11Qs with Cecil Fielder

                                                                                                           by Chris Horne

In 1990, he came out of nowhere, this big, smiling man with a build and bat like Babe Ruth. Cecil Fielder, forever etched into Detroit Tigers history, hit 50 home runs that year. He’s one of only a small number of players to ever hit a ball completely out of old Tiger Stadium. Now his son, Prince Fielder, is picking up where Cecil left off, blasting home runs for the Milwaukee Brewers. This summer, “the Cec” is taking his hitting secrets around the South Coast League, including a few stops in Macon. The first will be on Opening Day, May 17^th at Luther Williams Field.

1.) In 1989, you signed with a team in Japan. Lately, instead of American ballplayers going to Japan, seems to be more and more Japanese players are coming over here and becoming big stars. What’s the difference between baseball in America and in Japan?

Number one, I’ve always said the Japanese pitchers can come over here and be successful. They’ve always had the ability to play. I think we overwhelm them with strength, as far as hitters go, but as far as pitchers go, they can deal here, there or anywhere. And they play very fundamental baseball there. They don’t make a lot of mistakes. That’s something they just ain’t gonna go for. That right there is the big difference. We here in the United States are playing some of the sloppiest baseball I’ve probably ever seen.

2.) Have things changed since you were an everyday player?

No question. Pitchers can’t come inside now without a big ol’ brawl, kids are wearing all of this mechanical equipment and sticking their arms over the plate. I think if Nolan Ryan saw me wearing some of that on my arm, I think he would have tried to see if he could bust it. That just wasn’t going to fly.

3.) Was it tough adjusting to life after baseball?

It was definitely an adjustment. Players always feel they weren’t given a decision to retire when they wanted to retire… Jim Fregosi – and I never liked Jim Fregosi anyway – Jim Fregosi becomes the new manager (for Toronto in 1999) and he says that he’s going to release me. I was having a pretty good spring, everything was going good. But then he brought in Dave Hollins and I think he hit one home run and had six RBIs all year. But that was one of his boys. (note: Hollins had two home runs and six RBIs for Toronto in 1999 but played until 2002. Cecil’s last MLB game was in 1998 with the Angels where he hit 17 homers and drove in 68 runs through 103 games.)

4.) When you hit 50 home runs, you were the first since 1977 and no one followed you for another five years, but now it happens almost every year. Why do you think that is?

I don’t like to talk about it, but people are cheating. I don’t like to talk bad about the game of baseball – I love the game of baseball – but there is no way that Major League Baseball didn’t know it was going on. While the balls were jumping out of the ballpark, you mean to tell me you didn’t know this was going on? C’mon! I got a real hard time with that. Now all that comes down on the player. I think everybody should take some of that heat.

5.) Is Major League Baseball doing enough to stop it?

I don’t know. I haven’t been around the game enough since then to say… (Barry Bonds) isn’t the only one out there that someone said was doing that stuff, so why’s the only one that’s getting jammed up? It’s because he’s getting close to Hank Aaron’s record. And Barry’s taking a beating. …I think, if you’re not going to recognize Barry as the number one home run hitter in the history of baseball then you need to find him guilty of doing something.

6.) There’s been a lot of talk about the decline of African-American players in baseball. What do you think the reason for this is?

Baseball is not a sport where you are going to make fast money, you are not going to come in as a rookie and dominate... I think our kids have been raised in that era of fast money. Fast money is what our kids know.

7.) How does Major League Baseball bring a new generation of African American players back?

They are going to have to go get these kids on the basketball courts and footballs fields, and make these kids want to play again. You know, bring the game to them. It’s this generation, man. I think this generation is spoiled; we give our kids everything so our kids don’t have to work for anything. My whole thought process growing up was “I got to get out of here. I got to find a way out. I got to do something to make it.” These kids today are looking for entitlements. Yeah, I’m disappointed by the fact that we don’t have more minorities, but I’m not going to feel sorry that we don’t have them because it’s our fault.

8.) Do you think your son feels pressure to be a slugger like you?

Well, I can’t say we’re the same kind of player. Prince has a different game than I did. Skip (Sparky Anderson) taught me a different game; he taught me a game that I was going to be successful at. When I first got to Detroit I was probably hitting about .300, and Skip told me, “ I’ve got to have you swinging the bat. If you hit between .250 and .260 and you hit 40 homer and drive in 130 runs, I’d rather you do that than hit .300 hit 35 homers and drive in 110.” And that became my mind set, I had to slug. My game was run production. I was taught to drive in the runs. No matter how you have to drive them in, drive them in. Nowadays, it’s kids looking pretty in the batter’s box.

9.) What do you think about the South Coast League?

Well, this is going to be fun for me. I pretty much get to pick my schedule. Check everybody’s day to day and see who needs help. You know, they came to my house about four or five different times, and told me what they wanted me to do. I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but they understood how much I love to be around those kids. Kid comes up to me wanting help—yeah I’ll definitely help him.

10.) What are you going to be doing for the league? What does entail?

During spring training, I’m going to be going around to each site (as the roving hitting instructor) and work with each of the kids, try to personalize it. You know, at the end of the day they’re tired but if I can catch them, maybe after they’ve got some vittles in their system, I can do more one-on-one work...  I can critique very well, that’s what I do. I know how to teach hitting. I know how to watch what the hitters are doing because I’d been doing it my whole life. People ask, “How do you think you’ll do with teaching these kids?” I’m like, I’ve been doing that my whole life. I’ve already got one that’s in the big leagues right now.

11.) Do you know when you’ll be coming to Macon, and will this be your first time?

My dad always used to tell me I had family in Macon. The Fielders are somewhere there in Macon so I may have an opportunity to catch up on some folks, see some folks. …You know, I played in Macon 24 years ago. Yeah, I played in Macon in 1983. I was actually with Florence (AL), and that was the year Vince Coleman stole 144 bases. Yeah, I was there that year; I remember all that… When I was playing, being in Macon was just another game. It was about trying to keep that boy Vince Coleman from stealing another base. Do whatever we had to do to keep him off the bases… whenever he went to steal a base, he was at 100% right off the jump, just as soon as he tried to go to second base. It was just the most incredible thing I ever saw in my life. Some of those fields we played on – rocks, clay – you knew he took a beating.