well below his big league average. He had nine home runs and 21 runs batted in.

On Thursday night, he hit a homer and a single, drove in two runs and scored two more. On Friday night, he went three for three, one of those hits a double, and drove in two more runs.

Saturday night, he went two for four and, in the 10th inning, drove in the two runs that beat the Dodgers.

Paul O’Neill batted .583 for three games, drove in six runs, got seven hits and added a double, his eighth, and a home run, his 10th, to his season totals.

Up until Sunday, in 23 at-bats against the Dodgers, O’Neill had nine hits for an average of .391. In three games against them, he had raised his season average almost 30 points, from .233 to .262.

He went zero for four Sunday, but that was a rare collar for him against L.A. In 1988, O’Neill had one series against the Dodgers in which he hit home runs in three consecutive games and went nine for 12 in the series. On opening day in 1989, he went four for four against the Dodgers with a three-run homer and five runs batted in. Last year, he had a four-for-four game at Dodger Stadium with two homers.

He regards Dodger pitching the way a cat might regard a loose canary. He can’t wait to get at it.

It’s an enduring mystery in baseball why one player finds one pitching staff--or one pitcher finds one lineup--a piece of cake.

Clemente used to explain that he was getting even with the Dodgers for trying to hide him in a minor league lineup too long. But O’Neill has no clue why he hits L.A. so hard and often.

Actually, O’Neill is no day in the park for any National League pitching staff. Paul is the kind of player who might be called “Old Reliable” or “the Iron Horse” in another age. He is as dependable as sunset.

He is not flashy, he simply makes the play, gets the hit, shows up on time. Right field is taken care of, thank you. So is fifth place in the batting order.

Every club needs a player like Paul O’Neill. He bats .270, hits 15 to 20 home runs, drives in 75 runs and scores 60 in an average season. He is as productive as a lathe. And he is getting better.

Lou Gehrig was a player like that. A kind of machine. As enormous as his statistics were--and they were far in excess of O’Neill’s--he came into focus as super-dependable, the guy you never had to worry about. Your basic pennant insurance.

Ballplayers, to a man, talk of consistency. Like Shakespeare, they consider it a jewel. But Mr. Consistencies and Old Reliables tend to become Messrs. Taken For Granted. It is the flash genius the public looks for, not the 40 homers every year or even the nice, dependable .333 average. They look to the guy who hits 20 homers one year and flirts with 60 the next, the guy who doesn’t post a nice steady .329 or .341 but the guy who is streaky and threatens .400 some year.

It’s the incandescent .406, the 61-homer year that brings the crowd to its feet. Even the great Joe DiMaggio is best remembered for a 56-game hitting streak. Joe probably had a whole flock of 30-game hitting streaks lost in the shuffle. He had many other accomplishments, but the 56-game streak will be his monument.

Paul O’Neill is more than merely a Dodger killer. He has always been a superior hitter. He was platooned against left-handed pitching until this year, which he feels has inhibited his progress.

“He’s like all perfectionists,” says his manager, Lou Piniella. “He has a tendency to get down on himself when things go bad. You have to realize in this game, you don’t always get your pitches to hit every night.”

Claims O’Neill: “I strive for consistency, but I have been a streak hitter. I have never played every day for a whole season, and I find platooning distracting. I think you lose your stroke. Maybe you lose your rhythm.”

It is the consensus of the league that Paul O’Neill’s swing is an object of mechanical perfection, like a Sam Snead golf shot or even a Duke Snider swipe at a fastball.

“I don’t have goals as such,” he says. “Oh, sure, every player wants to hit .300 and to get 200 hits, and hit 40 home runs, but how many do?”

The Dodgers, of course, are simply glad he doesn’t get his 200 hits or 40 homers. One fifth of those would be a very bad year for Dodger pitching. It’s bad enough as it is.