Mr. Generosity

Luis Gonzalez is one of the more generous players in the game, but when he quietly slips a clubhouse attendant a $100 tip or buys dinner for front-office employees, he doesn't believe he's doing anything extraordinary. Lots of well-to-do people are willing to share their wealth with those less fortunate than they are, and here's the way Gonzalez looks at it: Everyone's less fortunate than he.

Gonzalez, the Arizona Diamondbacks' 31-year-old leftfielder, has healthy 11-month-old triplets, a wife who allows him to get some extra shut-eye, a mother who emigrated from Cuba and taught him to appreciate life in the U.S., a job that pays $2 million a year, and red-hot hitters on either side of him in the Arizona batting order, which means opposing pitchers are all but forced to throw him strikes. Furthermore, he has put together the major leagues' longest hitting streak this season—30 games, snapped on May 19 by the San Francisco Giants—and through Sunday had a .374 batting average, third best in the National League. "Believe me," says Gonzalez, "I know how lucky I am."

So do the people who work with him. "My father used to say the true test of a man is how he treats people who can be of no benefit to him," says Diamondbacks manager Buck Showalter. "You want to know what kind of guy Luis is, you talk to clubbies, doormen, bellmen, cabbies. By that measure he's one of the best." By that measure Gonzalez is royalty.

Arizona director of public relations Mike Swanson: "There's eight or nine of us at a Japanese restaurant in Tucson during spring training—clubhouse guys, equipment guys, front-office people. One of those places where they chop up the meal in front of you. Not cheap. Gonzo walks in, grabs the check and pays for everyone. He doesn't even eat with us! He calls it friendship dues. If you're his friend, he takes care of you."

Diamondbacks equipment manager Chris Guth: "We're in Cincinnati a couple of weeks ago, during the NHL playoffs. He sets it up so about a dozen of us can all go to a sports bar to watch the Coyotes-Blues game. He paid for the beer, the food, even the cab rides back to the hotel. When they tried to close the place before the game was over, he talked the manager into staying open for us until the game was over."

Arizona clubhouse attendant Shawn Moore: "I picked up his dry cleaning the other day. Right around the corner, not even two blocks. He gave me $100."

So go the Gonzo tales, from city to city. One time last year, while he was with the Detroit Tigers, who were on a road trip to Baltimore, he flew a video operations employee in for a day so the guy wouldn't miss the Tigers' fantasy football league draft.

This year Gonzalez has been repaid for his munificence in a variety of ways. On May 15, the day he extended his hitting streak to 27 games with two hits and an RBI in a 9-2 Arizona win over the Colorado Rockies, he also won the Diamondbacks' clubhouse Preakness pool. Having won the Kentucky Derby pool two weeks earlier, Gonzalez, like Charismatic, was two legs up on the Triple Crown. "Let's go downtown and look for wallets," teammate Andy Benes said to Gonzalez. Yet after the game Lucky Luis was bouncing around the dressing room with a smile that seemed wider than his head because of afoul ball he had hit down the right-field line. It was caught by a fan who won $5,000 as part of some wacky Bank One Ballpark contest. "I wanted to run up in the stands and give him a high five," said Gonzalez.

For Diamondbacks fans the feeling is mutual. One quarter of the way into its sophomore season, Arizona is the most improved team in the National League. Through Sunday the Diamondbacks, who finished last season 65-97, were in second place in the West with a 24-21 record, just a game and a half behind the Giants. Though the Diamondbacks bolstered their rotation in the off-season by spending $84.4 million on free-agent starters Randy Johnson (4-2, 3.40 ERA) and Todd Stottlemyre (4-1, 3.59, but on the disabled list with a torn rotator cuff), it's Arizona's improved offense that has been the big surprise—and no one has been more startling than Gonzalez. Hitting third in the order, smack between comeback kids Jay Bell (.297,14 homers) and Matt Williams (.332,14 homers and a league-leading 49 RBIs), Gonzalez, a lean lefthanded hitter, has surpassed even the most optimistic projections for his first season in the desert.

A gap hitter with a career .268 average entering the season, Gonzalez through Sunday had hit safely in 37 of the 40 games in which he had played in '99 and was fourth in the league in total bases. He has shown some power throughout his nine big league seasons (all or parts of seven spent with the Houston Astros), averaging 12 home runs a year, including a career-high 23 with the Tigers in 1998. But Gonzalez has really muscled up this season, having cleared the fences 10 times and driven in 33 runs. He says his off-season work in Houston with Herschel Johnson, personal trainer to Astros' power-hitting first baseman Jeff Bagwell, added about 10 pounds of muscle to his wiry 6'2" frame, bringing him to 200 pounds. No, he's not related to Texas Rangers strongman Juan Gonzalez, it just seems that way.