"Timing is everything," says Lee Stevens, pondering the pivotal
moment of his baseball career. On April 1, 1996, he was sitting
on his couch in Wichita, Kans., unable to bring himself to watch
any Opening Day games on television. Stevens's agent had spent
the week trying to find his client a team, but all 28 clubs had
rejected him. "I was one day from quitting, one day from finding
out what I would do the rest of my life," says Stevens, who had
played parts of three seasons with the Angels before spending
the 1994 and '95 seasons in Japan.
Then, on April 2, after a conversation with Stevens's agent
about another player, Rangers general manager Doug Melvin
offered Stevens a minor league contract. (Melvin had seen
Stevens hit a ball out of Camden Yards back in '92 and recalled
that he'd really "crushed it.") Stevens promptly drove the 2 1/2
hours to Triple A Oklahoma City, where he would go on to win the
American Association Most Valuable Player award.
He began the '97 season as the last man on the Texas bench. But
injuries to rightfielder Juan Gonzalez, first baseman Will Clark
and DH Mickey Tettleton provided Stevens with opportunities to
play, and he made the most of them, hitting .300 with 21 home
runs and 74 RBIs in 137 games.
This year Stevens, the Rangers' regular DH, is among the top 10
in the American League with seven homers, 21 RBIs and a .636
slugging percentage at week's end. "Every time I walk on the
field, I'm playing against a team that said no to me," Stevens
says. "That's motivating."
California chose him in the first round of the '86 draft, but
there was no place for him in Anaheim until fan favorite Wally
Joyner departed as a free agent after the '91 season. Stevens
stepped into Joyner's spot at first base but hit just .221 in
'92, struggling to make contact with anything except
watercoolers between whiffs. "It was Wally's World, and I wasn't
ready to handle it," Stevens recalls. "I tried to be Superman
and not Lee Stevens. I took every at bat as life and death, and
my confidence was shattered."
After the Angels gave up on him, Stevens also couldn't make a
place for himself in Montreal or Toronto, and finally fled to
Japan. He played for the Kintetsu Buffaloes, where he hit 43
homers and drove in 136 runs in two seasons. But, more
important, because the Japanese frowned on outward displays of
frustration, he learned to control his temper.
Calmer and more confident than when he left the States, Stevens
returned in '96 looking to get back to the big leagues. Yet
without all those Rangers injuries the following spring, Stevens
might never have gotten a chance to prove himself.
Is Stevens a one-year wonder? Not to worry. His seven homers led
the team at week's end and put him fifth in the league in home
runs per at bat, erasing his own doubts about repeating his '97
success. "The question crossed my mind, too, for a second,"
Stevens admits. "Then I said, 'Hell, yeah! I can do it again.'
That's the difference between me now and 10 years ago."
Issue date: May 4, 1998
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