It’s been quite a year for Dave Winfield, the St. Paul and Rondo native and Hall of Famer: a statue erected in the same neighborhood park he played in as a youth, the Winfield Awards that he and his family started celebrated their 50th year, and now his memoir is out.
We talked to him three times last week: first by phone, then with reporters during a Twins game, and again before his scheduled book signing at Mall of America. Following is a composite account from those three conversations.
“Actually, I’ve been prepared to tell the story for over 30 years,” said Winfield on the phone. “I say the toughest part is not so much revealing a lot of personal and inside information.”
Friends and others had advised him as early as 2020, during the COVID pandemic, to write a book. Winfield had previously published four books, including an autobiography. “Some of the people that have been important to me in my life were passing away,” he recalled. “Parents are gone, coaches are gone, friends are gone, colleagues are gone, and my story, I’ve had a life that impacted so many others.”
Touching All the Bases (Simon & Schuster) “is not just another baseball memoir. It’s a reckoning with power, loyalty, commitment, and the costs of standing tall when others expect you to bow,” says the press release on Winfield’s book, co-written with Alan Maimon.
“My first inclination was to do a documentary,” continued Winfield. “The book opportunity came up. I was working on them both at the same time, but the book was completed first.
“I worked with a pretty good co-writer (in Maimon), and you know this book could be a lot longer than the 288 pages. It’s a story about an athlete with a remarkable Hall of Fame career, life and experiences, and there are numerous stories, encounters, events I’ve never really shared with people, and I’m comfortable sharing the truth and shining a light on it.”
We asked Winfield about growing up in Rondo: “I’ve been sharing with people because a lot of people don’t know that much about St. Paul or Rondo or anything else. But I tell them it was and still is a mixed community. We had Blacks, probably the most in any concentrated area, but it was always mixed. I’m proud to say that I’m from St. Paul and that particular area. My neighbors were always good. It’s a good place.”
Last Wednesday, Sept. 16, the 33rd anniversary of the day he stroked his 3,000th career hit while playing for his hometown Twins on Sept. 16, 1993, Winfield briefly reflected on his 22-season MLB career with local reporters in the team’s press box, including MSR.
“I’m 74 years old. I can tell the story. I can tell you the facts, the truth, the last word on my life and my career,” said Winfield, adding that his New York years (1981-1988, 1990) probably were the most stressful of his career. “If I had stayed in New York and didn’t go anywhere else, my career would have been totally different. It’d have been done a long time ago.”
“After California (1990-91) and Toronto (1992), I came to Minnesota (1993-1994) and I was happy. This is my team growing up, to be able to play at home. We got 3,000 hits here. Then I finished in Cleveland (1995), so I played six more years, and I was able to come to work and enjoy myself.
“And for a long time, there was very little enjoyment in going to work,” he admitted.
Winfield told me earlier, “You’re talking to a person that was a pioneer in the areas of philanthropy and people having foundations and giving back. You’re talking about a person who’s been a professional athlete advocate. There’s a lot in this book about overcoming obstacles, about perseverance, about community, about charity, about family.
“There’s no comparison to what’s ever happened to anybody else playing the game,” reaffirmed Winfield.
Before he signed books at Mall of America last week, the Rondo native told me he’s proud of what he did, and he hopes Touching All the Bases will help tell that story.
“People will see that I was up against a lot of odds that were stacked against me. And if I wasn’t around the right people, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” Winfield said. “I was fortunate enough to find the right people at the right time and have the, I don’t know, the countenance, the strength to be able to navigate some serious waters, headwaters. I get the last word on my name and my legacy, not what somebody else called me.
“This is who I am, and I think they’ll be proud of me,” he concluded.
Charles Hallman welcomes reader responses at challman@spokesman-recorder.com.
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