Jim Souhan
Star Tribune
 
FORT MYERS, FLA. -- Five months ago, Jason Kubel stood at baseball's epicenter, hovering over the plate with a playoff game on the line as Mariano Rivera glared in from the Yankee Stadium mound.

 

This spring, Kubel is as far from baseball's heart, as far from playoff heat, as a budding star can get.

 

He expected to spend these March afternoons memorizing Torii Hunter's profile, as the Twins' new right fielder. But you can't find Kubel in front of the Seminole Casino sign at Hammond Stadium, nor on the lineup card, nor in the big-league clubhouse.

 

No, to find Kubel, one of the prizes of one of baseball's best farm systems, one has to leave the stadium, stroll past the big-league practice fields and baby-faced prospects taking batting practice in the Florida sun, and duck into the workout room adjacent to the Twins' minor league clubhouse.

 

There, in this dim, spartan room, Kubel wears a Twins cap, T-shirt and shorts, and works out alone, pushing himself through the first of thousands of repetitions required to strengthen his surgically repaired left knee.

 

That's become such an easy phrase to type -- "surgically repaired," that you forget what it entails. In this case, it's a bloodless way of saying that, last Oct. 12, while playing in the Arizona Fall League, Kubel had his left knee shredded.

 

He suffered torn anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments, and doctors told him he will not be able to play baseball this year, mere months after he joined Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau as the best of the baby Twins.

 

Last year, Kubel hit .377 at Class AA, .343 at Class AAA and .300 in 60 big-league at-bats, with two homers and two doubles. He swung the bat well enough to encourage Twins manager Ron Gardenhire to leave Kubel in to face Rivera with the go-ahead run on third in the eighth inning of Game 2 of the playoffs.

 

"I didn't do too well," Kubel said.

 

Rivera struck out Kubel on three fastballs, the last two well out of the strike zone. Millions of Minnesotans watched his eyes grow as big as volleyballs.

 

"It's good to have a taste of that," Kubel said. "I expect us to make the playoffs every year, and now I'll be ready for that. I had faced him twice before, and it wasn't anything like that.

 

"It was tough. I got behind early, and I just wanted to swing at anything I could to put it in play, and he didn't put it anywhere near the strike zone.

 

"And I swung, anyway."

 

Pause.

 

"It's tough."

 

Pause.

 

"I won't do that again. I'm glad Gardy showed that confidence in me, and next time there will be different results."

 

If the Twins are right, Kubel won't get another chance until 2006.

 

A long pink scar, the shape and color of a massive earthworm, runs down his left knee, which remains swollen, like the doctor left a few extra gauze pads under the skin.

 

Kubel looks more like the victim of a shark bite than a baseball injury as he slides his body into a leg-press machine that might have been last used as a torture device during the French Revolution.

 

As his buddies play in games under blue skies, in front of tanned spectators, Kubel faces a long year of leg presses and patience, a year when baseball games will be something he sees on TV.

 

"At first, I was like, 'This sucks,' " Kubel said. "But then I thought this is a good time, if this had to happen. I think this actually works out OK for me, because I'm still pretty young.

 

"I've got a lot of years left."

 

You can't tell whether Kubel is this optimistic by nature, or whether he's winning a bare-knuckled fight with regret. He's a soft-spoken kid, unremarkable in size or appearance until you see him turn on a fastball, and that's something he won't get to do this year, against Rivera or anybody else.

 

"This gives me a chance to get myself ready to play a long season," Kubel said. "This will get both of my legs stronger. Something good can come out of it."

 

After Kubel got hurt, the Twins signed Jacque Jones to a one-year contract to play right field.

 

"That's a good sign," Kubel said. "I just need to come back and show I can still do it.

 

"It won't be a problem."

 

Pause.

 

"At least, I don't think it will."

 

When your knee looks like coagulated oatmeal and your teammates play on the other side of the parking lot, you can't be sure.

 

So you slide back into the leg-press machine, tug down your cap, and keep pushing.