Cardinals look to Edgar Renteria for leadership: St. Louis shortstop helps generate a winning atmoshere

Baseball Digest, July, 2003 by Dan O'Neill

AS THE SUN GLISTENED ON another Florida morning last spring, the St. Louis Cardinals snapped through a brisk session of infield drills at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter. The baseball popped in and out of gloves and sizzled from station to station. With each arrival, it was processed and advanced in equally efficient manner.

The rhythm and harmony of the Gold Glove-studded crew is mesmerizing to watch, a baseball adaptation of a Harlem Globetrotters routine. All that was missing was "Sweet Georgia Brown." When the exercise ended, manager Tony La Russa and a group of players observing enthusiastically applauded.

Shortstop Edgar Renteria acknowledged the moment by breaking into a dance and the entire group cracks up. It is a personality Cardinals fans seldom see, a side of Renteria his teammates cherish, a side his coaches and managers universally admire.

"He's one of those special guys that has a real rare feeling for the game," said Jim Leyland, who managed Renteria and the Florida Marlins to a World Series title in 1997. "He has fun doing it. He has fun figuring out things. He's a very, very bright player. It's just an instinctive thing with him; he's just got it."

Spanish-speaking players, those who don't speak English fluently, remain largely anonymous to American audiences. The media does not seek them out for post-game analysis. The language barrier makes it difficult for them to project their individuality. Renteria, a native of Barranquilla, Colombia, has expanded his English in recent years and is quite capable of conversing. But he is, by nature, a shy and proud man, and his persona is much more accessible in Spanish.

Fernando Vina, who speaks Spanish and English with equal aplomb, has become Renteria's keystone comrade and close friend.

"Obviously, me being able to speak Spanish, to go both ways, I can enjoy that we really hit it off together," Vina said. "I think people do miss out. But he's coming along, speaking English in meetings and stuff. I think he's kind of relaxed. Every year, he gets a little better with his English and he's grown within himself and feels more comfortable."

Every year, Renteria's classification as a player seems to elevate. He is in his eighth major league season, and yet he is only 27, a year younger than Derek Jeter and two years younger than Nomar Garciaparra. Last season, Renteria put up superlative numbers: .305 batting average, 11 home runs, career-high 36 doubles, career-high 83 runs batted in. His 82 RBI as a shortstop (he had one as a pinch-hitter) equaled an 81-year-old franchise record for runs batted in by a Cardinal shortstop.

He won the National League Silver Slugger Award and won his first Gold Glove. He even received votes in the N.L. Most Valuable Player balloting.

The statistical values are plain to see, but the talents his coaches and teammates most appreciate are more sensory. The Cardinals have several "stars" in their lineup, but if they were a hockey team Renteria might be wearing the "C." In fact, La Russa regularly calls Renteria "Captain," out of respect and affection.

"It's kind of a recognition of his place on the team," La Russa explained. "Edgar is just a really unique combination of a player and a person. He absolutely buys the winning thing and isn't afraid to try it."

Translation: Renteria puts the final score ahead of the fine print. With the game on the line, the batting order has no tougher out. Renteria batted .372 with runners in scoring position last year, third best in the N.L. Leyland knows the quality well. In 1997, the right-handed-swinging Renteria delivered a game-winning hit in the National League playoffs against San Francisco. Later that postseason, he stroked a two-out single in the 11th inning to win Game 7 of the World Series.

"At a young age he was a very mature, advanced player, which is rare," Leyland said. "He had a great feel in big situations for not trying to do too much, for having a good understanding of what that pitcher was going to try to do to him. Put it this way, you can go to camps, as I have, and you can talk to players, and you can manage players for 10 years, and sometimes things still haven't sunk in with them. I mean, they're very good players and they live on their physical ability and do very well. But this guy has that sixth sense of anticipating things."

Renteria also has a profound sense of pride. He wishes Major League Baseball had not pulled its operations from his native Colombia in the mid-1980s. It disappoints him that Americans consider Colombia a dangerous place, home to drug cartels, celebrity kidnappings and violence. "They never show the good things in Colombia," Renteria said.

"It's a beautiful country. We have everything, beautiful scenery, coffee--we have a lot of good things. But they never show that, only the bad things. When they talk about Colombia, they talk about how they kill a lot of people and they have the drugs, and all of these bad things. I don't know why they never go there and show the good things."