JoPo: Beltran Blossomed in KC

[Deberg_1990]

Good read. I cant believe its been almost 10 years since he first got called up. Wow....

How good would this current Royals team look with a player of his caliber in the middle of the lineup??


http://www.kansascity.com/180/story/712372.html


By JOE POSNANSKI
The Kansas City Star

CINCINNATI | Here’s something that might make you feel old. We are coming up on the 10th anniversary of Carlos Beltran’s first game with the Royals.

Ten years. Now, the last true superstar the Royals ever developed is here in the New York Mets clubhouse, and he has a bat in his hand, and he is entertaining eight or nine Mets with some sort of one-man baseball play. It’s in Spanish, so it’s hard for me to pick up the specific plotlines, but the play is obviously hilarious because Mets are falling over each other laughing.

Then again, everyone laughs at Beltran’s jokes now. He’s a New York star. He’s the show. He’s the guy on the back page of the New York Post and Daily News. He has had surgeries on both knees, he has hit 250 home runs, he has stolen 250 bases (he’s already one of only 17 to do both — and he’s only 31), he has won Gold Gloves the last two years, he is making $17 million per year. That can make the jokes funnier.

Still, the amazing part is that he’s the one telling the jokes. Back when he was called up to Kansas City — Sept. 14, 1998, if you’re planning a party — you couldn’t get him to talk even with a good-cop, bad-cop routine. He seemed scared and alone, he did not feel comfortable with his English, he did not feel sure that he belonged in the major leagues. He was just a frightened kid then, and the memory that lingers is of him sitting alone at his locker at Kauffman Stadium while making a radio-controlled car rumble all over the clubhouse. He never seemed to say anything, and he never seemed to tire of that car. It was as if somebody’s little brother had sneaked in.

“I learned a lot about myself in Kansas City,” Beltran is saying now. “It’s like I grew up there. I still think about Kansas City a lot.”

Well, that’s good because Kansas City thinks about him a lot, too. Maybe people don’t think about Beltran himself — but what he represents. He was the last superstar. He was the lottery ticket that hit. He was the last guy the Royals signed, developed and watched become a player so good that the Yankees and Red Sox and Mets and Cardinals and all the rest drooled. He could do everything — hit, run, throw, slug, you name it. He was the guy Royals general manager Allard Baird said, “could be as good as he wants to be. If he wants to steal 40 bases, he could do that. If he wants to hit 40 home runs he could do that. If he wants to hit .300 he could do that.”

He has, in fact, done all of that, and here’s how much people in the Heartland miss Carlos Beltran: Saturday night in Omaha, they gave out Carlos Beltran statues to the first 1,500 fans to show up for the Class AAA game against Round Rock. It seems that Beltran was voted the fans’ favorite Omaha Royals player this decade, which is nice except … Beltran played exactly five games with Omaha.

He did hit two home runs in those five games, so there is that.

But that just shows you the power of the Beltran memory. He was an example of the Royals doing everything right. In 1995, when Beltran was playing high school baseball in Puerto Rico, a lot of teams gave up on him. Scouts loved his talent, but they were not sure he had the drive. That’s why the Royals were able to take him in the second round. He hit .245 his first three seasons in the minor leagues without much power or speed.

And then, suddenly, he blossomed — detonated, really. He was called up to Class AA Wichita when he was 21, and in 47 games he hit .352, cracked 14 home runs, stole seven out of eight bases, and the Royals were like: “Holy cow, what’s this?” The Royals called him up immediately, and sure he looked scared, but on the field he had this star quality, you could see it right away. The Royals made him the starting center fielder the next spring and told him, “Don’t worry about hitting. Just catch the ball and relax.”

Beltran promptly hit 22 homers, stole 27 bases, and he became the first rookie since Joe DiMaggio to score 100 runs and drive in 100. He won Rookie of the Year, of course.

And at that very moment, lost in the joy of watching the most exciting player the Royals had since Bo was young, the countdown began: Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the Royals would not be able to afford Carlos Beltran.

And that’s how it played out. The Royals traded him away because he was going to leave anyway. He went to Houston and had one of the great playoff performances ever. He went to New York and has started in three All-Star Games, won two Gold Gloves, wowed them and let them down, like superstars do.

He’s grown up now. He’s heard the cheers, he’s heard the boos, he knows his place in the game. And he is precisely the sort of player the Royals don’t have, can’t afford, the established superstar, the magazine cover, the guy who has seen everything, the guy who people buy tickets to see, the guy everyone in the clubhouse tries to impress.

“Sure, I feel more comfortable now,” he says. “I’m a lot older. I’ve been through a lot, you know? I’ve done a few things in baseball now. I’m a different person than I was in Kansas City, really.

“I love playing for New York. We have a chance to win here. If we need a player, we go out and get a player. It’s a good feeling. A lot of teams don’t do that. It’s not just Kansas City. A lot of teams, I think they want to win, but they don’t want to spend money to win.”

Here Beltran smiled.

“Good players cost a lot of money,” he said.

He has learned a lot in ten years. But that’s probably the truest lesson of them all.