Talking with: Luis Gonzalez

Brian Kamenetzky: What do you see as your role on this team, one with a lot of vets and young players?

Luis Gonzalez: You have multiple roles, really.  First of all, you provide stability because of what you've done in the past and your ability to play this long in the game.  You hope you provide leadership.  Different guys, there's different ways of showing leadership.  Some guys lead by example, other guys lead by example by being a little bit more vocal.  I'm a little more vocal in the clubhouse.  I'm bilingual, that helps.  I'm a pretty easy going guy, and what they see is what they get.  I always try to help the younger guys out, if they have questions or things like that.  Because I'm an old school player.  I'm not going to lie to you and tell you I love the way some of these new guys play because there are some guys that are total hot dogs in this game and I can't stand that.  There's a lot of guys that have great talent, but it's the way they go about their business in playing this game and stuff that sometimes perturbs me a little bit. 

BK: Is that what you think guys who were your age in 1990 when you broke in said about young players?

LG: Yeah, but I was with old school guys.  I'm looking at some games now where guys are wearing eye black that looks like war paint.  They look like wrestlers out there.  There's a lot of different things that are going on- and I understand that society's changed and different things, but when you're an old school guy and you see that, you just kind of shy away from it. 

BK: What have you had to change about what you do and how you approach the game as you've gotten older?  What gets harder?  Does anything get easier?

LG: I think everything gets harder.  You just have to work harder first of all, and at the same time you have to find ways to make adjustments a lot quicker.  The game doesn't come as easy as it does to a 23 or 24 year old that just hops out of bed every day and is ready to go.  I was one of those guys that just felt good every day.  As you get older, you have different little aches and pains, and you learn to talk your mind into believing you're okay.  I mean, I played one year (2004 in Arizona) with a torn ligament in my elbow.  I needed Tommy John surgery.  I played as long as I could until our team was out of the race, and then I decided to have the surgery.  So I mean, the mental aspect of the game plays a huge part.  You have to find ways when you're in a slump to talk yourself out of it.  "Today's the day."  You've got to be positive.  That's what I always try to (find).  Just being positive.  Even when things aren't going good, you try to find something positive to keep going in this game. 

BK: There's a tendency also, whether it's fans or media or whatever, what might have been discounted as a slump is seen as "the end."  Guys shoveling dirt on you.

LG: He's getting old.  That sort of thing.  You know what, I use that as motivation for me.  I don't usually come out and go, "You know what, that guy ticked me off, and I'm going to show him!" but I use it as a quiet self motivation.  There's question in people's mind.  And there's going to be a day where your skills are gone.  And you don't want to embarrass yourself out there. I'm the first guy, if I'm embarrassing myself, I don't want to be out there.  But this is a game where we all as professional athletes build ourselves on pride, and when you don't reach that level of expectations anymore, you know it's time to go.  And that's the hard part for an athlete, when you have to close the book or write the ending and say this is it, I'm not coming back.  I think that's what a lot of guys have trouble dealing with. 

BK: Did you feel any of that with the first month and a half of the season? 

LG:  No.  For me, it was more that I'd been with an organization for eight years.  There's a comfort zone.  Once you're there three, four, five years, they know when you have your good streaks and your slumps.  Writers blow it off.  "He's gonna be okay."  Fans know, "Hey, his numbers are going to be there at the end."  And when you go to new surroundings, you want to impress everybody.  And you know what?  It doesn't matter if you're twenty or fifty.  It's just like showing up for work.  You want to show the boss and you want to show the people that I'm here for a reason.  And Grady sat me down, and Ned, and said we brought you here to be yourself.  Don't try to do too much.  Just relax and have fun.  We have a great team here already.  Just add to the puzzle.  And that's kind of helped me out a lot, as far as realizing just to fit in, and go out there and do what you can.  When you're not playing, try to help out some of these younger guys.  Just keep going. 

BK: Do you think some of that (those expectations) come from fans- Los Angeles fans know and remember 57 home runs in 2001 and all these other things.   What kind of player do you see yourself as, in terms of your own expectations? 

