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Sheffield Proud To Be Tampa's Home Run King

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By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 5, 2009

LAKELAND - Not long after the regular season begins next month, Gary Sheffield likely will hit the 500th home run of his career. He needs one more to join a club currently occupied by only 24 other players in Major League Baseball history.

And you know what he says about it?

"It doesn't mean that much."

That was Sheffield talking Thursday before the Detroit Tigers' exhibition game against Washington. Before anyone raises an eyebrow about what means a lot or what doesn't, let him continue.

"The No. 493 means more - just getting to Fred McGriff meant more to me. Getting 500 is a great number to achieve but it won't move me either way. I'm not downplaying a number, but as far as my goals, if Fred McGriff had hit 550, then that was the number I wanted to accomplish."

Sheffield broke out of a three-way career tie with McGriff (and some guy named Gehrig) last Sept. 1, making him the official home run champion of Tampa guys in the major leagues.

"This is where I started and there were a lot of things said back then about who would be the best out of Tampa. There were a lot of debates about that," Sheffield said. "There were kids who probably could have been better than all of us but didn't have the willpower and the mindset to get through all that. I withstood all that, and then put up the numbers to back it up. That meant more to me than anything."

I mentioned to Sheffield that his choice of "withstood" was interesting. That word could define his career.

"Absolutely," he said.

He is in the last year of a contract that will pay $14 million this season, but don't read much into that. He plans to keep playing because, "There's still nothing I can't do on a baseball field. When I feel that's over, then it's time to walk away. But nobody can overmatch me on a baseball field."

Say what you will about him - and plenty have - but through injuries and controversies, he keeps coming back. At age 40, he reported to Tigers camp in his best shape in years.

"This was the first year he didn't have surgery in the offseason," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "He has been pretty healthy all winter. He looks strong."

That's a welcome change for Sheffield. Last year he was recovering from shoulder surgery and struggled through the first half. In 2006, his last season with the Yankees, a wrist injury ruined things. Had he stayed healthier - he has played 130 or fewer games in nine of his 21 seasons - we'd be talking about a much larger home run total by now.

"I could have easily been at 600, approaching 700," he said. "But you can't devalue 500, even though they want to do that. Five hundred is a lot of home runs. They can say whatever they want, but that's a lot of home runs."

More than anyone in Tampa ever had.

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