Living on the Black

by John Feinstein

  “With Tommy, you know you’re saying a lot of things he already knows,” Peterson said. “There isn’t anything in baseball he hasn’t been through. I just want to make sure he doesn’t get too focused on results when they haven’t been good, because I know and he knows those results aren’t who he is. There was nothing seriously wrong with the way he was pitching, nothing that couldn’t be corrected fairly easily.”

  Glavine leaned on the wall while Peterson talked, and listened. He liked the fact that Peterson never seemed to lose his cool or get upset; in many ways it was a nice change from the in-your-face approach he had dealt with during his years in Atlanta with Leo Mazzone. But right then, right at that moment, in the visitors’ clubhouse at Yankee Stadium, knowing people were again questioning whether he could still get hitters out, and that many of those people were standing a few yards away waiting to talk to him, Glavine really didn’t want to talk about the process or how many clubs he had in his bag when he went to the mound.

  “I hear you, Rick,” he said finally, when Peterson paused. “But right now, the way I feel, to be honest, is fuck the process; I want to win a fucking game.”

  Peterson got it. “I know, Tom,” he said. “So let’s go out tomorrow and figure out how to win one.”

  That was good enough for Glavine. He squared his shoulders and prepared to enter the Lion’s Den.

  HE HADN’T EVEN REACHED his locker before he saw trouble. A camera crew from one of the local New York TV stations was waiting. Glavine had noticed the camera and cameraman and the reporter holding a microphone when he had darted from the dining area to the training area. Maybe, he thought, they’re just waiting for someone — anyone. Now, it was apparent they were waiting for him.

  “Tom, have you got a minute?” came the query as he approached.

  Ninety-nine times out of one hundred — no, nine hundred ninety-nine times out of one thousand — Glavine’s answer would have been “Sure, I’m okay until we go out to stretch.”

  Now he looked at the TV reporter, microphone in hand, a friendly smile on his face, and said, “What’s it about?”

  The reporter, probably a little bit surprised at the cool in Glavine’s voice, said, “Well, you know, I’d just like to talk about pitching, I guess. About your pitching and what’s been going on the last month.”

  As much as Glavine didn’t want to talk at that moment, he probably would have sucked it up and done it if not for the words “what’s been going on the last month.” As soon as he heard them, Glavine stiffened. “Look,” he said evenly, gazing into his locker as if the treasure of the Sierra Madre might somehow be buried inside, “I don’t want to be a jerk, but today, I’m really not up for that. I’m really sorry. I just don’t think that’s a conversation I want to have right now.”

  The reporter wisely waited to see if Glavine would say anything else. Sometimes, especially when dealing with a good guy, reporters know that silence is the best way to get someone to change his mind. Not this time. “I understand,” the reporter said, sticking his hand out. “Maybe some other time?”

  “Almost any other time,” Glavine said. “I appreciate your patience.”

  Which he did.

  “You see, that’s what’s tough about playing in New York sometimes,” Glavine said a few minutes later, as the room was clearing with players headed to the field for stretching and batting practice. “The perception is I’ve pitched poorly for a month because I haven’t won in a month. The fact is I’ve had two bad outings. That’s it. So, if I go on camera and the guy asks me something about a lost month, and I answer by saying it’s really only been a bad week and I was pitching well before then, I just didn’t get any runs, it sounds like I’m throwing my team under the bus. Even if I just say, ‘I was just unlucky for a few starts,’ people will read into that.

  “So, my other option is to say no, which I probably haven’t done five times in my career, and then the guy may think I’m a jerk. Fortunately, he seemed like a good guy, and he didn’t get mad. But it’s still hard.

  “The best thing for me to do would be to win a game.” He smiled. “Of course, to do that I need to stay with the process.”

  Stay with the process. And win a fucking game.

