Ken Caminiti, A Tragic Hero

This weekend, Jeff Bagwell is finally inducted into the Hall of Fame, joining Craig Biggio as the big Killer B’s in the Hall.  I can’t help but think about my favorite Astro (not named Ryan) growing up, their teammate and friend Ken Caminiti.

Bagwell, Biggio, and Caminiti started at roughly the same time for the Astros, and formed the core of a great young team that never quite put it together.  It’s interesting that while Caminiti was perhaps the most heralded coming up, he obviously fell short of the other two in career accomplishments.  His is a tragic story, but it will never take away what he meant to me growing up.

I’m not really sure why I chose him as my favorite.  Caminiti was the best fielding third baseman I have ever seen.  He was not only a slick fielder, but also he had probably the strongest arm at third.  No one has ever made the diving stop into foul territory and cannon arm throw to get the guy at first like him.  It was poetry in motion.  Something that never got old.

He also was a huge guy.  Perhaps that why I was so impressed, because he was so intimidating.  I remember one particular brawl on the field where he flat out body slammed one of the enemy.  I would not have wanted to mess with him.  He was also one of the great bat-breakers in history.  It helps when you have legs the size of tree trunks.

He wasn’t a slouch offensively either, though he pales in comparison to his teammates.  Playing in the Astrodome for the first eight years of his career did not help.  It was always interesting to me that three years in a row, 1991-1993, he couldn’t break 13 home runs.  Finally he hit 18 in the strike-shortened 1994 season.  Of course after that season he was part of the huge trade sending him and Steve Finley among others to San Diego.  I liked him so much that the Padres immediately became my second favorite team.  That was when he finally started to show what he could do.  I would argue that his 1995 season was the most representative of what he could do (33 doubles, 26 home runs, 94 RBIs, .302/.380/.513).  Then in 1996, he exploded with a 40 home run season and a unanimous MVP.  He also led the Padres to the playoffs, and to the World Series in 1998.  He had two more good half seasons in Houston before injuries completely caught up with him and he had to retire in 2001.

Of course there are the unfortunate parts of his life.  He admitted to taking steroids during his MVP season.  He also had a lot of problems with drugs and alcohol.  Biggio and Bagwell, great teammates and friends, continued to try to help him, but the demons got to him.  Unfortunately he died in 2004 due to his drug habit.

But even so, I will never forget the great memories of watching him play.  There’s the famous Montezuma’s Revenge game in Mexico 1996 when he had to be hospitalized in the morning due to sickness, reportedly ate a Snickers bar, went to the ballpark, and hit two home runs.  

There’s the game when he returned to the Astros playing in then Enron Field.  The pitcher was 3-1 on him and I remember saying, “don’t groove a fastball or he’ll crush it.”  Of course, next pitch was a fastball down the heart of the plate and he crushed it down the right field line.  Called it!  (I believe it was April 8, 2000, which by the way was the only game Dwight Gooden ever started for the Astros.)  My brother will also talk about the game in the Astrodome when he came up with a man on third and two outs in a one-run game in the 9th for the Padres, and struck out.  I don’t care to remember that.  (May 23, 1998; the Astros had a two run home run in the bottom of the 8^th to take the lead.)

In the end, he was a troubled man, but I’ve only ever heard good things about him from his teammates.  They talk about his huge heart.  They talk about his greatness as a teammate.  They talk about his skill, especially defensively.  And that’s how I remember him.  A great ballplayer who made mistakes, but still brought a lot of happiness to his fans.  He is missed, but his memory lives on as his teammates and good friends are enshrined in Cooperstown.  They may have been better, but for at least one young 10 year old Houstonian, it was all about Cammy, #11.