Living on the Black

by John Feinstein

  10

  Starting Over

  WHEN PITCHING COACHES PUT TOGETHER their rotation for spring training, who pitches when has nothing to do with who deserves the first start or who the opponent might be. The only factor that really matters is when a pitcher is supposed to make his first regular-season start.

  “Basically you take that day and count backward,” Glavine explained. “You might tweak it a little bit because of travel, but that’s about the only way it might change.”

  Veterans usually do not like to make long trips in spring training. So, if the Mets, who train on the east coast of Florida, were scheduled to play on the Sunshine State’s west coast on a day that Glavine was supposed to pitch, they might move him back a day or they might put him in a split-squad game. (Some days, teams play two games; when that occurs a starting pitcher will almost always pitch the game at home.)

  Glavine’s first regular-season start in 2007 was scheduled for opening night in St. Louis. The Mets and Cardinals were officially opening the season on Sunday night, April 1.

  Once Major League Baseball began its season on the first Monday in April with one game in Cincinnati — birthplace of the original professional team in 1869 — and what was called “The Presidential Opener” in Washington, D.C. Time and travel and television had changed all that. There had been no baseball in Washington for thirty-three straight opening days before 2005, and by the time it returned, baseball was opening on Sunday night to accommodate ESPN, or, on occasion, Japan. The 2008 season began in Japan with a two-game series between the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics. What could be more traditional than a 5:30 a.m. first pitch?

  Glavine wasn’t concerned with tradition, just getting ready for April 1. Before he had left for Florida, he had talked on the phone with Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson about his spring schedule. The only question was whether Glavine wanted his normal four days of rest before St. Louis or if he wanted an extra day to take a deep breath before beginning the season. Glavine opted for the extra day.

  “One thing Rick has done the last couple of years is roll me back a day during the season when we have an off-day,” he said. “I think that’s helped me. At first I didn’t really like it because I’m such a creature of habit, but now I think that extra day here and there helps me, especially late in the season.”

  Mussina was scheduled to start the Yankees’ third game of the season on Thursday April 5 in New York against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Chien-Ming Wang, who had won nineteen games the previous year, would get the Opening Day start, followed by the prodigal son, Andy Pettitte. Then would come Mussina, Kei Igawa, and Mussina’s pal, Carl Pavano. Joe Torre and pitching coach Ron Guidry liked the idea of going right-left-right-left-right, and the rotation played out in that order.

  “It really doesn’t matter to me whether I go first, second, third, or fourth, as long as I go,” Mussina said. “I’ve never been the Opening Day starter here, and that’s fine with me. Based on last year, Wang deserves to start first.”

  Mussina almost always calls Wang either “Wang” or “Wanger,” even though his name is pronounced “Wong.” He does it on purpose: “I want to see if anyone corrects me,” he said. “I just do it for fun. I know how to say his name.”

  In fact, Mussina had become something of a mentor to Wang. Even though Wang didn’t speak that much English, he and Mussina had figured out how to communicate. “We talk our own language,” Mussina said. “It’s called pitcher.” Frequently, Mussina would talk to Wang about how to grip certain pitches or how to pitch in specific situations. Unlike Hideki Matsui, Wang does not speak to teammates or the media through an interpreter because he believes he will learn English faster that way.

  Mussina also calls Alex Rodriguez by a name no one else on the team uses: “Rod.” To everyone else he is “A-Rod” or “Alex,” but to Mussina he’s just “Rod.”

  “I think he calls me that because I’m the only one on the team who likes him,” Rodriguez says, laughing.

  “Or it could be the other way around,” Mussina quips, which Rodriguez doesn’t deny, even though Mussina laughs when he says it.

  Mussina is an observer, and even though he and Rodriguez are teammates, he has spent a good deal of time observing Rodriguez in the clubhouse, on the field, and when he is dealing with the media.