  FIVE DAYS LATER, Glavine had stuck with the process and walked to the Shea Stadium mound on a breezy, cloudy, but comfortable early-summer Friday night to pitch against the Oakland Athletics. The A’s had last visited Shea Stadium in 1973 for the third, fourth, and fifth games of the World Series, which they ultimately won in seven games. Their presence in the building brought up two of the better trivia questions in baseball history, one related to the 1973 World Series, the other strictly related to the A’s:

  Question one: What did the Mets’ leadoff hitter do in the first inning of Game Three in each of the Mets’ first three World Series? Answer: Hit a home run. Tommie Agee had done it against the Orioles in 1969; Wayne Garrett had done it against the A’s in 1973; and Lenny Dykstra had done it in Fenway Park against the Red Sox in 1986.

  Question two: Who was the last American League Most Valuable Player that was a switch hitter? Answer: No, not Mickey Mantle. It was Vida Blue — the A’s pitcher who was the MVP in 1971 after winning twenty-four games. The DH didn’t come into play until 1973, so Blue, a switch hitter, came to bat on a regular basis throughout his MVP season. He was 12 for 102 at the plate, a batting average of .118, but he did switch hit and he did win the MVP that year.

  Glavine wasn’t much concerned with history or trivia as he took the mound that evening. During his two bullpen sessions that week, he had worked hard on the mechanics of his delivery, trying to be sure he wasn’t coming across his body with his arm as he let go of the ball. “If you do that, you’re flying open toward the plate,” he said. “It’s just like in golf. If you’re too open, the ball will go sideways. You want to feel as if you’re following straight through in the direction of the plate. It means you have more power, and on your breaking pitches the ball will move from side to side or down, the way you want it to, rather than going in just about any direction when you’re too open.”

  He and Peterson had also decided he needed to work a little bit faster. Glavine has always pitched fast, but Peterson thought he was working a little more slowly, especially when he wasn’t feeling confident about the pitch he was about to throw. “Hitters see that,” Peterson said. “It gives them more confidence, makes them think you’re concerned. Let’s be a little bit faster in between pitches, not give them time to feel comfortable.”

  Glavine has always believed that body language is an important part of pitching. “If you show frustration, the hitters see it,” he said. “If your shoulders droop or if you’re acting like you can’t get a break, they can tell. It empowers them. But if you catch the ball, look in for a sign, and get set to pitch again without showing them anything, it says to them, ‘This guy wants to pitch; he’s fired up.’ I needed to let the hitters know I wanted to pitch.”

  As Glavine warmed up for the first inning, he still felt like he was coming across his body a little bit in spite of all the work in the bullpen. Through the years he has moved the spot he pitches from on the rubber more and more toward the third-base side because, as a left-hander, he believes he is less likely to come across his body while aiming for the outside corner against right-handed batters from there.

  To use one of Peterson’s beloved golf analogies: if you’re hitting the ball too far to the right, aim left. By standing on the third-base side, Glavine almost has to aim left to get the ball to the outside part of the plate against righties. Even though he pitches inside far more now, his bread-and-butter pitches are still fastball outside and changeup outside.

  “Throwing the ball a little bit differently against lefties isn’t really that difficult,” Glavine said. “On a percentage basis, the number of pitches I throw where I want the ball to go to my right [across his body] is pretty small compared to the other way.”

  Most pitchers move around the
rubber during their career, searching for the best release point they can find. In a game where inches always matter, the decision on exactly where to pitch from isn’t a small one. Mussina, who has always pitched inside and outside throughout his career, has always felt comfortable smack in the middle of the rubber. That’s where most pitchers start out as kids. Some never move. Others experiment. Glavine has always been an experimenter, although he settled on the third-base side years ago in Atlanta.

  After his third warm-up pitch prior to the first inning, still feeling as if he was pulling his pitches a little bit from left to right, Glavine decided to try something on the spur of the moment. When Paul Lo Duca tossed the ball back to him, Glavine caught it, and then, before throwing his next warm-up pitch, moved a few inches to his right, putting himself almost on the corner of the rubber on the third-base side. The shift was three, perhaps four inches.

  “It was something I’d done a few times in the past,” he said. “I decided to give it a shot and see how it felt because I just didn’t feel the way I wanted to feel at that moment.”

