Torii Hunter had admired Vladimir Guerrero from afar since 1996, when, as a Minnesota Twins minor leaguer, he came to appreciate the "old-school" sensibilities of the Montreal Expos prospect who played with the hard-nosed, leave-it-all-on-the-field kind of edge Hunter loved.
And it took only a few weeks as Angels teammates this season for Hunter to see why just about every player, coach or manager who has shared a big league clubhouse with Guerrero calls the 33-year-old slugger the most unassuming superstar in baseball.
"He doesn't act like a superstar," Hunter said. "Everybody knows him, but he doesn't act like it. He has no cockiness or selfishness. He's so humble. He doesn't want the spotlight. He's so down to earth it's crazy. And this guy is a sup-er-star."
Tonight, with the Angels opening the American League division series against the Boston Red Sox in Anaheim, would be a good time for Guerrero to start playing like one.
Unlike his fellow dreadlocked Dominican, Manny Ramirez, one of baseball's most accomplished playoff performers with a .376 on-base percentage, 24 home runs and 64 RBIs in 95 postseason games, Guerrero doesn't have much of a playoff pedigree.
From April through September, Guerrero's numbers are Hall of Fame worthy -- the 12-year-veteran has a .323 lifetime average, 392 home runs and 1,268 RBIs.
He had another solid 2008 season, batting .303 with a team-leading 27 homers and 91 RBIs, and batted .322 with 10 home runs and 37 RBI in 46 games after the Angels traded for Mark Teixeira. Guerrero joined Lou Gehrig as the only players in major league history to bat at least .300 with 25 homers for 11 consecutive seasons.
But October has not been as kind to Guerrero, who, in 16 playoff games, all with the Angels, has a .183 average, one home run and seven RBIs, four coming on one swing, a score-tying grand slam in Game 3 of the 2004 division series against the Red Sox, a game, and series, the Angels eventually lost.
The free-swinging Guerrero has a reputation for "hitting balls off his shoelaces or balls thrown at his face out of the park," Hunter said, and Seattle pitcher Jarrod Washburn said Guerrero "can hit any pitch out of the park -- off-speed, fastball in off the plate, away off the plate, down, up . . . he's a freak."
But with little lineup protection in 2004, 2005 and 2007, opposing pitchers expanded the strike zone beyond even Guerrero's considerable reach, feeding him high-and-tight fastballs and breaking balls away -- often way away -- pitches that produced broken bats and weak ground balls.
