“I had no desire to leave Atlanta, then or ever,” he said. “By then I had a daughter who was living there with her mother, and I liked where I was. It had become home, and I certainly didn’t want to leave the Braves or Bobby [Cox] or Leo [Mazzone] or Doggy [Greg Maddux] or Smoltzie.”
Maddux had come to the Braves as a free agent in the winter of 1992, after beating Glavine for the Cy Young Award while pitching for the Cubs. He had promptly won the next three Cy Young Awards and was the game’s dominant pitcher. Glavine and Smoltz, both likely Hall of Famers at the rate they were going, were the number two and number three pitchers in what was clearly one of the great rotations in baseball history.
If their personalities had been different, the three might not have gotten along. They were extremely competitive: as pitchers, as hitters, as golfers — but they enjoyed one another’s company and recognized that each made the others better.
“When I first signed, I was really a little bit nervous about how it would all work,” Maddux said. “These guys were already very established. They had won back-to-back pennants, and now I come along. Plus, for all intents and purposes, I took Charlie Leibrandt’s place, and Tom and John were both very close to him.”
There was nothing subtle about the way the Braves made the switch from Leibrandt to Maddux. On the same day that Maddux signed — December 9, 1992 — Leibrandt was traded to Texas. Signing Maddux was an upgrade — if he wasn’t the best pitcher in baseball, he was one of the three or four best — but Leibrandt’s departure was difficult for both Glavine and Smoltz.
Leibrandt had been the big brother in the trio, a few years older, someone who had pitched in the World Series (with Kansas City in 1985) in key situations before the Braves became contenders. He had come over from Kansas City prior to the 1990 season and had taken Glavine and Smoltz under his wing. The three were virtually inseparable, playing golf together almost every day, especially on the road.
“If we had a weeklong road trip, the only day we didn’t play was on the day we pitched,” Glavine said. “We’d usually pick up a fourth somewhere or just the three of us would go out, but it was a ritual.”
Fortunately, Maddux was also a golfer. He wasn’t quite as good as Glavine, who isn’t quite as good as Smoltz. Glavine’s handicap is usually in the five to eight range; Maddux’s is a little bit higher. Most days Glavine and Maddux would play against Smoltz, and the competition was fierce. “You just didn’t want to lose to John at anything because you weren’t likely to hear the end of it anytime soon — or ever,” Glavine said. “It just wasn’t any fun.”
Maddux was quickly accepted into the circle but says he was never quite as competitive with Smoltz and Glavine as they were with each other. “Maybe it was because they’d been together so long,” he said. “Or maybe it was just personalities. I always wanted to win, always wanted to do well, but Tom and John would do just about anything to beat one another at everything. If John got two hits in a game, Tom had to get two hits the next game by hook or by crook. The golf thing never stopped. Sometimes I just sat back and watched the show.”
In 1997, Tiger Woods moved to Orlando’s Isleworth, an exclusive megabucks golf community not far from where the Braves had just relocated their spring-training camp. Isleworth was one of many places where the Braves trio went to play golf during the spring, and they struck up a friendship with Woods. On occasion, the three of them would play with Woods — their best ball against his one ball.
“One time he beat us pretty soundly, and I gave him five hundred-dollar bills that I stuck in an envelope to pay him off,” Smoltz said. “As it turned out, that was the last time that spring we got to play with him. Almost a year later, we played again, and this time we whipped him — for five hundred bucks. When we’re done, he reaches inside his golf bag and pulls out the envelope I’d given him a year earlier and just hands it to me. It had never made it out of the bag. He just shrugged and said, ‘I figured you guys would get me back someday.’ ”
Smoltz was always the golf organizer. Whenever the Braves arrived in town somewhere, he would get on the phone and set up a game, usually at the best-known golf course in the area. There weren’t many places — if any — where the three famous pitchers couldn’t get on.
“The thing I miss most about those days is the golf,” Maddux, now with the San Diego Padres, said. “The best thing was that Tom and I never had to do anything except show up. Smoltzie made all the arrangements.”
