Gary Sheffield: Growing into Major League Stardom.(baseball player)(Interview)

After struggling with his talent and expectations as a youngster, Dodgers left fielder has evolved into a polished player

SHAWN GREEN WAS SLUMPING, and Devon White was rankled the mid-season trade for center fielder Tom Goodwin. In steps Gary Sheffield, team home run co-leader and part-time therapist for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Sheffield consulted with Green. He took aside Goodwin and White, the incumbent center fielder, and talked to both, placating White with good-natured teasing.

The role is not one most would have expected from Sheffield when he first broke into the majors in 1988-89 with the Milwaukee Brewers. But Sheffield, 32, will tell you that the way he was once portrayed, the gifted wild child of baseball, is at odds with the kind of man he has become.

"I felt all along that God put certain things on our shoulders and that I can handle it," said Sheffield, who finished the 2000 season with a career-high 43 home runs.

"Then I can talk to players who go through what I went through. You're going to have good times in baseball and have bad times. You can't let the bad make you bitter."

Sheffield burst out of a tough neighborhood in Tampa, a city that he still called home, until he moved his family after the season into the gated Orlando community, Isleworth, that's home to Ken Griffey Jr., Shaquille O'Neal, Tiger Woods and many other star athletes.