Byrnes

Old School Outfielder Sparks Orioles

It’s a good thing Eric Byrnes always has had a rebellious streak running through him. Otherwise, he might be hanging out at Wimbledon or wearing a black belt rather than swatting baseballs for the Orioles at Camden Yards.

The parents of the club’s new left fielder were active in sports when he was growing up in the Bay area south of San Francisco. His father was a karate master and tennis player, and his mother also played tennis and skied. Byrnes, who is now 29, therefore began hitting tennis balls as a boy, and his parents encouraged him to pursue the sport or take up karate.

“But I was the type of kid,” he relates, “if my parents wanted me to do one thing, I would do another.”

So it was goodbye tennis and karate for Byrnes, and hello baseball and football.

Even though Byrnes was disciplined enough as a baseball player to star at UCLA and make it to the big leagues, he still has that wild, iconoclastic approach to life that sets him apart, not just from his parents, but also from the mainstream. On the baseball field, that attitude can be seen in the manner he wears his pants up to just below his knees and in the way puts every ounce of his being into his game. He runs hard on every ball he hits, he doesn’t hesitate to crash into a wall or skid across the warning track to catch a ball. Eric Byrnes is old-school hustle, which is the type of ballplayer Baltimore fans have always taken to.

His hustle and his wildness are inbred, he thinks.

“My mother said they just couldn’t control me, even when I was about two,” says Byrnes. “I’ve just always had that competitive nature and the desire for success and winning. More than anything, I enjoy myself. It’s fun for me. I’ve always enjoyed playing.”

For a man who likes to run wild, 2005 has been a fitting season for Byrnes. He’s moved so much, he’s barely had a chance to catch his breath.

Byrnes signed a professional contract with Oakland in 1998 (after declining to sign with Houston, which had drafted him the previous season). He made it briefly to the majors in 2000 but didn’t become a full-fledged major leaguer until 2003. But on July 13, after spending all eight of his professional seasons in the Oakland organization, the Athletics traded him to Colorado in a four-player deal. And then, before he barely had enough time with Colorado to discover where the Rocky Mountains were, he was traded again, this time to the Orioles straight up for Larry Bigbie.

Usually when teams make trades, they attempt to plug up a position of weakness by trading from a position where they might have a surplus. But the Byrnes-Bigbie tree was a simple swapping of two outfielders, although they hit from different sides of the plate, Bigbie from the left, Byrnes from the right. For several years, the Orioles had been waiting for Bigbie to blossom as a major league star.

He hit .303 in 2003 and .280 last year, but he never was able to display the power or be as consistent a run producer as club officials had hoped. This year, not only was he struggling at the plate, but he also looked lackadaisical in the field at times, despite his seemingly bountiful natural talents. The former first-round draft pick from 1999 was hitting only .248 with five homers and 21 RBIs in late July. So, feeling a right-handed bat would mesh better with the rest of their lineup, the Orioles traded Bigbie for Byrnes on July 29.

“The first trade was a shock,” Byrnes says of his move from Oakland to Colorado. “As much as you think you’re prepared for your first trade, it’s different from what you expect. It was tough. I left a lot of my best friends in Oakland. So going to Colorado was a real learning experience for me.”

But there turned out to be a silver lining to his adjustment pains. The fact that he already had experienced the move from Oakland to Colorado made his trade to Baltimore much easier for him to swallow. “It’s helped me play better here,” he says. “It wasn’t a big deal walking into the Oriole clubhouse for the first time. I came in and felt comfortable from the get-go.”

Comfort wasn’t a pleasure he ever really achieved in Colorado. Not only did he have time to settle in psychologically, he also didn’t perform well on the field for the Rockies.

“I sucked,” he admits, with his typical candor. “Nothing really worked, nothing really happened, and after the third game, I started pressing a bit. I wanted to make an impression on my teammates.”

Instead, he went a dismal 10-for-53 (.189) and was gone from Denver before he even got his bat moving.

In Baltimore, it was a different story. Byrnes got at least one hit in each of his first 11 games as an Oriole and had two homers and seven RBIs in 50 at-bats. He also made some excellent plays in left field. In Oakland, Byrnes played all three outfield positions, but the Orioles have kept him exclusively in left thus far. Of course, his arrival as an Oriole coincided with one of the most tumultuous weeks in team history.

The club was in the midst of a painful losing streak, Rafael Palmeiro was suspended for steroid use, and Lee Mazzilli was dismissed as manager.

“I did walk into the bees’ nest,” Byrnes acknowledges. “But it was so typical of my year [with the two trades]. I’ve learned at this point to not necessarily ever expect anything. There have been so many changes. The one constant thing about life is that it’s forever changing. There are a lot of things you have no control over. So there’s no need to worry over it.”

One thing that does not change for Byrnes, and that he does have control over, is his relationship with fans. He is one of the most fan friendly players in the big leagues.

While most major leaguers who communicate or mingle with fans do so out of a sense of obligation, Byrnes genuinely loves it.

In Oakland he was exceedingly popular because of his brand of play, and he willingly reciprocated fans’ initiatives to get to know him.

He discovered that one fan of his while he was with the Athletics, Tina Harris, ran a website devoted to him. So he not only has made a point of meeting with Ms. Harris, he also has several times participated in a question-and-answer session with fans on the site.

Byrnes also has had two regular radio shows. One was on the Athletics’ flagship station, which he has had to abandon since his trade to Colorado. But the other, which he began during his minor league days at Triple-A ball in Sacramento, he continues participating in. He goes on air every Tuesday morning and talks about baseball, other sports or life in general. “Anything goes on the show,” he says. It’s a real loose, fun show.”

He has admitted that one day, after his playing days are over, he might be interested in being a sports broadcaster.

After tough days at the park, many ballplayers take solace in being able to go home and spend time with their wives and kids and forget baseball momentarily.

Byrnes, who is not married, takes a different approach.

He gets his peace and unadulterated love from his two bulldogs, Bruin and Bella. “They’re my pride and joy,” he says. “I love those guys. “When I go home after going 0-for-4 and wanting to wipe out every last frustration about baseball, they bring a smile to my face.”

Because of his peripatetic life this season, moving from Oakland to Denver to Baltimore, he has left Bella and Bruin back on the west coast in the care of his girlfriend and her mother in San Diego. Byrnes himself lives farther up the coast in the quaint town of Half Moon Bay. It’s there that he engages in off-field hobbies like surfing and skateboarding. He also has a home in Arizona, where he likes to golf. He also enjoys packing up his conversion van, packing in his surf board and skateboard, and just hit the road for adventure.

But for the moment, his newest adventure in life involves wearing the black and orange of the Baltimore Orioles. And if things go as he hopes, he will be providing the team’s devotees with plenty of fun and adventure as well.