In A Strike Zone Of His Own

In sum, Palmer is a genuine, uncomplicated person. The only burden in his good, simple life is that of making $180,000 for being a baseball star. Maybe that is the way it is with all stars, but in the ensuing inner struggle, sometimes the person wins out and sometimes the ego does. Generally, the players who remain persons are assumed to be uninteresting, while those who become merely egos are considered colorful.

Boog Powell once said of Palmer, "If Jim was pitching in New York, he would be the greatest thing since bottled beer." As soon as Henry Aaron got up around 700 home runs, everybody began saying the same thing about him. Certainly, if players like Palmer and Aaron had worked the Big Apple they would be better known, and Palmer would no doubt have a line of men's sportswear named after him.

But the New York- Los Angeles business has been terribly overdone and accepted much too easily. Catfish Hunter obtained a lot of fame because of the unusual circumstances that enabled him to leave the A's for the Yankees, but he is no better known, no more well defined, in New York than he was in Oakland. His case is evidence that sports publicity is unique. The influential show-biz press resides in Manhattan and Hollywood, except on those rare occasions when it stirs for road trips to Vegas. Similarly, the major political media are all nailed down in Washington and New York, changing scenery only when Air Force One flies or, quadrennially, when they are privileged to discover America during the presidential primaries.

But athletes must play the road, and so the sporting press is diffuse. Johnny Bench was not dreamed up in New York. His notices from Cincinnati, St. Louis, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh forced New York to accept him. That is the way sports publicity works. Sure, it helps that a Joe Namath or a Seaver wears a New York team uniform, but it is certainly not imperative.

The way the system functions, the best thing an athlete can have is clear definition—Tom Terrific, Broadway Joe. Walt Frazier is the ultimate sports media figure. He has a nickname (Clyde), a knack for the quick, apt quote and a simple image: he likes clothes and girls. His teammates, Earl Monroe, for example, or Bill Bradley, may be a great deal more interesting but, precisely because they are not categorized, the press in the cities they visit does not have time for them as they pass through town. When the Baltimore Orioles reach Cleveland next time, who are all the local reporters going to clamor around, Reggie Jackson or Jim Palmer?

Like a number of superstars. Palmer is not easy to define, perhaps because he is anxious to wall off the private man from the public creature. This is a conscious decision, for he is hardly unable to express himself and he cannot pretend to be vague and forgetful. Indeed, his memory is incredible. He can reel off, pitch by pitch, whole innings from games played years ago. "One time about 15 of us were discussing an old game," says Brooks Robinson. "Everyone said it was this way. Palmer said it was another. We checked the scorebook, and he was right. Jim never forgets."

Nor is he afraid to speak his mind. When as a negotiating ploy Reggie Jackson delayed reporting to Baltimore in April after he had been traded from the A's, other Orioles hid behind off-the-record statements and brusque "no comments" when asked about Jackson's tactic. But when Palmer was interviewed, he stood up and said that he had "lost some respect" for his new teammate and accused him of hurting the club. More recently, stung by being left off the American League All-Star team, Palmer hotly referred to All-Star Manager Darrell Johnson of the Red Sox as "an idiot."

Since he can be so outspoken, yet is so reticent. Palmer must carry a lot within him. His wife Susan, whom both Palmers classify as the tougher one in the family, remembers that when she first got to know him, she asked him about his being adopted. He made a cursory response, and the matter has not come up again in all their years of marriage. Likewise, Leonhard, his good friend, can not recall Palmer ever mentioning the subject.

Palmer does not know who his natural parents are and professes no interest in the matter. He knows only that he grew up in New York as Jim Wiesen, the adopted son of Moe and Polly Wiesen. The father was a dress manufacturer and a Jew, the mother the owner of a boutique and a Catholic. (For years a trivia question among Jews has been: name the two greatest Jewish pitchers.) Palmer was raised in comfort, sometimes living in a large apartment, with servants, on Park Avenue, at other times in houses in suburban Westchester County. He did not realize that his father had a heart condition. When he was nine, he woke up one morning and saw a lot of cars in the driveway. He came downstairs to find out what was up. He learned his father had died in the night.

"You must always remember that Jim is happy and well adjusted despite having endured two potentially great traumas of childhood," says Susan. "He was adopted, then his father died. You read any book on child psychology, and you see what just one of these experiences can do to a child. Jim had both."