Okay, you won't find David Eckstein in your 2002 All-Star Game program. But then, you won't find A-Rod or Jeter or Nomar inside the 3-Day Suit Broker in Fullerton, Calif., on a Saturday morning, signing autographs under a sign that reads, "Alteration Pickups."

"Your future wife says hello," chirps a thirtyish blonde.

Startled but pleased, Eckstein replies, "My future wife?"

"Yeah, Trish," says the blonde. "She can't be here, but could you sign this for her?"

The Angels shortstop complies. All of a sudden, a dapper man with a fedora, the store's 83-year-old star salesman, bends low over him and says, "We want to give you a suit."

"Great," says Eckstein. "I could use a black one."

The salesman straightens to his full 5'3" and studies his man. "How tall are you? Six feet?"

Eckstein laughs. "I'm 5'6''."

"Well, you'll want to add a little to that, won't you?"

Already taken care of. In the Angels media guide, Eckstein is listed at 5'8". And in reality, none of the AL's glam shortstops has played a bigger role in his team's success than Eckstein has -- not Derek Jeter, who had just two more RBIs through Aug. 15; not Nomar Garciaparra, who had five fewer runs scored; not Alex Rodriguez or Omar Vizquel, whose teams are hopelessly out of it; nor Miguel Tejada, whose huge numbers come as no great shock.

Eckstein, on the other hand, isn't even supposed to be in baseball. Which makes him the perfect man to set the tone for the most surprising team. "We love him," says Angels manager Mike Scioscia. "He does anything he has to do to get the team to win."

Befitting his stature, Eckstein plays small ball with the best of them. Last season he set a major league rookie record by getting hit by a pitch 21 times. Earlier this season, he went 78 at-bats without striking out. Eckstein can play big ball, too. Already this season, he has three grand slams and a bases-loaded triple. On Aug. 11, he hit a solo shot that was all the support Jarrod Washburn got or needed in a 1-0 victory. Hitting coach Mickey Hatcher calls Eckstein "Just Enough" because his home runs tend to land in the first row.

We're not talking about The Natural here. Or even a natural shortstop. When Eckstein has to throw from the hole, he looks as if as he's shot-putting. "It's the ugliest thing you've ever seen," he says. But it works: He's had only two throwing errors this year. In the opinion of veteran Angels outfielder Darin Erstad, "He's the most fundamentally sound player I've ever known."

He races on and off the field. When he stands in the on-deck circle, he flails his bat overhead so violently that you fear he might take off. Given a rare day off, Eckstein drove Scioscia nuts in the dugout: "The guy did not know what to do with himself."

Not knowing what to do with Eckstein has been the theme throughout his career. He grew up in Sanford, Fla., the youngest of Patricia and Whitey Eckstein's five kids. Mom is a grade school teacher, Dad a golf coach and high school history teacher, and they instilled in their kids a never-give-up attitude. They had to: Three of the children had a rare kidney disease that required transplants, and David nearly died in infancy of a blocked intestine. But at 2 he was watching entire baseball games, at 3 he could recite the names of all the Atlanta Braves and at 4 he was updating Dad on the '79 World Series. "There was never a question in David's mind that he would play baseball," says Patricia.

As a tiny second baseman, Eckstein led Seminole High to a state championship. His oldest brother, Kenny, had grown from 4'9" to 5'10" in one year. "So I thought there was hope," says David. "Anyway, baseball doesn't care how tall you are." But college recruiters do, and nobody from Division I came calling.

He enrolled at the U. of Florida and made the team as a walk-on, ending up as a firstteam All-America in 1996. The political science major was also a two-time GTE Academic All-America.

The Red Sox drafted him in the 19th round, signing him for all of $1,000. After hitting better than .300 in each of his first three seasons, he was promoted to Triple-A Pawtucket, where he encountered a hitting coach who tried to change his stance. "You want to be a person who listens," Eckstein says, "but I couldn't adjust. One day I used my old stance. It was the first time I ever defied authority. He said to me, 'What, you didn't want to get better today?' I apologized and told him I couldn't hit the way he wanted me to."

The Sox ended up putting him on waivers in August 2000, and Angels GM Bill Stoneman claimed him and sent him to Triple-A Edmonton, where he batted .346. The following spring, Eckstein showed up in Tempe and immediately made an impression. Erstad, famed for his work ethic, says, "I'd get to the ballpark at 6:30 a.m., he'd come in half an hour later. I saw he had a system to his day -- that impressed me. But I kept calling him 'kid.' Like, 'Hand me that glove, kid.' Then I realized I'm only seven months older than he is."

After an injury to infielder Adam Kennedy and a setback for shortstop Gary DiSarcina, Scioscia put Eckstein in the lineup every day, batting first, playing short. He led the Angels in sacrifice hits, stolen bases and HBPs, and his .285 average was second among AL rookies. Any thought that his rookie season was a fluke has been erased this year. Angels fans are still incensed that Joe Torre didn't name six shortstops to the All-Star team. But then it's always been easy to overlook Eckstein. Says Scioscia, "You just know that from Little League on, he had to prove himself every step of the way."

Speaking of Little League, the Angels have a promotion in which each player takes three local kids out to his position. Says Hatcher, "It's sometimes a mystery who's going to remain at shortstop."

This article appears in the September 2 issue of ESPN The Magazine.

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