Monday, April 8, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
THE BIG MAN captivates the crowd and elicits a roar by merely strolling up to the plate, regardless of where the game is being played. Fans from Toronto to Hanshin have always loved the sight of Cecil Fielder coming to bat.
Detroit fans are particularly responsive, Fielder having long ago established himself as the focal point of the Tigers' offense. When he's hot, there's a good chance the Tigers are too.
Back in the early part of the decade, Fielder was hot for entire seasons (even if the Tigers were not). While he never hit for a high average, his home run and RBI counts were astronomical during at least a three-year stretch.
Look at these numbers: 1990, .277 with 51 homers and 132 RBIs; '91, .261-44-133; '92, .244-35-124; '93, .267-30-117; '94, .259-28-90; and '95, .243-31-82. There are some gaudy statistics in there but there's also something else to be considered, even allowing for a minor injury in '94 and the loss of a few games last season to the strike: Slowly but surely, his productivity has tapered off since his heyday.
And, his two hits aside Sunday in Detroit's 7-6 loss to the Oakland Athletics at Cashman Field, the 6-3, 250-pound Fielder is off to a slow start this season. Through seven games -- four at hitter-friendly Cashman where he was expected to power a handful of balls over the wall -- he's hitting .147 with two homers and five RBIs.
Delete his mammoth home run in Saturday's game and Fielder's much-anticipated weekend in Las Vegas was something of a bust. He flailed at pitches and looked out of sync.
"We talked about it," Tigers hitting coach Larry Herndon said. "But with a veteran player like that, you don't want to bother him too much. I kind of let guys like Cecil make adjustments on their own. He's capable of making adjustments from one at-bat to another.
"You watch, he'll still get his 40 or 50 home runs this year."
That may be wishful thinking, but the greater point to be made is that the Tigers are rebuilding and Fielder has expressed an interest in being traded to a contender. By August, the deal could be done.
It won't happen until then because the cash-starved Tigers need all the players with drawing power they can muster, and Fielder still puts people in the seats. But as the season begins to wind down and Detroit is at or near the bottom of the American League's East Division, the temptation to cut ties with the popular slugger may become too much to resist.
Fielder's hefty $9.2-million salary limits the number of teams who might pursue him, yet an AL team in the pennant race in need of a first baseman or designated hitter might jump at the chance to acquire him and hope for the best. In return the Tigers could add two or three decent young players, something the team and its upper-level farm system has in short supply.
The idea of trading Fielder is regarded as blasphemous by some Detroit fans, but it's not like he's a Hall of Famer who spent his entire career with the Tigers and has some sacred place in the team's history. He's not Al Kaline.
archive
