Cubs’ Lee emerges as Triple Crown threat

By Andrew Stern

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Derrek Lee raises and plants his left
leg, takes a deceptively loose swing and deposits another
baseball beyond the ivy-covered wall, lifting hopes that he can
become the first Triple Crown winner in decades.

Hitting Major League pitching has been called the toughest
task in sports but the Chicago Cubs’ towering first baseman
offered a simple explanation for how he has made it look easy
so far this season: “I just feel like I’ve gotten better.”

Until a sore left shoulder took him out of the heart of the
Cubs’ lineup this week, the 29-year-old Lee had started all his
team’s 82 games and was leading the National League with a .378
batting average. He was also near the top with 25 home runs and
67 runs batted in.

If Lee finishes atop those three categories he will become
the 17th player to win baseball’s Triple Crown in more than a
century of record-keeping and the first to achieve the feat
since Boston Red Sox outfielder Carl Yastrzemski in 1967.

“There are great players out there, that’s what makes it
tough to do,” Lee, in his eighth season, told Reuters before a
recent game.

“Not only do you have to have a great season…but if Barry
Bonds hits 73 (home runs) it’s going to be hard to win the
Triple Crown, you know what I mean? So no matter how great your
season is, it’s going to depend on what other players are
doing.”

Lee’s team mates and even opponents are pulling for him and
marvel at his consistency over the first half of the season.

“He’s killing the ball right now,” rookie Cubs shortstop
Ronny Cedeno said. “He is so relaxed; a great guy. I’m asking
him, ‘You see the ball this big?”‘ said a grinning Cedeno, his
hands apart as if holding a beach ball.

SAME GUY

“I’ve never played with a guy making a bid for the Triple
Crown. You don’t see that too often,” said third baseman Aramis
Ramirez, who along with Lee has just been named to his first
All-Star team.

“He’s the same guy, he just doesn’t miss his pitches. When
he gets a pitch to hit he puts it in play and he puts it in
play hard,” Ramirez said.

Opposing players remark on Lee’s success when they reach
first base and have a moment to chat.

“Some guys might rub on you and say ‘Let me get some of
whatever you’ve got’,” Lee said. “Most guys, it’s just, ‘Good
job, keep it going’.”

Like Yastrzemski’s “Impossible Year” in which he added 50
points to his batting average and nearly tripled his home run
production, Lee’s emergence from competence to stardom has seen
him add 100 points to his career average and nearly double his
home run pace.

“You have to go back to the 1930s to compare the numbers of
(Lou) Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx — players who hit for average and
had good power numbers,” said Bruce Levine of ESPN Radio, who
has been covering the Cubs for 25 years.

“I’ve seen players have a week or two like Derrek Lee has
had, but not for the whole first half of the season,” said Bob
Brenly, a Cubs announcer and former manager. “I can only recall
a handful of games in the first half where he didn’t look like
he was going to win the Triple Crown.”

The trend in baseball had been more toward niche players –
those who could spray line drives with the speed to beat out
slow rollers, or those who hit for power, Brenly said.

FLAWLESS FIELDER

In baseball’s storied past, Triple Crown winners have
included well-rounded players such as Mickey Mantle, Ted
Williams and Frank Robinson. Current players who have come
close include Bonds, Albert Pujols and Vladimir Guerrero.

Built like the basketball player he once was, the
1.96-meter, 111-kg Lee is both fast and powerful as well as a
flawless fielder. He has learned to hit the inside pitch that
“pitchers used to get me out with,” he said, because his left
leg kick can leave him off balance.

Most of all, he has learned to wait for his pitch.

“I’ve had good years before but I’ve had bad starts. My
April usually makes my average look worse. You know, last year
I hit .300 for a while and fell off at the end of the season. I
felt I’ve like I’ve had good years, but this year just kind of
came together.”

Lee leaves his locker, located in the center of the Cubs’
locker room, and heads for the field to stretch, take some
relaxed swings in the batting cage, and sign a few autographs.
Ramirez whispers something and Lee falls to one knee, leaning
on his bat, convulsed with laughter.

Lee, whose father and uncle played professional baseball,
is quietly confident and refers constantly to team, not
individual, goals.

He would trade his lofty statistics for another trip to the
World Series, which he won while playing for the Florida
Marlins in 2003 but which has eluded the Cubs since 1908.

“I don’t think about the Triple Crown, I think about
getting to the World Series,” he says. “If you win the Triple
Crown, great.”