  His five remaining warm-ups felt good. He didn’t feel as if he had to exaggerate his motion to the left anymore in order to drive straight down the mound in the direction of the plate. “It just felt better right away,” he said.

  Whether by coincidence or not, he had an easy first inning. That was good, but he didn’t get too excited because he hadn’t had any trouble against the Yankees in the first inning either. The Mets gave him a quick 1–0 lead on what had come to be known as a “Reyes run.” The shortstop led off with a bunt single to third base and reached second when Eric Chavez threw the ball away. He scored a moment later on a Carlos Beltran single. Reyes was leading the National League in stolen bases, and letting him reach first base was almost like giving up a double because of his baserunning ability.

  The lead was a brief one. Shannon Stewart, the A’s second hitter in the second, crushed a 1–2 fastball into the left-field bullpen to tie the score at 1–1. “Normally you give up a home run, you tell yourself, ‘Okay, it’s one bad pitch, let’s move on and finish the inning,’ ” Glavine said. “At that moment, though, I was still a little shell-shocked because of the two games I’d pitched leading up to that one. The thought ‘Oh God, not again’ did cross my mind.”

  Glavine doesn’t panic often, and this was no exception. He got out of the inning with no further damage, and the game settled into a pitching duel between Glavine and A’s starter Lenny DiNardo. Oakland had been a consistent contender for years under the much ballyhooed leadership of general manager Billy (Money Ball) Beane. Bob Geren was the new manager in ’07, and once again they were a solid club. They arrived in New York with a record of 39–32, a half game better than the Mets, who had slid to 38–32.

  It was Glavine who helped get the lead back. He led off the bottom of the third with a double down the left-field line. Reyes sacrificed him to third, and he scored on a sacrifice fly by Lo Duca to make it 2–1. “Pure speed run,” Glavine joked. “I did it all with my legs.”

  His pitching arm was now firmly in command. After Stewart’s home run, he didn’t give up a hit until back-to-back one-out singles in the fourth. Here some luck came into play. Bobby Crosby hit a wicked shot toward the middle that Reyes somehow got to, scooped on a short hop, and turned into a spectacular double play.

  “That ball was hit so hard, if Hosey doesn’t make the play he made, it’s probably in the gap and they score two and take the lead,” Glavine said. “He makes a play, we’re out of the inning, and the whole game changed right after that. That’s just the way the game is: some nights you’re better than what you get, other nights you aren’t quite as good. If Hosey doesn’t make that play, who knows how the rest of that inning goes.”

  Instead, Glavine settled into a groove, and the Mets broke the game open in the sixth with five runs after Shawn Green had homered in the fifth to make it 3–1. Glavine again contributed with his bat during the big rally. With two down and a man on second, Geren opted to walk rookie left fielder Carlos Gomez to pitch to Glavine.

  Standing in the on-deck circle, Glavine turned to the dugout with a big smile on his face. “Obviously they haven’t done a very good scouting job,” he said. “Don’t they realize how hot I am?”

  He actually was hot with the bat, having had hits in four of his previous five at bats, including the double in the third. His batting average was well over .300 at that point. He continued hot, with an RBI single that made the score 8–1. Reyes followed with a shot into the left-center-field gap.

  “As soon as I saw where the ball was going, I knew I had a problem,” Glavine said. “The ball was too well hit for me to not try to score. I hadn’t run that hard for that long in a while.”

  Maybe if he hadn’t been wearing his jacket, Glavine would have been okay. Years ago, pitchers routinely put on jackets to run the bases, the thought being that they wanted to keep their pitching arms warm. Nowadays, a lot of pitchers are never on base because of the DH, and, more often than not, when a pitcher does reach, he eschews the jacket. Glavine is old-fashioned enough that with a little chill in the air he had put on the jacket.

  “Bad aerodynamics,” he said. “Slowed me down.”

