Cleveland Indians' Kenny Lofton wants his world serious
Monday, October 15, 2007
Jodie Valade

Kenny Lofton was sitting at his locker, hidden behind the safety of a large pillar that conveniently blocks him from all the world, when the man Cleveland loves, the one whose name thousands at Jacobs Field chant every time he comes up to bat, gave a small peek at his personality.

Kenny was being Kenny.

A novice TV reporter who must not have heard about Lofton's reputation innocently asked how this American League Championship Series against the Boston Red Sox would be different than the Indians' divisional series against the Yankees, and what the Tribe needed to do to win.

"I've been asked this question before," Lofton sighed. His chiseled face hardened. His jaw clenched. "It's baseball," he continued, sounding exasperated. "You go out there and play baseball."

The player Cleveland loves, the outfielder who so desperately wants to win a championship for the city he has seen suffer, was simply reacting the way he always does whenever outsiders pry.

He was hard. He was prickly. He was distant. Except for the rare occasions when his face brightens as he crosses home plate or slaps another two-out, run-scoring hit, this is the Kenny Lofton the player projects for his adoring fans to see: brusque, standoffish, succinct.

If you're not a teammate or family member, you don't know Lofton - and even if you are, you probably don't know that much. You might not know about Lofton's penchant for dancing, or his fondness for hip-hop music, or how he loves to crack jokes with such a wry humor and straight face that no one is sure whether to laugh or take him seriously. Or how he boasts about his self-proclaimed "World's Best Banana Pudding" that he makes for family gatherings.

Or how the most important guiding influence in his life, his grandmother, Rosie Person, has suffered from such severe Alzheimer's in the past three to four years that she often doesn't recognize the boy she raised. Or how Lofton's pain at watching what the illness has done is so deep that he won't talk about the woman he has called the "inspiration" in his life.

The Kenny Lofton that the left fielder shows the public is not the same Kenny Lofton those closest to him know. He likes it that way, keeping the world at a distance from his private life. Still, for all Lofton's outward hardness, this complex mix of determination and fallibility makes him precisely the kind of player Cleveland adores embracing. He is a reminder of some of the city's happiest times, a hard-nosed, hard-working athlete who at 40 still displays heart and desire, and above all else still strives for the one thing Cleveland covets, too.

A championship.

Total recall

Even now, more than two months after Lofton returned to Cleveland via a trade with the Texas Rangers, the fans at Jacobs Field can't stop. At first, every Lofton at-bat earned a standing ovation. Now, they rhythmically chant his name - "Ken-ny! Ken-ny!" - each time he strolls toward home plate.

"Maybe it's nostalgia," offered former NBA guard Steve Kerr, who played college basketball with Lofton at Arizona. "Maybe fans are nostalgic, and he's connecting that bridge between the last Indians run and the current one."

Back then, in the mid-'90s, the Tribe had a powerful offense led by Albert Belle, and a combustible locker room, also led by Belle. Lofton, too, sometimes had a hard edge, but he was the speedy leadoff hitter who was often called the best in the game at his job.

"It was almost guaranteed 1-0," Indians outfielder Jason Michaels recalled of watching Lofton's legendary success as the first batter.

He went to the Braves for a year and came back to the Tribe for four before leaving again after the 2001 season. Eight more teams and six years later, Lofton is no longer batting leadoff, but he's still slapping timely hits and zipping around the bases. Against New York, he tied Rickey Henderson's career playoff steals record. He's still fit and agile, a testament, he says, to never drinking or smoking, and to eating well. He's not sure how his speed now compares to his speed then.

"I can't compare that," Lofton said testily. "I don't have a clock. I'm just as fast."

He doesn't see any difference between the player he was for the Indians then, and the veteran he is for them now. Even if now he bats seventh, he plays left field instead of center, and he tells first-time playoff participants to "seize the moment" and savor every second of this experience.

"The bottom line is I tried to win then, and I'm trying to win now," Lofton said. "There's no different concept about what I'm trying to do."

