Alan Schwarz, a contributor to ESPN The Magazine, is filing regular Pulsecards from spring training. Today he's all ears.

Call me a stat-head if you want, but I get a kick out of knowing Giants lefty Kirk Rueter has a higher lifetime winning percentage (.628) than Tom Glavine (.625). And call me rude, but I get a kick out of disclosing his secret.

Turns out Rueter's top weapon isn't his arm, or his heart, or the stuff between his ears. It's his ears themselves.

Let's just say the man is aurally endowed. Rueter basically has a pair of satellite dishes protruding from below his temples. Says Giants MVP Jeff Kent, "Hitters are too busy laughing up there to hit him."

With his pale blue eyes, thin, balding noggin and goofy grin, Rueter does look like a cross between Orel Hershiser and Howdy Doody. In fact, his teammates have dubbed him "Woody" after the character in Toy Story. Rueter even has a Woody doll in his locker. "I don't even think they know my first name," he laughs.

But Rueter has quietly become known as one of the winningest lefthanders in the game. He has gone 55-34 over the last three seasons with a mix of offspeed stuff he controls like a marionette -- while actually resembling one. "I don't really look like a player," Rueter concedes.

But he wins like one.

Alan Schwarz is covering spring training for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at als1492@aol.com.