TUCSON — At age 24, Troy Tulowitzki needs to be the man for the Rockies.
Ready or not.
With 299 hits on his major-league resume, this is Tulo’s team now.
Of all the tough issues Colorado unpacked when the ballclub arrived at spring training, maybe the toughest question is:
Who’s the leader in the Rockies’ clubhouse?
“You don’t declare yourself a leader. Action speaks louder than words,” Tulowitzki said Monday. “I feel like I’m a guy who puts in the work, and I want my teammates to respect me because of that. At the same time, I’m going to be somebody who says something when we aren’t doing the things the right way.”
Manager Clint Hurdle could be a five-game losing streak away from a pink slip. It’s structurally unsound to put the burden of carrying a team on the cranky back of first baseman Todd Helton. The big bat and Big Daddy presence of slugger Matt Holliday is long gone.
“Obviously, we’re not going to be able to replace Holliday. On the field, no one’s going to do what he did. And I don’t expect anybody to do what he did off the field, either. He’s one of a kind. That’s why he’s a superstar,” Tulowitzki said. “At the same time, we can get better as a team. We have to deal with his loss. It’s a business, and we all understand that. We’re going to miss him in the lineup and as a friend, but we’ve got to move on.”
In sports, where scoreboard counts most, just because a young pro possesses obvious athletic gifts does not automatically mean he’s blessed with leadership skills that can turn a locker room full of individual agendas into a team.
For all of his game-winning jumpers, forward Carmelo Anthony seemed uncomfortable making demands of NBA veterans, and as a result, the Nuggets often seemed directionless until point guard Chauncey Billups arrived in trade.
Although Jay Cutler might possess the arm strength to match Broncos legend John Elway, the young quarterback has yet to develop the political savvy to twist the arm of his teammates or face the music after a tough Denver loss.
With unblinking TV cameras everywhere a 21st-century athlete looks, learning to live a “Truman Show” existence has become as essential to becoming a baseball superstar as learning to lay off a curveball in the dirt.
“The true test of leadership is being able to lead when you don’t have tangible evidence of being a good player. Once you back off, you’ve lost some leadership ability,” Hurdle said.
“Leadership can never take a day off. You can’t be a leader when you’re going good, and back away when you’re not going good. You’ve got be that guy who can show up every day, in the fire, out of the fire, whether you’re going good, bad or sideways.”
Exerting influence comes naturally to Tulowitzki, capable of giving or taking the friendly fire of prickly banter in the clubhouse as smoothly as the shortstop gloves a hot groundball in the hole.
After going to the World Series in his first full season with the Rockies and being rewarded with a lucrative contract extension, the shortstop got stuck in a severe slump during the first half of the 2008 season and didn’t quite know how to react to the unexpected adversity.
Hitting .166 in early July, the frustration finally caused Tulo to crack when he injured his hand smashing a maple bat.
“When things weren’t going my way, my demeanor changed. I got down on myself,” Tulowitzki said.
“When things aren’t going well, you’ve still got to be upbeat, especially in the game of baseball, where there is always a tomorrow. That’s something I did a bad job of last year: I carried the emotion of every single game on my shoulders.”
The measure of a leader is how quickly the failures of yesterday can be forgotten to embrace the promise of tomorrow. Tulowitzki refused to let the burden of unmet expectations keep him down. He rebounded to finish the season with a .263 batting average.
Baseball is an individual sport dressed in a team concept.
“There has to be a mind-set toward team in order to win,” Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd said. “And, quite honestly, that’s our only chance as a franchise to be successful, year-in and year-out.”
History now regards Rocktober 2007 as a fluke.
So the Rockies could use a strong voice to make this team believe in itself again.
Tulo is the best man for the job of leader in the clubhouse.
“I really believe it’s going to happen,” Hurdle said. “When is it going to happen? I don’t know. But it’s going to happen.”
Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com
