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Hit Man of Fenway Park

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(page 6 of 7)

He would throw early batting practice to the hitters who wanted or needed extra work when only a few reporters and ballboys would be around to shag flies, then he'd change his shirt, throw regular batting practice --over 400 pitches every day that had to be hard and had to be accurate. Eight years ago when his arm started hurting, he clenched his fists and ignored it. Finally, a few years ago, a doctor cut into the shoulder and told him the muscles had been ground away, that, in effect, he'd been throwing on nothing but scar tissue. He prides himself on his straightforwardness and honesty with his players, but each day begins with deception when for 30 minutes he lifts weights trying to convince his arm that it has not yet died.

He has cut down now to about 600 innings a year; the workload of three starting pitchers, and when he throws, his face tightens with effort as if in a vice. Looking on, an observer would never guess that he was watching a man full of happiness with his work. He does not throw batting practice for the exercise, but because a pitcher's mound offers a perspective he cannot get from 12 feet away beneath the bleachers. "A professional hitter who's tending to his business should never miss a batting-practice fastball," he says. "You can go out there for batting practice, but if you don't practice right, with the right technique, it's just a waste of time."

When he is relieved on the pitcher's mound, he gets right up close to home plate. "I want to see the look in their eyes," he says, "hear things they might say… things they don't say. If something's wrong, sometimes you can't tell until he takes his swings in batting practice." He never stands still, but shuttles from side to side of the batting cage, telling one hitter to pull, another to hit and run, another to lay down a bunt. Said one veteran player; "I've known hitting coaches on other teams. They usually watched you, and when you hit a good drive said, 'Way to go!' Hell, I could do that. I guarantee, nobody does what Walter does, every pitch, every day" When early batting practice ends and all the players have had their swings, he grabs a bat and steps in. "The players always stop and watch him," says a teammate. "He wants to do well, and he does. Line drives. Pow. Pow. Pow!"

He can tell you the story of each of his 25 singles in the major leagues, the ones hit off Don Drysdale and Robin Roberts and Juan Marichal, and the very last one off Gaylord Perry. But the first one he keeps in a special place because its story is not just about hitting, but about a friendship. It was 1968 and he was languishing as a Double A shortstop. The parent Braves, now moved to Atlanta, asked him to change to catcher and sent him to Shreveport, Louisiana, where the manager was a former journeyman big-league catcher named Charley Lau.

"When I got there, I took batting practice," Hriniak remembers, "and Charley watched. I hit the ball real good, but I pulled everything. When I was done, the only thing he said to me was, ‘At least (if I were fielding) I'd know where to play you.' And then the fun started. He broke me back down and taught me my old style all over again. See, my first two years I hit to all fields. It's what I did naturally. But people told me I had to hit home runs to get to the big leagues. So I started pulling everything. They wanted me to hit home runs, but nobody ever showed me how." When he called home, Hriniak told his parents, "I've finally found somebody"