Relaxing helps Huff rebuild confidence

BALTIMORE -- Comebacks can be found in the strangest of places. Aubrey Huff will freely admit that his confidence was in freefall for the last few years, spiraling downward with no relief in sight. Baltimore's designated hitter found his swing during a winter in which he was too hurt to work out and mentally conflicted about his life and his future in baseball.

Paradoxically, Huff's path back to stardom started when he was too dispirited to worry about it. The veteran was coming off a trying season with a new team and a sports hernia that kept him from picking up a bat over the offseason, but perspective in the form of impending fatherhood and the passing of a former teammate helped him snap back to reality.

"I wasn't sure anymore. My numbers had gone down for two seasons before last season, and then I had that year. It was pretty much the lowest season I've ever had," he said of 2007. "My swing hadn't felt the same for three years. I'm starting to think, 'What happened? I'm 30. It's not like I'm 40.' I think, more than anything, it was a confidence thing. 'What's going on, and why is this happening?' Before you know it, your mind gets in the way. It just got more and more miserable.

"It got tough to even think about the game. It was just so frustrating that I couldn't get anything going. But this year, I just came in and said, 'I'd better have a good year or I won't have much more of a chance to do it again.'

Things had gotten that desperate for Huff, who spent the first six years of his career in Tampa Bay and described himself as "beaten down mentally" by the end of his tenure there. He had seen personal success -- four straight seasons of 20 or more home runs -- devalued by his team's losing records.

Huff's career had gotten stale at the ripe old age of 28, and then came a trade to Houston which saw his fortunes briefly revived and a free-agent contract with the Orioles that led to his worst season and the revival of all his doubts. That's where Huff was this winter when close friend and former teammate Joe Kennedy passed away from heart disease.

All of a sudden, his mind was transported from his professional despair and onto something more important.

"I just realized how short life is and why worry about things," Huff said of Kennedy's untimely passing. "You play a kid's game and ultimately, this is third in life for me behind God and my family. There's no need to come in here and stress out about a kid's game. I think about [Kennedy] every day, and it reminds me every time I put that jersey on. The guy was 28 years old when he died. He had a lot of life left. He had a baby on the way and he already had a 1-year-old.

"I know he's in a better place, but I just feel for his wife and kids. It's funny, because he reminded me a lot of myself. He'd give the media a hard time, but it was a sarcastic hard time. And he was the same with the boys in the clubhouse. He was just a genuinely sweet guy. And if he met you once, he'd know your name again in a year."

Against that backdrop, Huff found it hard to rededicate himself. He had a hernia injury that took him six weeks to rehabilitate, and when that didn't fix the problem, he had surgery and had to sit out another six weeks to recover. He came to Spring Training without having picked up a bat all winter, but he found that his second season in Baltimore just clicked.

Hitting coach Terry Crowley, who had helped Huff find a flaw in his swing late last season, said that things were better from the first day. He could tell Huff was more relaxed and prepared to resume hurting baseballs on a regular basis.

"I think he's maybe a little more happy-go-lucky. I know he's a little more comfortable with his surroundings," said Crowley, who had a 15-year playing career of his own. "Anytime a player -- whether it's a young guy or a 20-year veteran -- changes teams, it's a very different feeling when you go to the ballpark. It happened to me a couple times in my career. When you don't know your teammates, psychologically, you feel like you have to produce every day. 'These guys don't know I can hit, and I've got to show them every day.' And when that doesn't happen, you have a tendency to put pressure on yourself."

And when all of that evaporated, Huff and Crowley could just work on the basics. The pair found last season that Huff hit better from a more upright stance, and that combined with his newfound mental clarity to give him a needed boost. All of a sudden, Huff went right back to the metronomic slugger who could be counted on to fill out the middle of a lineup.

The 6-foot-4, 235-pound left-handed hitter has bounced back with a big season, batting .302 with 22 home runs and 73 RBIs after a 2007 season in which he hit .280 with 15 home runs and 72 RBIs.

"I think it was physical, and then when he got the feel -- 'I can see the ball better from this position, and when I get my pitch it's easier for me to drive it' -- it allowed everything to fall into place," Crowley said. "Consequently, this year, he's been a much better offspeed hitter without sacrificing anything at all on the fastball. Some guys, when they become a little better offspeed hitters, all of a sudden they're late on the heater. That's not the case with Aubrey. He's right on every fastball."

"I don't know if he looks more relaxed, because he always looks the same to me," added manager Dave Trembley. "I know he's in much better shape, it would appear. He doesn't take himself too seriously. He hits the ball the other way. He's just been a very good, consistent No. 4 hitter for us. I'm sure any time somebody comes in the organization the first year, they put a lot of expectations on themselves. That's kind of a good quality because that means they want to do well and they care. But I think after a while, they adjust, they kind of get comfortable. It's probably best for everybody that way."

Huff's success has bred more of the same, and he's helped frame Baltimore's lineup by protecting Nick Markakis and getting on base for guys like Kevin Millar and Luke Scott. He's gone from the new guy to one of the most popular players in the clubhouse, and Huff said that knowing that his wife, Barbara, is expecting has given him something new to play for.

"That's another thing. I feel good about saying, 'I know I'm going to have a little one,' and it changes my perspective on baseball," said Huff of becoming a parent. "When I was going good in 2003 and '04, I came to the field and thought, 'If I get some hits, great. If I don't, I'm not going to let it bother me.'

"I was coming in here, working hard early and thinking about my swing too much, studying more video. And I never used to do that. I kind of got back to that this year, where I'm not studying too much video and not doing too much early work," he said. "I'm just taking my batting practice and trying to make things as simple as possible. The fact that I'm going to have a little one on the way has made it much less stressful at the ballpark."

(mlb.com)