By Larry LaRue
The News Tribune
PEORIA, Ariz. – At the start of the last decade, Ruben Sierra had a gold ring that covered most of his right hand and a future just as flashy.
“He is already as good as anyone playing,” Toronto scout Gordon Lakey said in 1990. “He’s going to be the dominant player of the ’90s.”
Sierra was 24 years old and being compared to Roberto Clemente. He’d already just missed one Most Valuable Player Award, already hit 98 home runs, driven in 415 RBI.
“When I was young, I thought it would never end,” Sierra said Monday, sitting in the Seattle Mariners clubhouse. “I put up good numbers and thought if I got bigger, I’d double them.”
He was a switch-hitter with a marvelous outfield arm, enough speed to steal 18 bases in his second full season, enough friends to stock a farm system.
The ’90s were his for the taking, but Sierra’s prime never produced the numbers he or anyone else expected. By the time the decade ended, he had played for seven major league teams – then disappeared entirely.
“I was never mad. I was disappointed,” he said. “Anybody can make mistakes. You have to learn from them.”
What Sierra learned were hard lessons on and off the baseball field. He lost friends, saw his marriage crumble, his career falter and then skid out of control. By 1999, the only job he could get playing baseball was in Mexico.
“You play in the Mexcian League, you have to love the game,” Mariners assistant general manager Roger Jongewaard said. “The food isn’t good, the water isn’t good, the fields aren’t good … “
As teams and friends gave up, Sierra kept playing for anyone who would sign him.
“I learned never to give up. I believed in God, I believed in myself – and He helped me get back,” Sierra said. “I worked hard, but God gave me the opportunity.”
At 36, Sierra played in 94 games for the Texas Rangers last season and was named major league Comeback Player of the Year for batting .291 with 23 home runs and 67 RBI.
A free agent, he chose Seattle in the offseason.
“I want to win a World Series, and they wanted me,” Sierra said. “After all these years, it was good just to be wanted again.”
What happened to the Sierra of the late ’80s, the man who might have dominated the ’90s? It’s not as simple as trying to live up to the legend of fellow Puerto Rican Clemente, though that was part of it. In Texas, Sierra wore No. 3 on his uniform – until then-manager Bobby Valentine gave him No. 21, the same number Clemente wore.
Nor was it a matter of ego overcoming talent.
“I liked gold, I liked jewelry, but I never forgot who I was or where I came from,” Sierra said.
Ask Sierra what happened and he shakes his head, not so much in sorrow as in disbelief.
“I got bigger one offseason, and my power numbers were better,” he said. “From there, I should have lifted weights to maintain. I lifted to get bigger.”
From a rookie season when he came into camp weighing 175 pounds, Sierra became a beast – 240 pounds, all solid, all muscle, none of it good for his swing.
“I lost coordination, I got too tight, lost my swing,” Sierra said. “I look at someone like Alex Rodriguez now, someone who has so many people talking to him, helping him. I wish I’d had that.”
Sierra said no one in the Rangers organization told him to stop lifting, and when he began to struggle he worked harder and got stronger.
What followed was a trade and a career in Oakland that once included a 22-home run, 101 RBI season but was otherwise forgettable. Then came stops in New York, Detroit, Cincinnati, Toronto and Chicago.
By the time Sierra reached the White Sox in ‘98, he was 33-years-old and considered insurance.
“I thought I’d found my swing again, I thought I was back,” Sierra said. “They wanted to go with younger players. They had a plan.”
The plan held Sierra to 27 games that season. He batted .216.
The next spring, no one called. Sierra played in an independent league in ‘99, spent time in 2000 in three different leagues – finally getting 20 games with the Rangers late in the year.
“There were a lot of friends lost. When I was Ruben Sierra, they were my friends,” he said of those years. “When I was back in the minor leagues, they went somewhere else.
“I have no complaints, no bitterness. I believe my best years can be ahead of me.”
Sierra looks around the big league clubhouse and beams.
“I’ve probably had enough humility, but you never know,” he said. “If the young Ruben had known what I know now … he’d be in the Hall of Fame.”
That may not be a stretch. With the heart of his career gutted by mistakes, Sierra will begin the 2002 season with a .270 career average, 1,837 hits, 263 home runs and 1,114 RBI.
What if he’d never bulked himself out of baseball shape? What if those years in his late 20s and early 30s had been his best? Sierra points no finger.
“I weighed 219 pounds this morning, by the end of spring I’ll be at 210,” he said. “That’s a good weight for me. I can have a good season this year. I can help this team win.”
Long time friend Edgar Martinez – who played against Sierra in the mid ’80s in the minor leagues – said Sierra is a presence the team needs.
“He wasn’t a good player, he was a great player, and he’s still a very good player,” Martinez said.
“What’s he have left?” Jongewaard asked, repeating a question. “Power from both sides of the plate. He’s an average outfielder who can hit for power and production, and the more he hits, the more he’ll play.”
Sierra wants more than one last season in the sun. He wants to finish strong in a career that began brilliantly. Beyond that, he wants to thank the people who treated him well when they no longer had to because of who he was.
“I had fun in Mexico, in the minor leagues, because people were good to me,” Sierra said. “Who should I be mad at? I’m back. I have baseball left in me and I’m with a good team that wanted me to be part of it. I feel like I belong here again.”
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