Miguel Tejada: Falling Short

He bends over, butt down, and shows the three dozen or so youngsters howit’s done.

Then the man in the No. 10 jersey gently rolls the ball to one kid after the next.

“Hey, there’s no crying in baseball,” he says, when one tiny youngster can’t stop bawling after getting into a spat with his sibling over which one of them has the rights to a fielder’s glove.

But the man says little else, other than an occasional “Nice,” or a “Wow, that’s a great arm,” to a seven-year-old girl with a pink glove. And even then, his comments are made with little feeling.

This is Fielding Clinic 101, courtesy of Oriole shortstop Miguel Tejada, held on a blistering hot Saturday in Carroll Park, about a mile and long Tejada home run from his usual place of employment, Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

He’s taking part in an Oriole Youth Clinic at Carroll Park, with hundreds of largely disengaged kids and their overly enthusiastic parents gathered on four fields. While Tejada helps run the fielding lessons, a group of ex-Orioles and current Oriole coaches staff clinics on hitting, fielding and pitching on the other three fields.

The event is to run from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., but by noon Tejada is getting antsy and obviously would like to call it quits. He volunteered for this work, and he is the only current Oriole to participate. But he exhibits little excitement over what he is doing. On the other fields, people like ex-Oriole outfielder Al Bumbry and Baltimore coach Dave Trembley are animated and engaging the children in a way that Tejada seems unable to muster up.

During the winter, when he returns to his native Dominican Republic, he says, “I do this at home. And I like to do it here. It’s really important for kids. There are a lot of kids from the neighborhood who need someone to talk about baseball. They come and cheer for us, so I come here and give back to them.”

He says he’d been thinking about the clinic for three weeks. “I want to do it,” he explains. “For me, it’s really important to be here. I like to do it, because a lot of these are poor kids, and most of them don’t have a chance to come to the ballpark and see us.”

The words are right on target. For Tejada, they usually are these days. He has become a master at saying what he is supposed to say.

When asked later that day at his locker in the Oriole clubhouse in Camden Yards, for instance, whether he is dismayed at how poorly the team has performed this season, Tejada responds, “I’m not disappointed. I just like to go out and play baseball. It’s not easy to win a championship in the big leagues. And the season’s not over yet.”

That’s far different from what he said a couple winters again, when he told a reporter he’d like the Orioles to trade him so he could play for a winning team. But today, for Tejada, saying he wants to remain an Oriole is the politically correct remark for a star who, though still a superior player, seems to have lost his edge on the field and his standing in the hearts of Oriole fans.

When queried about how he reacts to rumors that he might be traded, he again responds with the publicly proper comment, “I don’t pay any attention to that. I play for the Orioles.”

Yet as skilled as Tejada has become at saying the right thing, he seems to do so without any real enthusiasm. Just as he went through the motions at Carroll Park with little emotion or pizzazz, some believe he has lost the spark on the ballfield that he once displayed to exhilarate fans and teammates at Camden Yards when he arrived in Baltimore in the spring of 2004.

Some fans and commentators even have taken Tejada to task for not running hard to first base on balls that appear to be easy outs. The shortstop and one-time American League MVP, who owns the longest consecutive game streak in baseball, bristles at such criticism.

He doesn’t pay attention to such detractors, he says, because “these people have never been in the arena, they don’t play baseball, they don’t know how to fit in.”

Tejada still can be a fierce competitor. He gets very excited when the Orioles launch a rally and despondent when they lose. When he made the final out in a close loss to Washington this month he looked anguished as he remained on the field for almost a minute after the game had ended. But the bubbling enthusiasm and emotion that he had a couple years ago seems to have evaporated.

So does the powerful bat that once seemed to drive every ball that Tejada hit deep into the outfield alleys, that four times hit 30 or more home runs and two years ago whacked 50 doubles for the Orioles. Scouts and team officials wonder if Tejada mysteriously has become a singles hitter.

“It’s just not happening as frequently as we’d like,” manager Sam Perlozzo says about the drop off in Tejada’s power numbers compared with what he did his first two years in Baltimore. In 2004, the year Tejada came to the Orioles as a free agent from the Oakland A’s, he was third in the American League in total bases, fourth in extra base hits, eighth in home runs (34) and ninth in doubles (40). The following season he led the American League in doubles with 50.

But in each of Tejada’s three previous seasons in Baltimore prior to 2007, his slugging percentage and home runs have decreased (.534, .515, .498 and 34, 26, and 24). This year, with well more than a third of the season completed, his slugging percentage was .423, and he was on pace to slug just 16 home runs. He also was on track to hit only 27 doubles, after hitting 40, 50, and 37 the previous three seasons.

Tejada, though, claims not to be concerned.

“I do what other players don’t do,” he contends. “I get a lot of base hits. This game is not about power. It’s about being consistent.”

Plus, he quickly adds, “Who says I’m not going to hit 30 home runs? This season is still young.”

Tejada has been hitting over .300 all season, although his average had fallen to .302 when the team left for the West Coast after a 1-8 home stand that concluded on Father’s Day.

“When I go to the plate, I just try to get a good swing and be consistent,” the 31-year-old shortstop says. He says he’d prefer to keep his average above .300 and hit just 20 homers rather than up his home run total and bat just .240. “I’m happy where I am right now,” he says of his 2007 performance.

One thing he admits to not caring for is DHing, as he has done several times in the past month. Tejada still has tremendous personal pride, and he is defensive when he hears criticism of his defense. While some balls get by him at short that a more agile fielder might reach, Tejada still pulls off the occasional crowd-pleasing, spectacular play in the field. But there is talk in baseball that his days at shortstop might be numbered, that he eventually might have to move to first base. That’s not the kind of talk, though, that Tejada likes to hear.

He has been voted the team’s MVP in two of his three previous seasons with the Orioles. And he remains one of the club’s best players. He and his wife, Alesandra, have a seven-year-old daughter and five-year-old son, and Tejada says the family wants to remain in Baltimore.

“I love the city of Baltimore,” he explains. “I feel comfortable here.” Yet the relationship between Tejada and his ballclub and Tejada and Baltimore fans is not as comfortable as it once was.

In the past three seasons, the team has never won with Tejada as its leader. And the losing has continued into 2007, as Tejada’s dedication and focus, like almost every facet of the team, have been brought into question.

Just as he seemed eager to leave the Carroll Park clinic although he said he was happy to be there, some see him as dissatisfied in Baltimore, despite his words to the contrary.

With the trading season about to move into full gear, and the Orioles almost certain to be a team looking to trade veteran talent for younger players, Tejada’s status with the team will be scrutinized more than ever. He has been one of the most skilled and artistic players ever to wear the Orioles’ uniform. Whether he’s one of the most enthusiastic, though, is another matter.