  He was out at the plate on a bang-bang play. He had no choice but to try to score, though, since Reyes was practically running up his back by the time he got around third. “I’m just not as fast as I used to be,” Glavine said.

  That was perhaps the only disappointment of the night. Coincidence or not, the two changes — working more quickly and moving a few inches on the rubber — yielded positive results. Even after his long run, Glavine set the side down in order in the seventh and breezed through the eighth. He had thrown 109 pitches through eight innings, and Randolph and Peterson decided to let him start the ninth with a 9–1 lead to see if he might be able to get through it quickly and get a complete game.

  “I knew the deal was one batter gets on, and I’m done,” he said. “I was okay with it.”

  Chavez led off the inning with a single, and Aaron Heilman came in to finish. The Mets breathed a deep sigh of relief. Glavine had his first win in five weeks, his sixth of the season, and the 296th of his career. Four away from the Number felt like a lot closer than five away had.

  “I felt like I’d been running in mud for a while,” he said. He smiled. “Rick was right. The process worked.”

  And he finally got a f—— win.

  20

  Road-Trip Blues

  DURING THE FIRST NINE DAYS of interleague play, it appeared that National League baseball was exactly what the doctor had ordered for the Yankees. They swept the Pirates and the Diamondbacks and then won two of three from the Mets, winning the final game of the second Subway Series 8–2, behind Chien-Ming Wang, who, after missing almost the entire first month of the season, was now 8–2.

  Things were very much looking up. Wang, Andy Pettitte, and Mike Mussina were all pitching well. Pettitte had hit a slide early in June but had bounced back with a 7–1 win against Arizona the day after Mussina’s solid performance against the Diamondbacks. What’s more, help had arrived. The Yankees had melodramatically announced the return of Roger Clemens on a Sunday afternoon in early May, signing him to a contract that would pay him about $1 million a start.

  Clemens had made his 2007 debut in the Pirates series, pitching effectively enough for an almost-forty-five-year-old coming out of retirement for the nineteenth time, in a 9–3 win. With a rotation of Wang, Pettitte, Mussina, and Clemens, the Yankees could plug almost anyone into the fifth spot until Philip Hughes was healthy enough to return to the rotation.

  “Right now we feel like anybody we run out there, we’re going to have a chance to win the game,” Mussina said. “It wasn’t that way in April and May.”

  The Yankees headed west after the Mets series, their record 35–32 and seemingly headed north. They had a nine-game trip: three games in Colorado and then three in San Francisco to wrap up interleag
ue play, followed by three against the always-mediocre-at-best Orioles in Baltimore. There was no reason to think the hot streak wouldn’t continue.

  Except it didn’t. Mussina pitched the opener in Colorado against the Rockies and didn’t pitch badly. He gave up scratch runs in the third and fifth and a home run to catcher Yorvit Torrealba in the sixth but was outpitched by Josh Fogg in a 3–1 loss. The notion that the Yankees would go into Colorado and be held to one run seemed all but impossible. Coors Field had been baseball’s launchpad for years because of the thin air in Denver. MLB had taken the audacious step in 2002 of putting baseballs in a humidor before games to keep them moist so they wouldn’t fly so far, and scoring had come down but not so much that one would expect the Yankee lineup to be shut down by Josh Fogg.

  The opening game proved to be a harbinger. Jeff Francis beat Pettitte the next night 6–1 in a game that was close until late, and the Rockies completed the sweep the night after with a 4–3 win over Clemens. The last thing in the world anyone would have believed could happen in Colorado was that the Yankees could have Mussina, Pettitte, and Clemens all pitch well and lose. Even less probable was the team scoring just five runs in three games against the Colorado pitching staff.

  The Yankees managed to win the opener in San Francisco before blowing a ninth-inning lead the next day to lose in thirteen. That set up Mussina against Noah Lowry, the rapidly improving Giants lefty, in the finale.

  From the beginning, the day was a struggle for Mussina. It wasn’t as if the Giants were lighting him up. “It was just that everything was hard,” he said later. “I didn’t have very much confidence in my pitches.”