One of the culture shocks for Glavine years later, when he left Atlanta for New York, was not only finding new golf partners but often having to make arrangements himself. In 2007 he was the only Mets starter who played much golf, so he often played with relief pitchers like Aaron Heilman, Scott Schoeneweis, and Aaron Sele. “It’s different because those guys may have to pitch on any given day; they aren’t on a schedule the way a starter is, so they can’t play as regularly,” he said. “Plus, some of the time I have to make the phone call myself to get us in certain places.”
In fact, when the Mets were in Pittsburgh in the summer of 2007, Schoeneweis called Oakmont Country Club where the U.S. Open had been held in June to try to get the pitchers a tee time. No room at the inn — or on the golf course — he was told. Glavine made the same call a day later. “What time do you guys want to come out?” was the answer he got.
The rules of Oakmont are clear: relief pitchers can play as long as they are accompanied by at least one future Hall of Famer.
During the glory years in Atlanta, no one would go to greater lengths for a laugh than Smoltz. Once, when Glavine had gotten in the habit of hanging out in the clubhouse during games — starting pitchers will often do that when they aren’t pitching, especially if the weather isn’t good — Smoltz took masking tape and spent a good hour on his hands and knees putting it on the floor to create a trail from Glavine’s locker in the clubhouse to the dugout. When Glavine walked in that day, Smoltz presented him with a map and said if he ever did get lost to just follow the tape.
“It was a good laugh,” Glavine said. “Only Smoltzie could put in an hour on his hands and knees to get a good thirty-second laugh.”
Smoltz admits now that there were times when he felt like the third brother and that it constantly drove him to try to prove himself. “My sense is that I was the guy riding in the backseat most of the time,” he said. “As good as Greg was, Tom was definitely riding up there with him. He was the first of us to establish himself as a star. He was the World Series hero. The two of them shared turns at the steering wheel through the years. I was in the backseat kind of waiting my turn.”
Unlike Maddux and Glavine, who have been on the disabled list just once (Maddux for fifteen days), combined, in their careers, Smoltz has had his share of injuries. He has been on the disabled list nine times in his career, has had elbow surgery three times, and missed the entire 2000 season after having “Tommy John surgery” on his elbow. While Maddux was the winningest pitcher in baseball in the 1990s with 176 wins and Glavine was second with 164, Smoltz was fifth with 143.
The one area where Smoltz has clearly outshone the two guys in the front seat has been in the postseason. Glavine is 14–16 in postseason play; Maddux is 11–14. Smoltz is 15–4 and would probably have even more wins if he had not spent four seasons as the Braves closer after the Tommy John surgery.
Regardless of who was sitting where in the car, Glavine had no desire to pitch for anyone else after the ’97 season. The Braves certainly didn’t want to break up the staff or see Glavine leave, which is why they made sure to get him signed before free agency became a factor.
MUSSINA DIDN’T FILE for free agency either. Like Glavine, he was in a situation where he did not want to leave the team he was pitching for. He had been eligible for arbitration after the 1996 season. Arbitration is the first step a player takes before he reaches free agency, which comes after he has been in the major leagues for six years.
How much an arbitration-eligible player makes depends on
how much other players with similar statistics are making at the time. The team will submit a proposed figure, and the player and his agent will submit a proposed figure. The arbitrator, after a hearing in which both sides present their case, chooses one figure or the other. There is no compromise.
Because of this, most teams and players try to make a deal before actually going to arbitration. If a player is asking for $7 million for one year and the team offering $5 million, they will frequently agree to compromise at $6 million. Another reason teams don’t want to go to arbitration is that arbitration hearings can get ugly. The team will point out — with the player sitting in the room — every flaw a player has. Players don’t like hearing all the weaknesses they allegedly have from their employer.
