Wednesday, March 29, 2006
By Dejan Kovacevic
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
BRADENTON, Fla. -- If Jason Bay played in Boston, he might already have his image adorning magazine covers, his brand coveted by Madison Avenue executives and a snappy nickname courtesy of some "SportsCenter" anchor.
If he played in Toronto, he might be a national treasure in his native Canada.
If he played in New York ...
As it is, Bay plays in Pittsburgh and, despite a meteoric ascent through the ranks of Major League Baseball, he barely has penetrated the public consciousness.
Even in his place of employment.
Ask the common sports fan in Allegheny County to identify his or her favorite local athlete and the results surely will be dominated by Ben Roethlisberger, Hines Ward and maybe the long snapper of the Super Bowl champion Steelers. Others might point to Sidney Crosby, who is selling $40 tickets virtually by himself for the Penguins.
But Bay?
He plays for the Pirates, right?
If it bothers him, he doesn't come close to letting on.
"Oh, no, not at all," Bay said yesterday. "It deflects some of the notoriety, which is nice. And it's not really my personality, anyway. I'm not the look-at-me, look-at-me type. The situation I have here is just perfect for me."
He laughed when asked how he might respond to working in a city more in the national spotlight.
"You know, I don't know if I could go somewhere like that. I'm Pittsburgh. That's my personality. It would be a lot tougher, I think, to do well in that environment, too much attention called when you're not doing well. But I haven't thought about it, to be honest. I have my little niche here, and I like it."
At the same time, Bay's profile, unmistakably, is expanding.
Through this offseason and spring training, he has been interviewed by Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News, ESPN the Magazine, USA Today and just about every other national print outlet, plus several from Canada. He was among the six players featured in television advertising to promote the World Baseball Classic and was a guest on ESPN's morning show, "Cold Pizza."
And the material with the broadest scope is still to come this summer in a Fox commercial promoting the Pittsburgh-bound All-Star Game.
With the help of computer animation, Bay, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Vladimir Guerrero and other elite players will sprint and dive across moving steel beams while building a skyscraper next to PNC Park. At its conclusion, Bay and the rest will take a breather with a lunch pail on a beam high above the construction site, a scene aimed at conveying the city's blue-collar heritage.
"Never did anything like it," he said. "Great experience."
Bay also has had his internal work with the Pirates ramped up, from posing for promotional photographs to acting out television ads to delivering the most sought autograph at Pirate City. On the latter count, he often signs until the last request is met.
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Ask Bay how he feels about the time invested this spring in such fare, and he will respond diplomatically.
"I've learned it's important. I'm not the type who says, 'Ooooh, pick me,' or who looks at himself like the face of the franchise or anything. But I understand it goes a long way for the organization. And I know more people are paying attention."
The attention hardly is unwarranted, as the numbers from Bay's superb first two seasons illustrate.
In 2004, he was the Pirates' first National League rookie of the year with a .282 average and 26 home runs. Last season, he was the only player in the game to top .300 (.306), 30 home runs (32), 40 doubles (44), 20 steals (21) and 100 RBIs (101).
There is more:
* As per an intricate statistic called Value Over Replacement Player, Bay was the fifth-most productive offensive player in the game. The four ahead of him, in order: Derrek Lee, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols and David Ortiz.
* He had 82 extra-base hits, one more than Pujols, and trailed only Lee's 99 in the National League.
* His .346 average with runners in scoring position ranked fifth.
* His 95.5 percent success rate in steals was the best in the majors.
* He drew 95 walks, ranking seventh in the league, only nine of those intentional.
And it has not stopped this spring. With a 4-for-4 showing yesterday in the Pirates' 7-5 victory against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, he is batting .464 with four home runs and nine RBIs in 11 games.
Such figures explain why Bay is anything but a secret in the baseball world.
"He's a special player, a very special player," manager Jim Tracy said. "People know that in our game."
"I can tell you from when I faced him with the Reds, Jason Bay's peers know about him," first baseman Sean Casey said. "When we played the Pirates, he was the one guy we feared. We'd talk beforehand about how to get him out, how he could change the game if we let him."
If any of such talk has gotten to Bay's head, on or off the field, it does not come close to showing. He remains as affable and humble as anyone in the Pirates' clubhouse, and he credits his wife, Kristen, for that.
"I'm still not that big, as my wife loves to remind me," he said. "And I know it."
That grounded nature is seen, to some extent, in how he views what might be the next logical progression in his career.
"You want to keep improving every year, and I've obviously set a very high bar for myself after two seasons," he said. "At some point, though, that's going to stop. You're not just going to keep getting better forever."
Which is why he delightedly would accept a flat line over, say, the next decade.
"My main thing would be to be consistent, but it won't be easy. There will be more protection this year with Casey in front of me and Jeromy Burnitz behind me, and I think that's going to help me maintain that. But some people seem to think that will automatically make everything that much better, and that's going to be very tough to do. The way I look at it is, if I can maintain that average, up or down a little either way, that would be a great career."
Pirates general manager Dave Littlefield, who signed Bay to a four-year, $18.25 million extension in November, expresses a similar view.
"There are some places Jason still can go," he said. "If he can do it year after year, that puts him in a different category, on an even shorter list than he is now."
Above all, Bay speaks of craving success at the team level.
"Believe me: I'd gladly sacrifice my numbers and see them go down if it means we're winning games."
It is in that vein alone that Bay allows to a trace of jealousy for the adulation some of Pittsburgh's other sporting figures receive.
"I keep looking back to when were 30-30 last season. It felt like we were in a playoff hunt. You were walking around town, and everyone's upbeat ... it just made it so much fun to come to the ballpark. Just that little taste is all I have. But you see the excitement in Pittsburgh for the Steelers and the Pens, and you realize people just need a reason to get excited."
(Dejan Kovacevic can be reached at dkovacevic@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1938. )
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