His old college basketball teammate laughs at descriptions of Lofton's brisk attitude.

"The guy's a competitor," Kerr said. "He's just driven. . . . He's always had an edge about him and always had a chip on his shoulder - in a good way. He's always wanted to compete."

Part of that undoubtedly comes from his upbringing. Lofton's mother, Annie Lawson, was 14 when he was born. He was raised by his grandmother, Person, who had a gift for stretching food and money so that a little lasted a while. His childhood bedroom had a concrete floor and broken windows.

He went to Arizona on a basketball scholarship, played for coach Lute Olson, but his love remained baseball. When Olson organized friendly team softball games in the park, Lofton was just as intense as he was on the basketball court.

"They were picnic games, and he was out for blood," Kerr laughed
So now, after playing in the playoffs 11 times in the past 13 years, after playing in the World Series twice and still emerging without a title, Lofton has the same determined goal that Cleveland does in 43 years without a championship.

"I haven't won a ring yet, and I'm still trying to do it," Lofton said. "I'm trying to win."

Cleveland appreciates the single-minded focus so much that when Lofton's mother, Lawson, was at the ALDS against New York last week, fans begged for her autograph when they found out who her son was.

Important Person

Even if he can't see it, Lofton has changed. In smaller ways, like how he's somewhat softer and sometimes smiling in the spotlight. In bigger ways, like how he's less boisterous around family. His mother and grandmother both live in Cincinnati now, but only Lawson has been to visit since Lofton returned to Ohio. Person is too ill with Alzheimer's to travel.

"My inspiration is my grandmother," Lofton told the Chicago Tribune in 2003. "She is still the most instrumental person in my life. . . . She sacrificed for me, and I wanted to make her happy."

When asked about Person last week, Lofton stiffened.

"I don't like to talk about my family," he said softly, before an edge crept into his voice. "That's my personal space. I like to keep my personal space separate from what I do on the field."

His aunt, Nettie Collins, who still lives in Lofton's hometown of East Chicago, Ind., said her nephew has become more reserved in recent years as Person's Alzheimer's has worsened. At times, Collins said, Person won't recognize anyone around her. Sometimes she'll hear an announcer bellow Lofton's name on TV or the radio - Person lost her vision to glaucoma so she can only listen to games - and her face will brighten.

"It's hard on him," Collins said. "The last few years have affected him very deeply, but he's playing in spite of it. I think he keeps going because of her. He gets his momentum from her."

If succeeding for his grandmother drives Lofton, he won't talk about it. Personal life is off-limits. He talks instead about striving for a ring for himself and for Cleveland
"They've been through a lot of heartbreaks here, and they need a championship," Lofton said.

Teammates and coaches appreciate that fire, and that Lofton is one of the few players on this version of the Indians with playoff experience. It showed against the Yankees when he hit .375 and had four RBI in the AL Division Series.

"He's a big-game player," Indians manager Eric Wedge said. "He understands what it means to be playing at this time of year. He's a competitor on the field, he really digs in, and he plays with a sense of confidence and calm."

Left-hander C.C. Sabathia, one of Lofton's closest teammates, can't help but snicker when he's out to dinner with the outfielder and women just a little younger than the 27-year-old pitcher approach to ask for Lofton's autograph.

"Oooh! You were my favorite player when I was, like, 5 years old!" they often coo.

In public, Lofton is obliging and courteous. He'll sign autographs, and he'll talk to the fans who have embraced him and cheered for him and chanted his name since his return to Cleveland. To those who pry deeper, he's curt and short. That's just who he is.

"Kenny's got to be Kenny," Lawson said.

That's just the way Cleveland loves him.

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Lofton's Grandmother was Listening

Bruce Jenkins
Cleveland

When Kenny Lofton was nine years old, he explained baseball to his grandmother off the sound of the television set. Rosie Person was nearly blind with Glaucoma, so she needed the help. When it came time for the seventh-inning stretch, Rosie and kenny would stand up. And if nobody else was around, the shy kid would sing "Take me out to the ballgame" along with her.