In the winter of 1996–97, Mussina and the Orioles agreed on a one-year contract worth $6.85 million. They continued to negotiate on a contract extension during spring training since Mussina would be a free agent at the end of that season. When they couldn’t make a deal, Mussina assumed he would simply file for free agency in the fall.
It never happened. Orioles owner Peter Angelos asked Mussina to have breakfast with him. He told him how much he wanted Mussina to stay in Baltimore. He said he didn’t want to give him a five-year contract because contracts that long were risky for pitchers, no matter how good and how healthy they were at the time. He told him he would pay him top dollar for a three-year contract.
By early May, the deal had been made. Mussina signed for three-years and almost $21 million, making him the fourth-highest-paid pitcher in baseball in terms of annual salary. As good as the money was, the case could certainly be made that Mussina would have gotten more money and more years on the contract had he elected to put himself on the open market at the end of the season. In that sense he had given the Orioles a hometown discount. Clearly, Mussina would not have signed with any other team in baseball for only three-years and probably would have commanded more money had he gone someplace else. But he didn’t.
Mussina had gotten engaged that spring to Jana McKissick, someone he had known since boyhood, and he very much wanted to stay in Baltimore since it was less than 200 miles from Montoursville. Jana had been married once before and had an eight-year-old daughter. That meant Mussina had an instant family. What’s more, both he and Jana wanted to have more children, so they were thinking about how far away Mussina might have to travel as a free agent.
“Even though my agent told me I could probably get more on the open market, what if the best offer was in Los Angeles or Texas or someplace far from home?” Mussina said. “I was about to get married, I had an eight-year-old daughter, and I didn’t want to be that far away for six or seven months of the year. I was comfortable in Baltimore, and we had a good team. It also crossed my mind that if I continued to pitch well, a three-year deal might work to my advantage because I would have the chance to be a free agent again in 2000.”
So, Mussina accepted the Orioles’ offer. It was a coup for the team because they had gotten a premier pitcher at the peak of his powers for a relatively cheap price. And it was the kind of contract that made all owners happy because they could point to Mussina’s contract when negotiating with other pitchers and say, “If Mike Mussina took a three-year deal, why shouldn’t you?” Which, naturally, didn’t make the union very happy, particularly since Mussina was not only visible for his pitching prowess but was the Orioles’ player representative.
“If a guy wants to give a team a hometown discount, I can understand that, if he thinks it is the best thing for him,” Glavine was quoted as saying after Mussina signed. “But it doesn’t help the rest of the guys for him to sign a contract like that.”
As is always the case in these situations, Glavine and Mussina never actually spoke. Glavine insists now that he wasn’t trying to put Mussina down, and he wasn’t angry with Mussina for signing the deal that he signed. He was simply trying to make a point.
“I did probably have my union hat on when I said it,” Glavine said. “But it really wasn’t personal at all. Would I have preferred that Mike hold out for four or five years or, if necessary, go on the open market? Yes. But did I understand him not wanting to move? Yes. I didn’t want to move either.”
But Glavine’s choice had been relatively easy. He had gotten four years plus an option and top money. If the Braves had offered only three-years, he probably would have gone to free agency.
“I think I would have felt obligated to do it given my involvement with the union,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I would have wanted to do it. I can certainly see Mike’s side of it.”
That wasn’t exactly how the quote came across when Mussina read it. He wasn’t angry about it, but he remembered it. Years later when the subject came up, he referred to Glavine having “ripped me” for giving the Orioles a hometown discount.
“Actually it turned out very well for me,” Mussina said. “Three years later, I was a free agent again when the market was about as flush as it’s ever been. Tom had to wait five years, and by then the market wasn’t as good. I probably ended up making more than Tom by taking the three-years, although, to be fair, I wasn’t that smart. That wasn’t why I signed when I did. I just didn’t see any reason to leave Baltimore.”
Three years later, that would no longer be the case.
6
From Camden Yards to Yankee Stadium
ALTHOUGH HE PROBABLY DIDN’T KNOW IT at the time, the beginning of the end of Mike Mussina’s career in Baltimore came on November 5, 1997. That was the day that Davey Johnson “resigned” as the Orioles’ manager.
