Sporting News, The: The book on Alex Gonzalez - baseball player

A run of bad luck in clubhouse blackjack games is nothing new for Florida's Alex Gonzalez.

Play enough, and you're bound to hit a patch where the cards don't turn up in your favor. Hit me. Bust. Hit me. Bust.

He never expected to have a bad patch at the plate, though. That's what made last season so difficult.

It seemed hits never were in the cards. At the break, the Marlins shortstop was hitting just .180.

It's funny how quickly things had changed. In 1999, Gonzalez, then a 22-year-old rookie, made the All-Star team and batted .277 with 14 home runs and 59 RBIs.

By last July, the team wanted him to scrap his batting stance, wanted him to ease up on his swing, wanted him to be more selective, wanted him to do anything but what he was doing.

"There was too much on my mind," Gonzalez says. "When you have a bad year, everybody talks to you."

Hitting coach Jack Maloof and special assistants Andre Dawson and Tony Perez (now Florida's manager) became a three-headed monster in Gonzalez's mind as they worked to eliminate the timing mechanism--a toe tap by his left foot--from his swing.

Although Gonzalez improved in July, he never cleared his head, and his fog followed him into the field, where he committed 19 errors.

It took winter ball in his native Venezuela for him finally to get right again. He returned to his old batting stance and found a new comfort level--one it appears he packed with him when he returned to Florida.

After hitting .325 in July, Gonzalez is hitting .258, a vast improvement from last year (.200). But he still needs to be more consistent. Some in the organization believe Gonzalez is capable of 20-homer seasons, and his hits--long ball or otherwise--often come in bunches. But he also is prone to sustained offensive droughts.

Gonzalez has the skills to be a smooth fielder, but he has committed 66 errors 372 games. He has a tendency to throw sidearm; when he does, his throws can get erratic.

But at least the days of wondering if his next hit will come are over. Now if only he could master blackjack ...