  “There is no question in my mind that at times, especially in postseason, he’s trying too hard,” Mussina said one day, early in 2007 spring training when the whole, “Will A-Rod opt out [of his contract] or won’t he?” issue came up again. “One of the hardest things to learn in baseball is how not to try too hard. That’s why the saying ‘Try easier’ exists. There are some situations where Rod needs to try easier. You can almost see him squeezing the sawdust out of the bat at certain moments.

  “Think about what he walked into when he came here. He’s the highest paid player in the history of baseball, so he’s already got that hanging over his head, and now it’s hanging over his head in New York. But that’s not the hard part for him. He’s immediately told he has to change positions because there can only be one man on any team, and our man — correctly — is Jete,” known to most as Derek Jeter.

  “So here’s the message that goes out to Rod from day one here going forward: ‘You have been the best player in baseball for the past ten years. There are some people who believe you are the best player in the history of the game. But you are no Derek Jeter.’

  “Think about that for a minute. Wouldn’t you be a bit confused?”

  Mussina didn’t think very much or very often about the so-called Jeter-Rodriguez feud. “Look, it’s easy to be someone’s friend when you only see them four or five times a year,” he said. “When you’re on the same team, you’re together seven, eight months a year, almost every day, in a confined space. You see the other guy’s flaws up close. In that sense, it’s a little bit like being married.

  “But there’s also the issue of being the man. Like I said, there can only be one in a clubhouse, one on a team. One of them is the captain. One is the shortstop. The other one hits fifty home runs a year and may get to eight hundred before he’s done. So which one is the man?

  “In the eyes of the fans, it will always be Jeter, because no matter what Rod does he’ll never have as many rings as Jeter. If he wins one, Jeter will have five; if he gets two, Jeter will have six. It’s almost like being someone’s little brother — no matter how old you get, you aren’t going to catch up with your big brother. I’m not making excuses for Rod — the guy makes huge money, and people expect him to perform, especially in New York — but I can see where all of that weighs on him sometimes.”

  IN THE PAST TWELVE YEARS, the Yankees have again become America’s baseball team, the team everyone either loves or hates. They have a larger national following than any other team (and are despised more nationally than any other team), and even their exhibition schedule in ten thousand–seat Legends Field — renamed George M. Steinbrenner Field in 2008 — is sold out.

  Mussina’s first outing of the spring would come in the Yankees’ third exhibition game, which was at home in Tampa against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

  Saturday, March 3, was a chilly, windy day on the west coast of Florida. It was overcast and felt more like a day to go to a football game than to a spring-training baseball game. Mussina rolled his eyes when he saw the weather.

  “First five days we were down here this spring, the temperature never got above sixty,” he said. “The day the position players reported it was eighty. I actually think this is about me. Whenever I pitch in the spring, wherever I pitch, bad weather follows me: rain, wind, snow — you name it. About the only thing I haven’t seen at some point is pestilence.”

  This is typical Mussina humor: biting and sarcastic. To the untrained ear it can sound like whining, but if you look closely you will see just the trace of a smile sneaking across his face as he’s talking. Early in the season a member of Mussina’s fan club — he has one that i
s based in Montoursville but still holds an annual get-together when the Yankees are in Baltimore — sent him a T-shirt. It said: “National Sarcasm Society… Like We Need Your Support.” Mussina wore it proudly around the clubhouse.

  The plan for a pitcher the first time he pitches in an exhibition game is to throw about thirty pitches, or two innings. If he throws twenty-four pitches in two innings, he will not go out for a third inning; he will go straight to the bullpen and throw a few extra pitches. If, on the other hand, he only has one out in the second inning and has thrown thirty-five pitches, he will probably come out.

  “If you’re at thirty-five pitches, and you’ve only gotten four outs, that means you’re struggling to begin with,” Mussina said. “It’s okay to go a few pitches past thirty, but not too many, especially early in the spring and especially if the weather is cold.”

  Glavine, always the golfer, likes to refer to his planned pitch count as “par.” In his spring debut against the Cardinals, he was three under par, pitching two hitless innings. The Cardinals’ only runner came when an early-spring changeup slipped, and Glavine hit a batter. Other than that, the outing was everything you would want for the first time out.

