THE ANGELS’ AGELESS Workaholic : Catcher Bob Boone, 38, Says He’s Ready, as Usual, to Appear in 150 Games

PALM SPRINGS â€”  Contrary to popular opinion, and maybe medical science, as well, Bob Boone has found that with catchers the first things to go are the ears.

The whispers are no longer whispers. Haven’t been for years. The voices are now loud and persistent, passing along helpful reminders to Boone every time he straps on his shin protectors.

The voices tell him that a 38-year-old arm should be extended only to shake hands with Rickey Henderson--not to try gunning Henderson down in the dust around second base.

The voices tell him that knees adorned with four surgeons’ scars should be spending their summers in waters off Hawaii or Jamaica--not locked in front of home plate, bracing for a collision with Kirk Gibson.

The voices tell him that catchers his age are usually former catchers. Or designated hitters. Or radio color commentators.

But poor Bob. The hearing is just about shot these days. One-hundred-and-fifty times last season, the voices received the same response:

Say what?

Bob Boone led the major leagues in 1985 by catching 147 games, an endurance record for a catcher his age. He appeared in 150. The runner-up was Pittsburgh’s Tony Pena, who only happens to be a decade younger, with 146.

There was quality besides the quantity.

Boone did more than simply punch a clock. He also punched out potential base stealers at a success rate of .416--the best in the American League. He finished the season with 71 assists, ranking second among league catchers to Boston’s Rich Gedman.

Boone can still handle a pitching staff, too. At one point last year, the Angel staff included five rookies and a second-year man. Boone took it and gently maneuvered it to 90 victories and the league’s fifth-best earned-run average, 3.91.

Too old?

“Bob Boone is a freak,� Angel Manager Gene Mauch said. “I never dreamed he’d catch that many games. With 125, I’d have been ecstatic.

“A-hundred-and-fifty games is not realistic for a 38-year catcher; it’s ridiculous. Except it’s not ridiculous to Bob Boone. I quit being surprised by Bob Boone a long time ago. I’ve never known anyone so mentally tough and impervious to pain.�

To a manager who used 155 different lineups last season, Boone is a boon. He was the one constant Mauch could count on in 1985.

And he’s counting still in 1986.

“Hell,� Mauch said. “This year, he might catch ‘em all.�

Boone would like to try. To understand how a body that has been battered by 13 years of foul tips and headfirst slides continues to defy baseball sanity, one need only ask Boone about the 147 games he caught last summer.

He seems offended by the 15 he missed.

“The roster lists me as the catcher,� Boone said. “If you’re the catcher, you catch. Every day.

“I don’t think catching is much more demanding than any other position. It’s not any more difficult than, say, right fielder or third baseman. If they’re in the lineup every day, why shouldn’t I?�

Thirty-eight years on this planet might seem reason enough. So would the aching knees that are required to lower Boone into a crouch more than 100 times a game. So would the steady influx of younger and faster baserunners, testing his arm anew every season.

Boone shook his head.

“I’m not convinced resting helps you,� he said. “It seems like that’s the way it should be, but I don’t know. It’s like the old cliche--’If you don’t use it, you lose it.’

“I get caught in the middle. My business sense tells me, ‘Catch just 120 games this year, save your body so you can get paid for a longer period of time.’ But my personal philosophy is, ‘I can catch every day--and if you say I can’t, I’ll show you I can.’ �

So far, Boone’s personal philosophy is beating the tar out of his business sense.

“Guys tell me, ‘Take a day off.’ I don’t know what it means,� Boone said. “During the baseball season, every part of my life is geared around the game that night. I hate sitting. Days off drive me crazy.�

As he talks, Boone is faced with another one of those crazy afternoons. A day off.

Mauch has split his squad, with half booked to play an exhibition game against San Francisco. The other half, Boone’s half, is on leave after a morning batting practice session.

Batting practice is over, but the workout has just begun for Boone. While teammates shower and head for their cars, Boone pulls off one perspiration-soaked jersey and replaces it with a sweat shirt and a jacket.

Soon, Boone will be lifting weights, riding the exercise cycle, strengthening his knees with a series of stretching and jumping exercises. Then, there’s distance running, followed by a warm-down routine that can best be described as a power-walk.

While the Angels were training at their Mesa complex earlier this month, Boone was a regular postpractice sight on his power-walk, weaving through rows of orange trees, goose-stepping at a brisk cadence with light weights in both hands.

Boone trains this way every other day, from the end of one baseball season to the opening day of the next.

“My training is much harder than how I play,� Boone said. “Catching 2 1/2 hours a day isn’t that great a workout. During the season, I start to get dinged up and beaten down, so I have to cut back on my workouts. By the end of the season, I feel like I’m out of shape.

“By the middle of August, I start looking ahead to October--’Only two months to go until I can get back into condition.’ �

The way Boone looks at it, the choice is obvious: Get in shape or get old.

“I have been training seriously for the past 10 years to try and inhibit the age factor,� he said. “Except for my knee, I feel better now than I did 10 years ago.

“And a lot of the aging process is mental. If you think about it, 162 games in 180 days, it can wear on you. I try to focus smaller--pitch by pitch, inning by inning, game by game.

“Think that way and all of a sudden, it’s October. It’s time to go hunting.�

Easier said than done.