LG: I know a lot of the fans when they see me come here, they see me as a guy who played on a good team in Arizona for a long time, because we were in the same division.  If I would have been in the American League, a lot of these fans, they know your name but they're not going to know what kind of numbers you put up.  But I've always had, knock on wood, I've always had pretty good numbers playing here at Dodger Stadium.  And when you come in (before), you play as the villain.  Now you come in as the good guy on their team.  You learn to try to stay at an even keel the whole time.  Part of what we do is there's going to be guys who write good articles about you, there's going to be guys who write bad articles.  There's going to be fans that say this guy is done, there are going to be fans who say this guy's a great player who does the little things.  You listen to so many different things that you learn to shrug everything off and keep going, and you hope that the people that are in the clubhouse with you- that's your family- you hope that those guys believe in your abilities and what you can do.  Then hopefully that helps the team in the long run. Then when you win a championship, you get to prove everybody wrong, the ones that doubted you.  And the ones that said, "You know what, we knew what he could do," then they're on your side.      

BK: Have you changed the kind of expectations you have for yourself, as opposed to what you might have had five or six years ago?  Do you have to do that?

LG: You have to do that.  There was a run I had there in Arizona, I was driving in 120 runs, 140 runs, hitting home runs at will.  Now I'm playing with someone like Russell Martin.  He's a great player.  And you go from being a star on your team, or one of the stars on your team, to being one of the other guys.  You share the wealth with everybody else.  Every team's got their stars and celebrities, the people that (fans) want to see.  It's just a matter of going out there as the other guy, and doing what you have to do to help that team win that night.

BK: Was that a hard adjustment for you to make? 

LG: Not really.  Not really, because I realize there's going to be a time where if (Russell) is slumping, I have to pick up the slack.  Or Jeff (Kent), or Nomar (Garciaparra) or our pitching staff.  There's going to be a time where people are leaning on you, and then you're that guy for maybe that week or that month, or whatever it is.  I've been playing long enough to where I don't let things affect me.  I just kind of go out and play, and whatever happens, happens.

BK: I would imagine you've seen people struggle with that. 

LG: No doubt.  I've seen a lot.  I've seen guys who were tabbed can't miss prospects who were going to be around for a million years, this guy's brought in to take your job, and the next thing you know you're still running out there and those guys are gone.  They're not even playing in the game anymore.  So you learn to take things as a challenge, and just go out there and play hard. 

BK: I read this morning you hit your first two home runs were off Greg Maddux. 

LG: And he didn't know who the hell I was, so that was great.  And here I am ten home runs later off the guy--

BK: --and your still here and he's still here.

LG: You have your struggles in this game.  You're going to go through slumps.  If you're playing every day, you get 600 at bats.  There's not a perfect player out there who's going to play (well) the whole season.  And if there is, that's the guy who's going to win the Most Valuable Player, or he's got everything locked in for that year.  So there's going to be times when guys struggle a lot.  Look at Ryan Howard.  He was the MVP (last season) and then the first month and a half, he was playing terrible.  Everybody was questioning him.  Now he's back on track.  And everybody's (like) "Oh yeah, that's one of those slumps."

BK: I would think it takes a certain mix of veterans who can recognize if they're not playing well and may lose two or three games a week, or more, to a younger player.  What do you have to do to make sure to not make that a problem?

LG: Honestly, it's a hard pill to swallow, because we all have pride.  Jeff (Kent, who was sitting the day we spoke) has Hall of Fame numbers.  It's a hard pill to swallow, but he knows that he's very valuable to this team, and we know that.  What it is, it's just a process of giving a guy a break.  I had a break earlier in the year.  I was playing godawful.  Nomar just had a couple days off.  We all go through these mini-slumps.  When you've got a talented enough team where you can take a guy out for a couple days and give him a couple mental days off and put another guy in, and they end up picking up the slack, that's the sign of a good ballclub and that's a good luxury to have.  But he knows he's valuable, just as Nomar does, and Russell, and all the other guys in here. 

Everyone has different roles.  Olmedo (Seanz) is probably one of the most valuable guys on our team, because when he's called upon, he's called upon in a game situation where we need you right now.  There is no margin.  That's one of the toughest jobs out there, pinch hitting. 

Keep an eye out for Part II later this week.