True calling
Wed Mar 8, 12:15 PM ET
Go on, flip around. Start when Juan Pierre was a 7-year-old, playing T-ball in Alexandria, La. Watch him eschew the high and mighty blasts that so tempt other kids and instead whack the ball into the ground and sprint. Inglorious? Sure, but Pierre, young and speedy, almost always winds up on first base.
Skip ahead to his freshman year at Alexandria High. He stands 5-9, weighs about as much as a box of Wheat Thins and draws chuckles from teammates when he declares his intention is to play in the big leagues. But get up at dawn and check out Pierre on the baseball field, before school, working on his throwing, his running and his swing.
Head down to the University of South Alabama in 1998 and arrive to work early with baseball coach Steve Kittrell. Hear that steady thumping? That's the batting cage near Kittrell's office. Pierre, now a Jaguars center fielder, has a class at 8 a.m. Care to guess who's in the batting cage at 7 making that thumping noise?
"We have had some good major league players come through this school," Kittrell says. "But I've never seen a harder, more dedicated worker than Juan Pierre."
Pierre is a monkish figure, a man with a message who is off to a new location this season: Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs. Pierre's calling long has been to be a major league leadoff man, and he has chosen to follow that calling with dedication to an austere existence. Up at dawn, constant work, to bed by 9. That's how he has spent the past few weeks at spring training in Arizona, and that's how he spent the offseason. Sure, he's 28, has been in the big leagues for five-plus years and will make $5 million this season, but Pierre still spent the winter in Alexandria, making daily trips to his high school ballfield, practicing his throwing, his running and his swing. Such is the life of a leadoff man, baseball's holiest vocation.
A truly enlightened leadoff man must dedicate himself to being different, a slender morsel in a locker room packed with muscle. A leadoff man must give of himself generously, taking drool-inducing fastballs so his teammates can get a good look at the opposing pitcher -- even if it means digging an 0-2 hole. The beauty of the bunt, the Zen of the grounder, the blessing that comes from sacrificing oneself for someone else's RBI -- this is a lineup's most pious position.
"When you're in that spot, you've got to look at things different," Pierre says. "Part of it is giving up yourself. You have to take pitches and make the pitcher work, then get settled in to hit with two strikes. That's different than what other players do."
To be sure, Pierre's job is not to bring peace to all -- in fact, bringing harmony to his team means imposing disharmony on opponents. "The main thing is getting on base," Pierre says. "Whether you bunt and get on or roll a grounder through a hole. Hit, walk, hit by pitch, whatever. You have to get on base because that is when you can create havoc. And when I get on, I want to create as much havoc as I can."
Havoc comes easily to Pierre. Though he had a down season in 2005 -- his .276 average and .326 on-base percentage were career lows -- Pierre remains a premier leadoff man because he does everything expected of a top-of-the-order player:
That's good news for the Cubs, an organization that apparently was napping the day the baseball gods delivered their sermon on the virtues of a leadoff man. The Cubs don't just struggle to find a consistent leadoff hitter from year to year, they struggle to have one make it through a season.
Pierre will be the team's fifth opening day leadoff man in the past six years, and surely Cubs fans shudder at the mention of names such as Marvell Wynne, Tuffy Rhodes and Delino DeShields. The only true leadoff man the Cubs have had in recent memory was Kenny Lofton in 2003----and he played just 56 games for the team. Chicago has not had a player with 60 stolen bases since Frank Chance in 1903.
Last year's Cubs top-of-the-order contingent counts as one of the all-time great offenses to the concept of leadoff men. Corey Patterson flubbed the role, and the team went on to use eight different starters in the leadoff spot. The Cubs' .245 average in the No. 1 spot was worst in the National League, and the team stole just 65 bases, tied for 13th in the N.L. That's why it turned to Pierre and acquired him from the Marlins for three minor league pitchers after trying to add free-agent shortstop Rafael Furcal.
Pierre was pleased with the deal. Wrigley Field is the perfect place for him to practice his faith. Its long infield grass will help deaden Pierre's bunts (though he worries that the grass also will deaden ground balls and turn potential hits into outs). The North Siders will play 53 home day games in 2006, and Pierre is a career .344 hitter in the daylight. The Cubs also have two of the N.L.'s top sluggers, Lee and third baseman Aramis Ramirez, who drove in 199 runs combined last season without the benefit of a quality No. 1 hitter ahead of them. "(Pierre) is going to give us a dimension we did not have before," manager Dusty Baker says. "That's going to help the whole lineup."
The Cubs don't have to look far to find an example of how a leadoff hitter can have an impact on a lineup. Eight miles from Wrigley, the White Sox inserted Scott Podsednik into the 1-hole last season, and suddenly they had a mobile team that could scratch out runs. The Sox's strength was pitching -- and, make no mistake, the Cubs' success rests on the health of starters Mark Prior and Kerry Wood -- but Podsednik was the engine for an offense good enough to win the World Series. "Anyone who wants to know how much a good leadoff hitter means should look at (Podsednik)," Sox manager Ozzie Guillen says. "When you have a good leadoff man, you can bunt, you can hit and run. You can play baseball."
Ah, baseball, remember that? The thinking around the game is that, with Major League Baseball cracking down on steroids use, teams are shifting their focus from a reliance on bulked-out sluggers to more creative scoring methods and are using speed and aggressiveness on the basepaths. That may be true, but it doesn't mean there is a sudden emphasis on the top of the order. The need for quality leadoff men has been constant. The past four World Series champs all have had speedy, steady, high-average hitters who could, as Pierre says, create havoc: The White Sox had Podsednik, the 2004 Red Sox had Johnny Damon, the 2003 Marlins had Pierre, and the 2002 Angels had David Eckstein.
"It's not some new thing," Pierre says. "You can think back throughout the game, and there have always been good leadoff men who did the little things to help the team win. But they don't get noticed as much."
Which brings us to one of the holiest virtues of a leadoff man: work, and lots of it. It's easy to imagine a typical leadoff man looking at a first baseman's cantaloupe-sized biceps and thinking, "I better go take some extra B.P."
Lee says Pierre is the hardest-working teammate he has ever had. Word is, when Pierre was in Colorado, manager Buddy Bell threatened to fine him one spring if Pierre did not give himself three days off. Kittrell says he knows how Bell feels.
"As a coach, you're thinking, 'Maybe I should tell this kid to take a break, get some rest,' " Kittrell says. "But on the other hand, I did not want to stifle his desire. His desire was to get to the majors and be a great leadoff man. Bless his heart; look where he is now."
Now, he is standing in front of his locker after a spring training game in Peoria, Ariz., discussing what drives a leadoff man. It's obvious: Pierre is 6-0, 180, and his uniform fits like a Hefty bag on a bologna sandwich. "I look around and there are guys who are 6-4, 250 pounds, and that's just not me," Pierre says. "I have got to do more than most guys just to survive in this game. It's not work; it's preparation. If I am not as prepared as I can be, I would not make it.
"I've always had to do that. I am with the Cubs now, and if I want to succeed, I am going to have to keep doing it. And I want to succeed."
For Cubs fans who have watched this team shuffle through a series of unholy leadoff men over the years, the response is simple: Amen to that.
Sean Deveney is a staff writer for Sporting News. E-mail him at sdeveney@sportingnews.com.
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