Texas Tornado

Rene Gonzales, utility infielder for the Rangers, says that teammate Juan Gonzalez "can be the most dominant player in baseball...if he wants to be." The rap on Gonzalez has always been that it wasn't clear what he wanted to be. Now, it seems, he has decided in favor of being that dominant player. Instead of jogging to first base on ground outs, he's running out every ball. Instead of playing rightfield as if it were mined, he's playing it aggressively. Instead of chasing bad pitches, especially early in the count, he is much more patient at the plate. Instead of trying to pull every ball 500 feet, he's using the whole field. Instead of being a loner off the field, he's outgoing, happy, a team guy.

Last week Gonzalez finished off one of the best months of all time: He led the major leagues in batting (.407), homers (15, tying Joe DiMaggio, Hank Greenberg and Joe Adcock for the most homers ever in July) and RBIs (38), the most in one month by an AL player since Cecil Cooper had 39 in July 1983. Through Saturday, Gonzalez was hitting .336 with 33 homers and 99 RBIs despite having missed 25 games earlier in the season because of a torn left quadriceps muscle. "Scouts tell me that they've never seen anyone locked in like Juan has been," says Rangers special assistant to the general manager Sandy Johnson. "He has been amazing."

Gonzalez has always had the talent to do what he's doing now; he's only 26 years old and hit his 200th career homer last week, making him the 10th-youngest player to reach that plateau. But he has matured tremendously in the last year, mostly after attending a religious retreat in his native Puerto Rico last November. "I learned that when you have God inside you, you have peace of mind," he says. "I'm finally relaxed in my mind." Now, Gonzalez says, he doesn't feel he has to win the home run title to please the fans from Puerto Rico. Now he doesn't bring his off-field distractions to the park. Now he's working in the community in Arlington, often taking groups of underprivileged and problem kids for pizza and talking to them about how to cope with life's problems. Meanwhile, American League pitchers are having a hard time coping with the game's hottest hitter.

Trading Places

Last week's flurry of trades showed how the July 31 trading deadline is supposed to work, with frenzied general managers trying to make that one last deal to push their team over the top. "I didn't leave my office for 48 hours," says Indians general manager John Hart. His Rangers counterpart, Doug Melvin, who traded for Red Sox reliever Mike Stanton less than five minutes before the midnight (EDT) deadline, says, "It was neat. We ordered out pizza. Every G.M. I called on his private line picked up. It's the only time I didn't get their voice mail."

The most active traders were the division leaders, some of whom were trying to ensure themselves a playoff spot while others were looking ahead to probable postseason matchups. And then there were the Indians, who may have been looking beyond this year's playoffs to next year.

The Padres, who are attempting to hold off the Dodgers and the Rockies in the National League West, made the biggest splash, sending three prospects—sinkerballer Bryce Florie and hard-throwing lefthander Ron Villone, and an outfielder, Marc Newfield—to the Brewers for outfielder Greg Vaughn, who had 31 home runs when the deal was made. (No player with more than 22 homers had ever been traded in midseason.) Vaughn will play left for his new team, and Rickey Henderson, a career leftfielder, will play right until Tony Gwynn comes off the disabled list in mid-August. Then look for Henderson to be traded.

Milwaukee got the best of the deal, according to many executives. Hart even called it "lopsided" in the Brewers' favor. But you have to admire the boldness of the new Padres management. It knows the only way to survive in San Diego is to win, so general manager Kevin Towers acquired the best power hitter available to fill the team's most glaring weakness. In recent years San Diego has dealt high-priced veterans for young players, but this trade sent a strong message to Los Angeles, which then made a deal to get centerfielder Chad Curtis from the Tigers. And the Padres say they want to sign Vaughn, who can be a free agent after the season and reportedly wants a three-year contract in the $18 million range. "The next two years are vital to the existence of this organization," says Towers. "The fans are coming back now [attendance is up 80% over last year, the best improvement in baseball], and we said in spring training that if we needed someone in late July or August to improve our club, we'd do it."

The Yankees had a different agenda when they sent DH-outfielder Ruben Sierra and minor league pitcher Matt Drews to Detroit for Cecil Fielder, who will be New York's full-time DH. The Yanks were 10 games ahead in the American League East when they made the deal, but they desperately needed a righthanded bat, considering that they're 15-16 in games started by opposing lefties. Fielder, 32, has been begging for a trade to a contender for two years and is thrilled to be finally playing for a winner. The downside is that Darryl Strawberry, who had been the designated hitter, now has to play leftfield on a regular basis. That could be a disaster.

The Indians deal that sent infielders Carlos Baerga and Alvaro Espinoza to the Mets for infielders Jeff Kent and Jose Vizcaino was a little harder to figure at first glance, but sources in Cleveland say Baerga's play at second had slipped so badly that something had to be done. "His defense was killing us," said one member of the Indians organization. Cleveland felt that Baerga, who was an All-Star in 1992, '93 and '95, had become too interested in the glamour that comes with being a star and had stopped putting in the necessary work to maintain his skills. The Cleveland brass had several meetings with Baerga on this subject, and he would work a little harder for a couple of days and then get lazy again. Baerga had his own bodyguard this year, often took limousines instead of the team bus from the hotel to the ballpark and was seen talking on his cellular phone instead of taking extra ground balls or extra hitting. At the time of the trade he was last statistically among American League second basemen on both defense (with a .971 fielding percentage) and offense (with a .267 batting average). "This will be a wake-up call for him," says one teammate. "It wasn't going to happen here." Meanwhile, by dealing Baerga's salary ($4.7 million a year for two more seasons), the Indians now can make a run at Twins second baseman Chuck Knoblauch, who might be a free agent after this season.