Seitzer Making Most of His Second Chance

Each day he runs out to play third base, there is a glow inside Kevin Seitzer. Baseball takes on added meaning when your career is threatened and somebody gives you a second chance.

The Milwaukee Brewers did that five days after the Kansas City Royals released Seitzer March 26, his 30th birthday. They haven’t had cause for regret. He has been the starting third baseman in all but one game, including last night’s game against the Yankees. He entered the game hitting .327 with 19 multiple-hit games.

That’s the way Seitzer hit when he was a rookie with Kansas City in ’87. He finished that season at .323, the runner-up to Mark McGwire in the AL’s Rookie of the Year voting, and his 207 hits tied Kirby Puckett for the league high. His overall big-league average is .294.

But the knees, man, the knees. “I can remember in August of the ’90 season going into a squat and telling the Royals’ strength coach, ‘Watch this!’ I’d be in that squat and couldn’t stand up. But you play in pain.”

So he banked on revitalizing the knees during the offseason. Only this time it didn’t happen. “That’s when I knew I was in trouble,” Seitzer said. Hit by a pitch late in April of ‘91, he missed five weeks with a broken hand. When he returned, he regained his batting eye. But his defensive range was more than suspect. “I was really scuffling,” he said. “I would take our pitchers aside and tell them, ‘You have to bear with me. It’s my knees.’ ”

Two days after the season ended, he did what he should have done a year earlier. He underwent arthroscopic surgery on both knees.

He wasn’t surprised the Royals were unable to trade him in the offseason or in spring training. Taking on a $1.6-million salary after knee surgery can be risky business. Nor was he surprised when the Royals saved $1.2 million by releasing him.

But it was a jolt when agent Bob Gilhooley contacted the Yankees, Cubs, Padres and Dodgers and none offered a contract for the major-league minimum of $109,000. “Did you tell them I would play for nothing?” Seitzer said to Gilhooley.

More days passed. Seitzer thought about going to Japan or the minors, but then the Brewers invited him to their Arizona training camp for a workout.

Manager Phil Garner was immediately impressed. “I hit him about five ground balls, saw that he had sufficient range,” he said. “When he could hit my good inside fastball, which nobody can in March, I knew he still had it as a hitter. Then he ran from home to second and we knew he was OK. It was a short workout.”

The Royals offered $109,000 plus $200,000 more should Seitzer play 150 games. “Whatever it was,” Garner said, “we’re getting our money’s worth.”