Jeff Bagwell: may be headed to the Hall without the fame: Astros slugging first baseman has been a consistent producer whose achievements in the game receive modest attention - Houston Astros

Baseball Digest, Dec, 2003 by Al Carter

HE CAN'T THROW AS WELL AS many of the youngsters who watch him play. He freely admits that no youngster should ever try to copy how he hits.

When, during the course of a two-home run afternoon last July, he rocketed his 400th career homer at Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park, the ball wound up in the possession of a local youngster whose reaction was almost predictable. The 9-year-old boy had never heard of Jeff Bagweell.

"Hey, that's cool," says Bagwell, the best basher in Houston Astros history. "He doesn't need to know who I am. It's only important that he knows who Barry Larkin is."

A wise father might have whispered the whole truth about the relative accomplishments of the Reds' celebrity shortstop and the Astros' factory-town first baseman.

Bagwell is riding a Cooperstown cushion of burgeoning statistics, peer admiration for his work ethic and a quiet appreciation among baseball insiders for his determination to fight off the effects of an arthritically wasted right shoulder and, at 35, stay on top of his game. Perhaps within a decade, he will he in the tlall of Fame, hailed as one of the most feared hitters of his tine in the National League.

"It's hard for people to understand," Astros manager. Jimy Williams says, "just how hard Jeff Bagwell has worked to maintain the skill level that he feels that he has--and feels that he has to have-to help him compete and help this team win. That's all he's trying to do. He's not trying to impress anybody."

In doing so, Bagwell continues to impress both the numbers-crunchers and those with an appreciation for the subtle requirements for extended success.

"This game is about change," Bagwell says. "If people change to you, you have to change to them."

For 13 big league seasons, all with the Astros, Bagwell has stayed ahead of the curve--and at the pinnacle of the game's best fastball hitters. Twice in recent seasons, he has radically altered his once gaping stance, all in an attempt to cover the outer part of the plate, a problem compounded by his decayed shoulder.

Yet, his slumps remain mild. And the homers keep popping off his bat.

On July 20, he bagged Nos. 399 and 400, joining a group of three dozen players to reach that plateau. After two slow months, he erupted in July with 10 homers and 25 RBI. By the end of 2003, he had batted .278--his lowest average since 1992--with 100 RBI, 109 runs scored and 39 home runs for the season and 419 for his career--two ahead of Frank Thomas of the White Sox. Thomas and Bagwell share the same birthday (May 27, 1968) and were both named league MVPs in 1994.

REACHING 30 AGAIN

With his 37 homers, Bagwell reached the 30 mark for the eighth straight season. He's about a year away, if his production rate continues, from doubling the career homer total for the second-greatest slugger in Astros history, Jimmy Wynn, who hit 223 from 1963 to 1973.

He's roughly three years away, if his pace holds, from joining the ultra-exclusive 500-homer list, now just 19 players deep. Three years also happens to be the time remaining on Bagwell's contract.

"If I play those three years and I don't get there," Bagwell says, "I'm not going to be a happy camper."

A native New Englander, Bagwell came to the Astros in a now infamous 1990 trade with Boston that netted the Red Sox journeyman reliever Larry Andersen. A year later, Bagwell was named Rookie of the Year in the National League. In 1994, after hitting .368 with 39 homers and a leagne-best 116 RBI, Bagwell was selected unanimously as the N.L.'s MVP, only the third player in league history to be chosen without dissent.

The following season, a broken hand forced him out of the lineup for a month, He returned with a special protective device sewn into his batting glove and in 1996 launched an offensive tear that reached a peak during Houston's debut at cozy Minute Maid Park (then Enron Field) in 2000. Bagwell banged a career-high 47 homers that season, knocked in 132 runs and hit .310. But soon afterward, his right shoulder began to creak.

Surgery after the 2001 season relieved much of the pain but reduced his shoulder to little more than bone on bone. Surges and slumps have been his brea and butter since then. Before his 10-homer burst in July, Bagwell hit only one in May and three in June. Still, he played on.

Since 1999, Bagwell has missed, on average, only two gaines a season.

"I can't do some of the things that I did before," he says. "I can't throw like I used to, and that's been tough on me. Hitting, my numbers haven't been up to par the last couple of years. It's been a little bit of trial and eFror every at-bat. But it's a tough game. You may know what yell're doing wrong. But to actually fix it is not as easy as it sounds."

Few hitters have ever gone to greater extremes to find a fix. Few hitters have ever employed a stranger stance.

His wide base--a perfect blueprint for a single-arched bridge--has been a constant, a platform for a vicions uppercut that imperils pitches. whether imperfect or not. But his once garishly open stance has slithered since 2000, back to even and, more recently, to closed.