Red Sox utility outfielder is still struggling to overcome surgery for a torn Achilles tendon, but he's thrilled to be back with his teammates.

01:00 AM EST on Thursday, March 9, 2006

BY SEAN McADAM
Journal Sports Writer

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- For the second straight spring, Gabe Kapler finds himself isolated from his Red Sox teammates.

A year ago, Kapler was in Japan, having signed a deal to play for the Yomiuri Giants. Homesick, he e-mailed his friends with the Red Sox often, desperate to know what was taking place in his absence.

This spring, Kapler is back at City of Palms Park, enjoying the camaraderie that he yearned for a year ago. But when the rest of the Red Sox head for the field to shag fly balls, run the bases or go through tedious spring training drills, Kapler is once more apart, separated from the rest.

Kapler found a way out of his deal in Japan last summer and re-joined the Sox for the final two months, appearing in 36 games and hitting .247 with a homer and nine RBI. But in September, he was met by more disappointment. After rupturing his Achilles tendon in Toronto last fall, Kapler isn't close to being able to see action. He has yet to begin light jogging, much less full-scale running. But while Kapler has to be content with taking batting practice in the cage and other light conditioning work, you'll not hear him complain.

Kapler strives to find the positive in his comeback experience. Just being back in a Red Sox uniform is, for now, enough.

"When I'm around the guys," he said yesterday, "I feel as close to any team as I have. A lot of that has do with the loyalty they've shown to me since I got hurt."

He was moved when Trot Nixon took the field 10 days ago wearing Kapler's jersey.

"It's kind of thrown around lightly," Kapler said, "that your teammates are an extention of your family. But to me, it's true. I love being at the ballpark. I look forward to coming here and I'm not anxious to leave. Where am I going to go where I can be happier than I am here?"

When Kapler crumpled in the basepath between second and third base at the Rogers Centre, it was obvious that his season was over. Torn Achilles tendons have been known to threaten, if not end, careers.

But Kapler was remarkably stoic after the injury, even as some of his teammates fought back tears in the clubhouse. He boldly predicted that he would be ready for spring training.

That, as it turned out, was overly optimistic.

"That wasn't (false) bravado," Kapler said. "It was the only way a competitive athlete can think. If I thought any other way, what kind of message does that send to my body? Not very aggressive or competitive, that's for sure."

So now, Kapler does what he's told and waits. A bit sheepishly, he admits that he'll offer no more timetables for his return to the field.

"At this point," he said smiling, "I'm not sure there's a lot of credibility to what I say (about recovery time). Why not go with the people who are able to make those determinations make them?"

If there's a player capable of handling such a debilitating injury, it's surely Kapler, who refuses to fully dismiss his experience in Japan.

"It was disastrous from a baseball sense," he said, "but enlightening from a human sense. It was a learning, growing, humbling experience. From the poor off-season decision, to missing the city of Boston and my teammates, to a crappy baseball experience (with the Giants), to a serious injury and inability to be part of the playoffs, never once did I think of last year but anything but a lesson."

Kapler even found value in his recovery process, since it "forced me to spend a lot of time with my family. I had no place to go. I had to be home. And you know what? I got along with my wife as well as ever. So I really look at it like everything is the way it's supposed to be."

That extends to his current rehab. Since Kapler has to be "soft" with his surgically repaired left foot, he's found that an adjustment in his stance has led to better and more solid contact in the batting cage.

In an otherwise deserted clubhouse yesterday, he was resolutely upbeat.

"It's going to be a great day when I get to play again," he said. "(The return) will put it all in perspective. Once you're back, once that time comes, you forget all the other stuff. When I came back from Japan and walked into that clubhouse, it was like time had stopped. It's the time in between that's tough."

He also knows that the Red Sox have not put themselves on hold in the interim. They signed Dustan Mohr as a right-handed hitting outfielder and anticipate him sharing some playing time in right with Trot Nixon, just as Kapler would have done had he been healthy this spring.

There are no guarantees that when his comeback odyssey is over, the Sox will have a role for him.

"I can only control what I can control," he says philosophically. "And what I can control is being mentally and physically ready to help this team win. So that's what I'm going to do. I trust that good things will happen -- 100 percent."

smcadam@projo.com / (401) 277-7340