Colorado Rockies

Clint Hurdle is the new Colorado batting coach, which, of course, is a parttime job. "He can work with us 81 games a year," rightfielder Larry Walker says. "When we're at home, he might as well take a vacation in Hawaii." In 1996 the Rockies batted .343 and scored an average of 8.12 runs a game at home but hit .228 and scored only 3.74 runs away from Coors Field. It's no wonder that Colorado was 55-26 in Denver and nearly the reverse (28-53) out of town. The road slump, Hurdle says, has graduated to "paranoia."

Hurdle viewed all this from a respectable distance last year as the Rockies' minor league hitting instructor, but now he's the major league club's fifth batting coach in the past five years. There are perfectly good explanations for the parade of former big leaguers in this position—Amos Otis didn't work hard enough, Dwight Evans did not have good rapport with some players, Art Howe left to manage the A's, and Ken Griffey Sr. reportedly wanted a two-year extension—but all the changes have led to suggestions that manager Don Baylor, himself a onetime hitting coach, is meddlesome. "Don is old school," says Hurdle. "He says, 'They're yours. Go do it.' He doesn't want to hear about the labor pains. Just show him the baby."

Hurdle, 40, is a garrulous man, a former Royals phenom who didn't pan out in 10 big league seasons. "I started paying a lot of attention to hitting late in my career," says Hurdle, who retired in 1987, managed in the Mets' minor league system for six years and joined the Colorado organization in '94 as a roving minor league hitting instructor. "Probably because I didn't play as much, I had to watch the other guys. I started to home in on what makes a good hitter."

Hurdle decided that the common thread among disparate hitting styles was balance and angle of stroke, hardly revolutionary concepts, though his loquaciousness and energy make it all sound fresh. "This team hit 200 home runs and stole 200 bases last year, so how much do you want to change?" Hurdle asks. "Look at the back of my baseball card—[first baseman Andres] Galarraga put up numbers last year [47 home runs, 150 RBIs] that almost matched my career totals [32 homers, 193 RBIs]. I don't have an instructional book on hitting. Never will. No video, either. I was a career .259 hitter. I mean, who would buy it?"

But the Rockies vow to buy into a plan Hurdle formulated to avoid a repeat of those disastrous road trips, an approach slightly more scientific than bringing Coors Field sod with them to San Francisco, which they did on one trip last season. The Rockies will take early hitting the first day of a road series to help acclimate themselves, and they will play "small ball," moving runners rather than waiting for the bombs. And those legendary 4 p.m. batting-practice spectacles—when leftfielder Dante Bichette and friends start trying to launch missiles—are out. "Everyone loved us," Hurdle says. "The Rockies came to town, and not only did you get a home run ball in BP, but you also got a victory."

Hurdle, calling this his "dream job," hopes to stick around Denver longer than the last four men in his job. If it doesn't work out, there's always Maui. Full time.

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