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By Mark Maske
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 25, 1998
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Feb. 24 — A year ago, Mike Bordick was The Next Shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles. Now he is merely the Orioles' shortstop, and the difference is immense. Bordick arrived at spring training last year facing a task as daunting as they come: He was replacing Cal Ripken. He had left the Oakland Athletics to sign a three-year, $9 million contract with the Orioles as a free agent in December 1996. The club's decision-makers at the time-General Manager Pat Gillick, assistant GM Kevin Malone and then-manager Davey Johnson-had decided that winter to shift Ripken to third base.
Bordick handled the situation as well as could have been expected, and the Orioles last season got the sure-handed, no-frills shortstop that they were expecting. Now, though, new Orioles manager Ray Miller says that he's expecting even more because Bordick no longer must feel the strain of stepping in for one of baseball's greatest and most popular players ever. Said Miller: "I said to Bordie, 'Last year was a very tough situation for you. You were replacing a legend at shortstop, and there was a lot of pressure on you. Now you're replacing yourself, so just relax and be yourself.'‚"
Bordick says that being the shortstop who followed Ripken in Baltimore wasn't that burdensome last year, especially since the team spent every day of last season in first place in the American League East.
"Coming into camp not knowing everybody and then being surrounded by the media every day, I wasn't used to that feeling," Bordick said today in the Orioles' spring training clubhouse at Fort Lauderdale Stadium. "But as I got to know the guys during spring training, we started to develop that strong team chemistry that we had all year. That took the pressure off me."
Bordick got an early glimpse of what he was facing. He spoke to Ripken on the telephone before signing with the Orioles. And as he traveled from his home in Auburn, Maine, to Baltimore for the news conference announcing his signing, he picked up a newspaper while on a layover in Boston and read a column assailing the Orioles for their decision to move Ripken and acquire Bordick. Yet Bordick says he has no complaints about the way that he was treated.
"You're always going to have your critics," he said. "But overall, I thought the fans were great to me. Even though I wasn't doing what I wanted to do early in the year, I didn't get that much backlash. For the most part, the fans were very supportive. I was made to feel welcome."
Still, Miller said: "I don't care who you are and what you know about yourself. You're replacing a legend in his own back yard. People are saying we got this great defensive player to replace Cal and if you boot one ground ball, 47,000 people are saying, 'Cal would've had that one.'‚"
The Orioles signed Bordick for his defense, and he indeed was a steady shortstop last season. He often had an ice pack strapped to his elbow after games but he never allowed his health to become an issue for public debate. He made virtually all of the routine plays and some spectacular ones, and he quickly won admirers inside the Orioles' clubhouse.
The Orioles didn't sign Bordick for his offense, but he says he nevertheless was a bit disappointed with his production during a season in which he hit .236 with seven home runs and 46 RBI. He went hitless in his first 13 at-bats of the season and went without an RBI in his initial 75 at-bats, and he was hitting less than .200 into late May. But he got better as the season progressed. He hit .257 after the all-star break, compared with .220 before it. He batted .330 over his final 27 regular season games.
"I was happy with the year that I had," Bordick said. "Baseball is a game of ups and downs, and overall I was happy. I didn't get off to the start that I wanted to, but I felt I helped out in the end. I just wanted to do what I could to help the team win, and I felt good about that. I wished I could have put up better numbers early. But it's a long battle, and I felt good about the way I hung in there.
"It's a team sport. The ultimate goal is to win. To be a part of what we did last year was pretty special."
And now, he says, he feels right at home in the Orioles' clubhouse.
"I noticed from the first day I walked into camp what a different feeling it is from last spring," Bordick said. "Now I know the people here. You go through a season with your teammates, and especially the kind of season that we had, and there's this understanding you all have now like, 'We've been through it all together. Let's do it again.' There's definitely more of a comfortable feeling."