Johnson had managed the team for two years and taken it to the playoffs both times. Prior to that he had managed the New York Mets to a World Championship and the Cincinnati Reds to the playoffs. Johnson was good at what he did, knew he was good at what he did, and didn’t mind telling people that.
In the end, the given reason for Johnson’s departure was a dispute with Orioles owner Peter Angelos over a fine that Johnson made second baseman Roberto Alomar pay to a charity that Johnson’s wife, Susan, worked for. In truth, Angelos just wanted Johnson out and used “charity-gate” as an excuse to force him out. During that same off-season, Angelos also forced the departure of longtime radio play-by-play man Jon Miller, generally regarded as one of the best in the business. Miller, it seemed, wasn’t enough of an Orioles’ homer during the broadcasts.
With Johnson gone, the 1998 season was a disaster for the Orioles. They never contended and finished 79–83, an amazing thirty-five games behind the Yankees, who won a near-record 114 games. As bad as the season was for the Orioles, it was worse for Mussina. He went on the disabled list two weeks into the season with an infection on his right index finger. Twelve days after he returned, he was pitching against the Cleveland Indians in Baltimore when his old friend Sandy Alomar Jr., who had broken up his perfect game almost exactly a year earlier, came to the plate.
From the time they are very young, pitchers are taught to get themselves into a defensive position if a ball comes up the middle. Mussina is one of the best fielding pitchers in the history of baseball, having won six Gold Gloves (given to the best defensive player at each position each year) during his career. His follow-through almost always puts him in position to field a ball because he doesn’t fall off the mound in one direction or other but ends up square to the plate, balanced, and ready to throw up his glove if a line drive comes his way.
This one he never saw. “I’m not sure if it was the angle the ball came off the bat or the time of night [it wasn’t completely dark yet], but I never saw the ball. The next thing I knew, I was on my back, and it looked like there was blood all over the place.”
It was one of those scary baseball moments. The good news was that neither his nose nor his eye socket was completely smashed because the ball landed in between the two. He doesn’t remember much about what happened next, other than being in the hospital and being told his nose was broken and his eye was damaged but not so seriousl
y that his vision would be compromised.
“Looking back, I was lucky,” he said. “The ball could have hit me anywhere, and the damage could have been a lot worse.”
Remarkably, Mussina was back on the mound twenty-four days after the incident. “It was one of those get-back-on-the-horse things,” he said. “I thought it was important that I get back out there and pitch as soon as I possibly could. But it was a mistake. For one thing, it wasn’t one of those injuries where I could throw while I was recovering — I couldn’t. Plus, there’s no doubt that even though I tried not to think about it or worry about it, I was gun-shy. I was probably flinching on almost every pitch I threw for the rest of the season.”
He wasn’t awful by any means, finishing 13–10 with a 3.49 ERA, but he knew he wasn’t himself. Plus, the team was clearly headed in the wrong direction. Pat Gillick resigned as general manager at the end of the season, tired of being told by Angelos that the owner knew more about baseball than he did. The new manager in 1998 was Ray Miller, who had been the team’s longtime pitching coach. A year later, Mussina was healthy and confident again and went 18–7 on another mediocre (78–84) team. Cal Ripken’s streak had ended at the end of the 1998 season, and he was beginning to fade.
Prior to the 2000 season, Mussina and his agent, Arn Tellem, began negotiating a possible contract extension with the Orioles. This time, Mussina wasn’t willing to settle for three-years. He was in the prime years of his career and was convinced, having just turned thirty-one, that this would be his last big contract. He thought he deserved five years. Tellem asked Angelos for five years at $60 million — $12 million a year — which wasn’t at all out of line in the pitchers’ market at the time.
Angelos said no. Mussina decided it was time to test the free-agent market. There would be no hometown discounts this time around.
Living on the Black Page 8