Tinker Field, spring home of the Minnesota Twins, has disappeared from the Orlando, Fla., tourist map. Probably the local cartographer ran out of room for the tiny ballpark after coloring in nearby Walt Disney World, Epcot Center, and the Stars Hall of Fame wax museum. Handfuls of the committed still find the way, however, guided by private visions of dollar beer, the tabula rasa baseball season and most of all, Jim Eisenreich. "Even folks who don't come out to the park ask me about Eisenreich," says Charles Crepau, who saw his first ball game in 1916. Adjusting his Twins cap, Crepau gazes from the stands toward Minnesota's 24-year-old center fielder. "They ask me," he continues, "'How's Eisenreich feel? How's his problem? Is this the kid's last chance'?"
This spring is the kid's last chance, and his problem has nothing to do with putting bat on ball or ball in glove. Twice he has started the regular season billed as the best Twins outfielder since Tony Oliva. Twice he has disintegrated upon impact with major-league crowds, his powerful build reduced to a hyperventilating mass of onfield spasms. In 1982, the Twins called Eisenreich's problem a "mysterious nerve disorder," while fans in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, who instinctively knew what was really wrong, whispered "stage fright" and cheered encouragement. In Boston, however, bleacher bums threw bottles and mimicked the nervous rookie's contortions whenever he took the field.
Hopeful fans remembered Jimmy Piersall's comeback from a 1952 midseason nervous breakdown, yet past tales did nothing to soothe Eisenreich's public anguish.
That May Eisenreich quit baseball and tumbled through a lost season of psychiatrists and medication. He returned to the Twins in 1983, only to retire after two games. "I don't want to go through it again," said Eisenreich as he headed home to St. Cloud, Minn. "I don't want to take it anymore. The decision to leave was easy. The playing was hard."
Hypnotist: Last summer, mired in another hopelessly mediocre season, the Twins decided to make one more play for Eisenreich's much-needed talents. They called on Harvey Misel, a St. Paul hypnotist who has worked with several troubled major leaguers, to reinflate Eisenreich's punctured boyhood dream of playing baseball in the bigs. "Jim's problem wasn't baseball or crowds," Misel discovered, "it was life. He has always been an anxious person with a nervous tic. In the majors he became more concerned with people watching for the condition than the condition itself. But Jim never wanted to stop playing ball, even when he was hyperventilating on the field so badly that he thought he was about to suffocate and die." After some fall hypnosis, Eisenreich warily returned on an off day to home plate at the haunted Metrodome. Staring calmly up at the Twin's 55,000-seat stadium, he decided to give the majors one more shot.
Three weeks ago, Tinker Field fans strained for hints of stage fright when Eisenreich led off in the first exhibition game against Toronto. Feet: stationary in batter's box. Bat: steady in air. Face: relaxed and intent. Crack: a line-shot single, and Tinker Field erupted. Eisenreich delivered eight straight hits over the next three days before flying out against the Astros. Trotting back to the dugout with no expression and an .889 batting average, he received the biggest ovation of the spring.
His teammates never mention Eisenreich's past problems to his face. Reinducted into the Twins locker room with the nickname "Iceman," the introverted outfielder suits up quickly, plays furiously and exits silently. "It's a hard thing to bring up with him," says veteran infielder John Castino, "so we talk baseball. But all of us sense that Jim is feeling better than ever. We all really think he's going to make it."