Catcher’s equipment didn’t come to be known as the tools of ignorance by happenstance. You have to be a little fuzzy in the head for putting them on in the first place. And if you’re anticipating a long and prosperous career by hanging out behind the plate, well. . . .

Any catcher still in uniform beyond the age of 35 is assumed to be living on borrowed time. Johnny Bench, the patron saint of all catchers, retired at 35. And that after milking a few extra years of offensive statistics as a third baseman.

Carlton Fisk is 38 this season, but he’s being moved to the outfield. Steve Yeager is 38 and Ted Simmons is 36, but both have been traded to different leagues. Yeager, preserved in recent years by being Mike Scioscia’s backup, is expected to split time at catcher in Seattle with Bob Kearney. Simmons is now a utility man with the Atlanta Braves.

But Boone remains the Angel incumbent, outlasting catchers who broke in after him, working with pitchers in spring training young enough to be his sons.

“I have been blessed with the fact that my skills as a catcher have not deteriorated that much,� Boone said. “Usually, players get older and their defensive ability goes first. They stay around and move to another position because they can still hit.

“I have been able to maintain my quickness, my arm strength and my mental sharpness. Plus, I play for a manager who appreciates what I can do. He sees my job the way I do--a defensive job.�

That means that Boone will play only as long as he can keep throwing out baserunners. He has had to keep those skills intact, because he’ll never make it as a designated hitter.

“I’m not going to hit 25 home runs all of a sudden,� he said. “That’s not going to change. For the last 14, 15 years, my hitting stats haven’t varied much. People know what to expect from me with the bat.�

Since becoming a starter in 1973 with the Philadelphia Phillies, Boone has hit better than .271 three times in his career. He has never hit more than a dozen home runs in one season, and he has never driven in more than 66 runs.

Last season was typical Boone: .248, 5 home runs, 55 RBIs.

What Boone can do best with a bat--bunt, hit behind the runner--is maximized by Mauch, the manager who never met a sacrifice he didn’t like. Boone looms big in Mauch’s Little Ball.

Mauch is also a reason that Boone is breaking longevity standards as a catcher. Boone’s last season with the Phillies was 1981. It also looked as if it would be his last, period. He played in just 76 games that year, batting .211. Scouts said that his arm strength was failing by the month.

In the winter of ‘81, the Bob Boone story was indistinguishable from dozens before his: catcher, washed up at 34.

But as a former All-Star catcher, he had better credentials than any Angel catchers at the time, so California took a chance. United with Mauch, Boone was revitalized.

“Gene makes this game extremely interesting,� Boone said. “We visualize the game in a similar fashion. We’re on the same wave length, I guess.

“It’s fun for me to come to the ballpark five hours early and sit and talk baseball with Gene. They say you never really know this game. With Gene, I get to see baseball from a student’s standpoint.

“Talking with Gene, and playing for him, is very stimulating.�

The admiration between manager and catcher is mutual. Mauch, known for a quarter century as the Little General, appreciates a good soldier.

“I’ve said many, many times before that Bob Boone is the toughest player, mentally, I have ever managed,� Mauch said. “He has the most unique physical and mental makeup. Billy Olson couldn’t pole vault over his pain threshold.

“Bob Boone doesn’t think of this game as work. He thinks of it as fun.�

Most of the time, anyway.

“When you’ve taken a couple of foul balls on your shoulder and Rickey Henderson is on first and your arm’s throbbing, you start thinking, ‘What am I doing out here?’ � Boone said.

And he won’t have his sons growing up to be catchers.

“My kids play shortstop and they’re going to stay there,� Boone said. “I’m not letting them get beaten up.�

Father knows best. Catching, like sushi, is an acquired taste. Most major league catchers aren’t born, they’re converted.

Even Boone. He was drafted from Stanford in 1969 as a third baseman, the same position father Ray played with the Detroit Tigers. He made the switch in 1970 and has kept the funny headgear on since.

If he keeps it on for two more seasons, there will be no one in baseball history who has done it longer. Al Lopez holds the major league record for most games caught at 1,918. Boone is 254 away at 1,664.

“That’ll be nice,� Boone said of surpassing Lopez. “It’s inevitable. Unless I blow out my arm, it’s a matter of time.�

So figure Boone good for two more years. And then, at 40, what?

“I’ve never thought about catching at 38 and how much longer I’ll be able to do it,� he said. “When I try to, I just get confused. I can’t judge myself.�

Boone suggests that the Angels will have to do it for him. Finding an eventual successor is currently the organization’s main objective.

“I understand it,� Boone said. “If I was a general manager, I’d be concerned to the point of panic. A club has to have insurance.

“But if you ask me, I’d say, ‘Try to get by with one catcher,’ � he said, grinning.

This job may be a pain in the chest protector, but when you’ve done it for as many years as Boone has, you start to get attached to it. For better or for worse, till death do you part.

And that may be what it will take to get Boone out of the lineup.

“You’re going to have to cut this uniform off me,� Boone said. “You’re going to have to drag me from behind the plate.

“You’ll have to tell me to my face I can’t catch. You’ll have to fire me. And even then, I won’t believe you.�

The Angel front office had best make preparations. This is one soul who won’t go softly into that good night.

Bob Boone retire?

Say what?