Something to talk about.(baseball player Luis Gonzalez)(Brief Article)(Interview)

If timing is everything, I've got a pocketful of nothin'.

On the afternoon of September 19, I sat down with Arizona's Luis Gonzalez in the visitors' clubhouse at Coors Field to talk about home runs. Or, more precisely, the absence of home runs. He hadn't hit one since August 31.

Nobody was talking about Gonzalez anymore. I wanted to know how he felt.

"You'd like to be able to keep up the pace with everybody" he said. "But, shoot, 50-plus home runs is not too bad. Plus, we're in a major pennant race, and now I don't have that side distraction. It's actually been pretty pleasant lately. I still get interview requests and stuff like that, but now the focus is on the pennant race."

Gonzalez, though, wasn't ready to give up on the long ball. Oh, he had given up on catching Barry Bonds. But he hadn't given up on reaching 60, which is still a damn nice number for a hitter who had never crushed more than 31 in a ...