"My grandmother's a big reason I'm here today," says Lofton. "She gave me strength, taught me right from wrong, how to survive. She's still my biggest fan. And she's listening to every game."

As she listened last night, Rosie Person heard her grandson carrying the Cleveland Indians right back in the World Series. With a bitter wind howling in his face, a glory-starved crowd in an uproar and the formidable John Smoltz on the mound, Lofton stroked a first inning single to center and changed everything. The Indians weren't disappearing, after all. They just needed to get back home.

Not that Lofton ever knew the difference. He was the team's solo hero in Atlanta, scoring four runs and stealing three bases. Last night was just another moment on the stage:

Single and a run scored. Double and a run scored. Single. Walk. Steal of third, then another run scored on an infield hit. Intentional walk. And then another. On base all six times. Unstoppable.

The World Series has a way of humbling the game's heros. Ted Williams, Gil Hodges, Orlando Cepeda, Dave Winfield all felt the hurt. Conversely, there were men born for the stage: Roberto Clemente, Reggie Jackson, Joe Rudi, Johnny Bench. There isn't much time, so do it now. Kenny Lofotn is proving conclusively that he is one of those men. It isn't often that the leadoff man is walked intentionally with the game on the line. Atlanta manager Bobby Cox did that twice last night, because he refused to let Lofotn decide things.

Back in East Chicago, Ind., where Kenny grew up, the memories come flooding back for Rosie Person. The image of a tiny baby, born prematurely, so small that Kenny's mother was afraid she'd drop him. "His momma, her name is Annie, was just 14 when he was born," said Rosie, 68 in a recent interview. "kenny never knew his daddy. We don't know if he's dead or alive. It was one of those one-night stands.

"Annie wanted to go back to school, so she said to me,`I want you to keep Kenny Man.' I thought she was joking but she said,`No, he's yours.' And that's how he was treated from that day on."

Rosie's husband was long since gone, having died in 1960 from bronchial pneumonia. She was alone with little Kenny in a run-down neighborhood, the floor made of concrete, the windows cracked. When people ask Lofton today why he doesn't talk much, he answers, "It's probably the way I was brought up. We had nothing. And when we did get something -- a new toy, some new shoes, anything -- we protected it so no one messed it up."

Lofton played some baseball on the streets of East Chicago, but he was the charge of raw electricity on the basketball court. He entered one of Dick Vitale's slam-dunks contest at the University of Arizona and, at 5-foot-11, brought down the house.

It was only after that Junior season that Lofotn even attempted collegiate baseball, and he played just five games. But it was enough to catch the eyes of the Houston Astros, who made him a 17th round draft pick in 1988. He played 48 games of minor-league ball that summer, and while he hit just .214, his career goals suddenly changed.

"In the back of my mind, I always knew baseball was something I might want to try," he says. " I knew I had the skills."

It's a shame the Astros didn't fully understand those skills. Even after hitting over .300 for three different minor-league teams, Lofotn struggled at .203 in a 20 game September trial for Houston in 1991, and he was gone. The Astros shipped him to Cleveland for -- and this still has to hurt around the Astrodome -- Willie Blair and Eddie Taubensee.

Because of Lofton, Carlos Baerga and 11th-inning hero Eddie Murray, this is suddenly a real World Series. Indians manager Mike Hargrove is off the hook for his inexcusable decision to leave Charles Nagy in the game for the eighth inning. Cox may regret his dicision to bypass Greg Maddux tonight(and thus a possible game seven) to get Steve Avery in the rotation.

And Rosie Person can savor what she hears back home, on a street named Kenny Lofotn Lane. "That's right," she says. "They took old Butler street and changed the name to my grandson's. The usually don't do that until after someone has passed on, but they figured it would be nice to do it while the guy's still living and movin' around."

Kenny's standing tall this week, Rosie. You'd best stand up, too.