Philadelphia Inquirer - September 19, 1980

Boone pained by off-year performance

By Frank Dolson, Inquirer Sports Editor

PITTSBURGH – On Tuesday night against the Pirates he went 0-for-4, including a game-ending pop-up with the potential tying and winning runs in scoring position. On Wednesday night he went 0-for4 again, twice failing to score a runner from third with less than two out. It's been that kind of year for Bob Boone, the kind that prompts veteran big league scouts – Baltimore's Jim Russo, for example – to scratch their heads and say:

"I don't understand it. He doesn't swing the bat the way he did. He doesn't throw the way he did. He was one of the premier catchers in either league, so you know he can do it."

You know he can do it because he has done it Again and again and again. Not with a tremendous amount of flair. Not with reams of publicity. But quietly, and consistently.

Bob Boone, after all, has played in three All-Star games, batted in the.280s three straight years. Not this year, though. This year he's hitting in the.220s. He's hearing boos at the Vet.

Boone has handled those boos the way he handles Phillie pitchers: calmly, smoothly.

"No," he said the other day, forcing a smile, "it's not hard to handle (the reaction of the fans), because I tend to agree with them. I'm not satisfied with my overall play at all, regardless of what it takes to get there."

That's the thing, though. It's taken so much for Bob Boone to merely get in a crouch behind the plate this year. He's been battling so many handicaps, so much pain.

People have a tendency to forget that. Somewhere, in the deep recesses of their minds, they remember vaguely that Bob Boone was injured late last season. What most of them don't remember, or perhaps never realized, is that Boone went through a serious knee operation, comparable to the one Bill Bergey had.

Bergey is a hero at the Vet – and rightly so – for the comeback he's made. Boone has become a target of the boobirds, although his comeback required just as much effort, just as much dedication, enduring just as much pain.

Maybe if Bob Boone were an outspoken guy, maybe if he routinely made headlines, it would be different. Then, in all likelihood, there would have been big stories about the injury, the operation, the rehabilitation.

But Boone is not – and has never been – the focal point of media or fan attention on this Phillies ball club.

"We have the kind of ball club where – well, I don't consider myself a sensational player," Boone said. "I'm the kind of player, when I'm good I'm not recognized. What I'm recognized for is doing poorly. The things I'll contribute to this club you're not really going to notice. I pride myself on the way I call a game. I get a lot of self-satisfaction out of some things I do that maybe nobody else knows. Maybe the pitcher knows it, maybe he doesn't know it.

"This ball club has some sensational athletes. When you talk about competing in the media with the players on this team. I run way behind. If you're going to write up the game you're going to write about a 900-foot home run hit by Mike Schmidt or Bake McBride scoring from first on a double…."

Or a great catch by Garry Maddox.

Or a fantastic stop by Larry Bowa.

Or the latest record-breaking achievement by Pete Rose.

Boone has never captured the imagination of the public. He's good. He's solid. He hits.280. And, gee, did you see how far Greg Luzinski hit that ball?

Now, though, Boone is scuffling like a dog, and suddenly all eyes are on him.

Sitting in the press box at Three Rivers Stadium, 300 miles away from the Vet, you could almost hear the boos from the East when Boone struck out on a low outside breaking ball with a runner on third and one out in the 11th inning Wednesday night "It gets frustrating at times," he was saying before his bad series in Pittsburgh added to those frustrations. "You look up (at the scoreboard) and you keep seeing that.230 hanging up there next to your name."

But it could be worse. He could be having this kind of year for a Phillies team that wasn't in the race.

"Being in a race like this makes it exciting for me," he said. "It makes it fun, and my concern has always been to make sure when I come to the ballpark I was having fun. It wasn't true last year (with the Phillies out of the running), and this year a lot of times it hasn't been... but now, with the guys playing good ball, the enthusiasm's there, the emotion's there."

Also, the pain is still there, but Bob Boone has to be pressed before he'll talk about that.

"Right now I can't squat," he was saying a few hours before a game, and to show what he meant he went into a semi-squat, forcing himself, pushing himself as far as he could go.

It's such a seemingly simple thing, a catcher's crouch – until you can't do it without limbering up, without getting down in slow, easy, painful stages before each game.

"That's what I look forward to every night prior to the game," he said. "It takes about five minutes breaking it down, I mean just literally forcing it (the left knee) into a crouch. That's where the pain is. Once it's there (in a crouch), it's all right. But mentally it's worn on me – just thinking, 'I've got to go through that."'

But he has gone through it. OK, maybe his throwing early in the season was far below the All-Star standard he had set. And maybe his hitting slump has grown deeper in recent days. Yet the pitching staff is doing well... and Bob Boone deserves some of the credit. That's the thing about being a catcher; you can contribute in ways that don't show up in the individual stats.

The remarkable thing is that Boone has been able to force himself into a catcher's crouch so many times this season.

"Everybody's amazed that Bill Bergey's playing," Boone said. "Bergey and I were operated on at the same time. I didn't expect a whole lot out of this season. In rehabilitating my leg so much time was taken away from the things I really had to do in spring training. I never really got into the groove at all. I kept battling to catch up all year.

"I sat back the other day and tried to analyze the thing. What the hell went wrong this year from a hitting standpoint? I've been through a thousand different thoughts at the plate."

If ever a man had a reason for a subpar year, it's this one. But Boone isn't an athlete who looks for excuses.

"All that's irrelevant as far as I'm concerned," he said. "If you're ready to play, that means you're ready to function at a very highly competitive level. If you can't function at that level you're not ready. I'm not satisfied with the way I've played."

Neither are the fans. They had grown accustomed to watching a healthy Bob Boone, an All-Star caliber Bob Boone. This year they're seeing a struggling Bob Boone, a slump-ridden Bob Boone, but above all a courageous Bob Boone.

If only there were a way to measure courage statistically.