  “The hardest part about the first time you pitch in the spring is walking into the dugout after the first inning and sitting down while you’re at bat,” he said. “You simply haven’t done that for five months — pitched, sat for a while, and then gotten up and pitched again. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it can be, especially when you’re a little older. It’s easy to get stiff, especially if the weather is a little bit cooler. It’s okay to do it once, but the first time you don’t want to do it twice — no matter what your pitch count is.”

  So, at three under par, Glavine threw another dozen pitches in the bullpen and headed for a warm shower.

  Mussina’s first outing wasn’t quite as smooth. Perhaps it was a harbinger of some kind, but when he trotted to the mound after the playing of the national anthem, there was no ball there waiting for him. Once he was able to get a ball and throw his warm-up pitches, his first at bat of the exhibition season lasted nine pitches before Pirate leadoff hitter Andrew McCutcheon, having fouled off four straight 2–2 pitches, punched a single past Derek Jeter.

  “Not exactly an ideal start when you’re only supposed to throw thirty pitches,” Mussina said afterward. “You use up nine of them and don’t even get an out.”

  He got an out two pitches later when catcher Jorge Posada threw out McCutcheon trying to steal second. Seven pitches later, Mussina was out of the inning, helped by a nice running catch in right field by Kevin Thompson on a slicing line drive hit by National League batting champion Freddy Sanchez. Aided by Posada, Mussina had gotten through the inning on eighteen pitches.

  In an ideal world, a pitcher will average no more than fifteen pitches per inning. That would add up to 135 pitches over nine innings, but very few pitchers are around for nine innings these days, and they are almost never around for more than 120 pitches. Most pitching coaches begin to get relief pitchers warmed up when a pitcher closes in on one hundred pitches.

  Mussina wasn’t thinking about anything approaching one hundred pitches on the first Saturday in March. His hope was to get through the second inning with fewer pitches than he had needed in the first. He did, but not without some damage. With one out, Brad Eldred, the Pirates’ young, massive (six-foot-five, 275 pounds) first baseman hit a 3–2 Mussina fastball about five miles over the left-field fence. Mussina escaped without further damage, having thrown a total of thirty-four pitches.

  “Well, at the very least, my home-run pitch is in midseason form,” he said, smiling, not long after leaving the game.

  During spring training, when starting pitchers leave the game, they will usually speak to the media soon after. Mussina will put ice on his shoulder — he ices for twenty minutes after pitching — and take care of his media responsibilities while icing. Then he will shower and go home. Very few starting pitchers are still around at the end of an exhibition game.

  “There are times, to be honest, when I don’t even know the final score,” Mussina said. “At this time of year, it’s just not relevant.”

  WHAT WAS RELEVANT FOR BOTH GLAVINE AND MUSSINA was that they had come through their first outings unscathed — Eldred’s home run aside. “During the spring, all you’re really trying to do is get in your work and try to get a little sharper each time out,” Mussina said. “You really don’t worry about results. I had a game last year in Lakeland [against the Tigers] where I gave up ten runs. I wasn’t happy about it, but it really didn’t matter. What would matter is if you notice a drop in your velocity, or, as you get closer to April, if you’re having trouble locating your pitches.”

  Glavine doesn’t even worry about his velocity very much. To him, there just isn’t that much difference in whether his fastball is at 86 or 82 miles an hour or someplace in between. “What’s important is location and how I control my changeup,” he said. “Ideally, I’d like it to be eight to ten miles an hour slower than my fastball. If I’ve got that going for me, I figure I’m in pretty good shape.”

  Both pitchers would increase their par to forty-five pitches for their second outing, assuming neither was feeling any pain after their first. “The hardest inning of the year sometimes is the second inning of the first exhibition game,” Glavine said. “It’s not really a big deal, but it’s a test. I felt as if I came through that test in good shape.”

  Mussina’s second outing was in Orlando, against the Braves. The biggest challenge he could see in that game was making sure he could find the ballpark. “Never been there,” he said. “We don’t go over there more than once a year usually, and it’s never been my turn.”

