Throwing woes take Knoblauch down a peg

Sporting News, The, Nov 1, 1999 by Ben Walker

Heads up, Ted!

When Yankees second baseman Chuck Knoblauch throws to first base, there's no telling where the ball might end up. Maybe in the front row where Braves owner Ted Turner sits, just to the home-plate side of the Atlanta dugout.

During the American League Championship Series, in fact, Knoblauch nearly beaned a fan behind first base during warmups at Fenway Park.

"It's no secret I've had a problem with my defense," Knoblauch says.

Sidearm, overhand, underhand--it doesn't seem to matter. Somehow, the 1997 Gold Glove winner can't chuck it anymore. The throws skip. They sail wide. And those lollipop tosses--the ones when he grips the ball with all five fingers like a grapefruit--yikes!

And now that he's in the World Series, the throws are magnified.

"The attention is the annoyance," says Knoblauch, who didn't commit an error in the first two games of the Series but had one in the division series and another in the ALCS. "When you throw one ball away, it's like your life is coming to an end."

No surprise, Knoblauch spent part of a workout at Turner Field looking for Steve Sax, now a commentator for Fox. Sax went through a similar spell in his playing career.

"I didn't get a chance to talk to him," Knoblauch says. "I don't know if he could offer anything or not."

"It's a matter of eliminating all possibility of error as far as mechanics go," Sax says.

But here's the perplexing part: In practice and on plays in which Knoblauch has to hurry, he usually does all right. It's when he has time that the trouble often occurs.

"If we can just get the mental part out of this thing, we'll be OK," says Yankees manager Joe Torre.

In Game 5 of the ALCS, Knoblauch was pulled in the eighth inning for defensive purposes and replaced by Luis Sojo. But Sojo left the team last weekend after the death of his father, leaving Knohlauch without late-inning help in the first two games of the World Series.

The Braves certainly are aware of the situation.

"It's amazing how that happens to someone," says Atlanta advance scout Bobby Wine, a former major league infielder. "All I can tell our guys is to run hard if you hit it that way because you might get on base."

Knoblauch made 26 errors this year, the most by a second baseman. He made 14 throwing errors, hut that does not count all the poor throws first baseman Tino Martinez was able to flag down.

"Every time he makes a bad throw, he's like, `I'm sorry,'" Martinez says.

Though Knoblauch insists he's fine, Torre says, "I think there's something going on in the shoulder."

Knoblauch has a friend who is a sports psychologist, though it's not known whether they've talked much about the problem. "You have millions of people watching and so many things going on in your mind, there's some embarrassment," Knoblauch says. "I'm open to anything to work it out because it gets frustrating."