  When veteran pitchers go on the road, they are given the option of driving rather than taking the team bus for the simple reason that there’s no need for them to hang around when they’re finished pitching. Mussina safely navigated his way up I-4, found the correct Disney exit, and was safely parked in the players’ lot by ten o’clock.

  The Braves have trained at Disney World since 1998, moving north and west from their longtime spring home in West Palm Beach, which they shared for years with the Montreal Expos. The Ballpark at Disney World is typical both of Disney — very efficiently run, sparkling clean, and expensive (ticket prices range from $14 to $22.50 for games that don’t count) — and of the new spring-training facilities that have sprung up all over Florida and Arizona. Long gone are the days of rickety old parks and tiny spring-training clubhouses.

  Most spring-training games are sellouts these days. Spring training has become big business. On a warm, sparkling day, Mussina was matched against Tim Hudson. Had it been a regular-season game, theirs would have been a marquee pitching matchup.

  The Braves’ string of Division titles had ended in 2006 when they had finished a miserable 79–83. They were hoping to prove that season had been a fluke in 2007. Already though, they had taken a serious hit: Mike Hampton, the talented, but oft-injured pitcher, had learned that he would need knee surgery.

  “They’re telling us two months, but I don’t really believe that,” Bobby Cox, who had managed the Braves since 1990, was saying before the game. “Breaks my heart. He had really looked good.”

  At sixty-six, Cox was nearing the end of a remarkable run as Braves manager. In 2007 he would break the all-time record for ejections as a manager, but as he sat in his office, feet up, there was never any sign of the intense Cox who sat on the bench keeping up a steady stream of commentary directed at the home-plate umpire.

  “They’ve just made the strike zone too small,” he said. “Some of it was Questech; some of it’s just the way guys umpire now. Guys like Tommy [Glavine] and [Greg] Maddux really have had to adjust. I would guess that’s true of Mussina too because he’s that kind of pitcher now. The great ones do that, though; they make the adjustments.”

  He shook his head, getting nostalgic for a moment. “You know why I miss
Tommy and Greg so much?” he said. “It isn’t just because they were great pitchers; it’s because they would do anything to help the team win. I mean anything. I remember a few years ago when John [Smoltz] got hurt; within ten minutes they were both in my office. ‘Skip, if you need us to go short [on three days’ rest], just say the word, we’re ready.’ Nowadays, if you asked a young guy to go short, the next call would be from his agent saying his client can’t possibly risk his arm by doing that. Those guys would pitch with the other arm if you asked them to.”

  Once upon a time, pitchers routinely pitched on three days’ rest. It was not uncommon to see them pitch on two days’ rest in postseason. In the 1965 World Series, both Sandy Koufax and Jim Kaat pitched Game Seven on two days’ rest. Koufax pitched a three-hit shutout and won 2–0. In 1967, Jim Lonborg pitched Game Seven for the Red Sox on two days’ rest, and the next year both Denny McLain and Mickey Lolich pitched on two days’ rest in Games Six and Seven for the Detroit Tigers.

  “I think a lot of it has to do with what your arm and your body are conditioned to do,” Glavine said. “Do I think pitchers today could go on three days’ rest on a regular basis? Absolutely. Especially with all the modern training techniques we have, and,” he paused to smile, “some of the extra help [that is, steroids] guys have gotten the last ten or fifteen years. But it isn’t what we’ve been conditioned to do throughout our lives. These days kids are on pitch counts in high school, and you almost never pitch on three days’ rest at any level of the game.”

  Pitching changed in 1969 for two reasons: following the 1968 season when Carl Yastrzemski led the American League in hitting with a .301 average and Bob Gibson pitched to an ERA of 1.12 for the St. Louis Cardinals, the mound was lowered from fifteen inches to ten inches. Run production had gone down so far in ’68 — which became known as “The Year of the Pitcher” — that something had to be done to level the playing field for the hitters. So, baseball literally leveled the mound, or at least lowered it so that pitchers didn’t appear to be standing on Mount Everest from the batter’s box.