Knuckler

by Tim Wakefield

  Late in July, as the Bisons prepared for a game, Wakefield was summoned into the office of manager Marc Bombard, who delivered the news that Wakefield had been aching to hear from the time he was a boy toting a plastic bat and a plastic ball, hitting one home run after another over the roof of his parents' home in Melbourne. Wakefield was going to the major leagues. The Pirates wanted him to pitch for them on July 31, a day they would be hosting the St. Louis Cardinals at Three Rivers Stadium. Wakefield gathered his belongings and called his parents, relaying the news that Bombard had just given him before he set off to continue riding the knuckler as far as it would take him.

  "I freaked out," he said. "The Pirates did a smart thing. They had me join the team in Chicago about three days before I was scheduled to start, just so I could get acclimated a little. I knew I was having a good year, and a couple of other guys had gone up before me, and I started to wonder if [I was bypassed] because of the knuckleball. But then I flew to Chicago and met the team there, and they took me back with them to Pittsburgh."

  I started to wonder if I was bypassed because of the knuckleball.

  Then I realized I was there because of it.

  Of course, the major leagues can be overwhelming for any young man, particularly one who, less than three years earlier, had been on the verge of being released and who jumped at the chance to warm up pitchers in the bullpen or do whatever else it took to save his job. The Pirates knew this. Even if Wakefield was not aware of the meteoric nature of his rise—and he was not—the Pirates were. Upon arriving in Pittsburgh, Wakefield immediately fell under the care of pitching coach Ray Miller, a crusty, longtime baseball man who protected his impressionable young knuckleballer and nurtured him. Pirates center fielder Andy Van Slyke immediately took an interest in the young pitcher, inviting Wakefield to stay at his house. Van Slyke not only fed Wakefield but showed him how to act—"how to be a big leaguer." The two developed a strong friendship that would become lifelong. Wakefield received good mentoring and guidance from Van Slyke for which he would remain eternally grateful. That guidance made an indelible impression on him: he knew what he should be if he was ever afforded the luxury of a long major league career.

  And his manager, of course, was none other than Jim Leyland, an accomplished skipper already regarded by many as one of the best managers in the game.

  "I was young," said Wakefield, who had the impression when he arrived in the majors that Leyland was "a hard-ass." "I think I respect him more now knowing how he operated. At the time I didn't understand it."

  Under the circumstances, Tim Wakefield now admitted that he was better off.

  With what was about to happen next, after all, most anyone would have advised him to simply buckle up and enjoy the ride.

  To Tim Wakefield, what stood out most at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh was the clarity of the entire picture, the crispness of the colors, the lighting. Everything was brighter. The details were sharper. High-definition television had yet to infiltrate American sports, but Wakefield felt as if he were stepping into an entirely new world. It was completely different from what he had experienced in the minor leagues. The baseballs were actually white. The light stanchions were bigger, the dozens of bulbs in each one illuminating every corner of the ballpark. Wakefield felt as if he had walked from the world of black-and-white television into a Hollywood production where the colors were suddenly as striking as those in The Wizard of Oz.

  Welcome to the big leagues, kid.

  In 1992, July 31 was a Friday. That meant a night game. Wakefield had slept relatively little the night before—"I was nervous," he said—and the day had dragged. He arrived at the ballpark in the early afternoon, changed into his uniform, and sought ways to pass the time. He found the wait excruciating. Although media members were allowed into every major league clubhouse three and a half hours before the scheduled start time, starting pitchers were off-limits to the press on the days they were scheduled to pitch. Ray Miller had given Wakefield some advice on what to expect in his dealings with the press, but Wakefield's greatest concerns were enduring the wait, getting to game time, and managing the energy he took with him to the mound.

  Slow down. Stay focused. Don't rush.

  Throwing the knuckleball, after all, was similar to most other athletic endeavors in at least one respect. Mechanically, everything had to be in sync. Wakefield's arm had to work with his legs, back, and hips. He had learned from playing golf that the timing had to be darned near perfect. The trick was to keep his mind from interfering, to not allow his arm to go too fast or his legs to drag because that would affect the movement and effectiveness of his pitches.

  At the start, Wakefield felt rigid, tight, restricted. Loosen up, he thought. Just before he had been informed of his promotion to the major leagues, Wakefield had received advice from Bombard—or was it a coach? He could not remember now. He could only remember the message. Don't pitch to the names. The Cardinals had a roster of accomplished major leaguers, from shortstop Ozzie Smith to outfielder Ray Lankford to first baseman Andres Galarraga and others. Wakefield knew of them all. And yet he did not really know them, not in the real sense, not from any head-to-head competition. They were just names. The real Galarraga struck out 169 times in 1990. Lankford had struck out 147 times in 1991. Smith had not produced a home run all season and had managed just 22 in his entire career.

  When the St. Louis hitters were announced for their respective turns at bat, Wakefield tried not to listen to the public-address announcer. He thought of something else. When he stepped onto the mound, he looked not at the batters but at the mitt of catcher Don Slaught. As a knuckleballer, Wakefield did not have to remember scouting reports and matchups or think about what pitch to throw, to whom, and in what situation. All he had to do was play catch with Slaught as if he were in the backyard of his home in Melbourne, tossing knuckleballs to his father, who had long since abandoned the chore of crouching behind an imaginary plate in favor of sitting on a capsized five-gallon bucket to minimize the stress on his back.

  Against the Cardinals, Wakefield's initial goal was simple. Survive the first inning. Then his goal was to finish the second, then the third, then the fourth. Along the way, Pirates outfielder Barry Bonds and shortstop Jay Bell hit solo home runs to stake Wakefield to a 3–0 lead. His body loosened. Don't pitch to the names. He pitched more freely. Throw to the bucket. The Cardinals scored a pair of unearned runs in the fifth inning after Pirates third baseman Jeff King committed an error, but Wakefield minimized the damage and escaped the inning with a 3–2 advantage. After that, the Cardinals managed just one more hit the rest of the way—a leadoff single by Galarraga in the eighth inning, by which point Wakefield was in an unbreakable rhythm—and Leyland decided to leave his young knuckleballer in to record all 27 outs. Wakefield secured the final out on his 146th pitch of the game, a knuckleball that future Hall of Famer Smith dribbled out in front of the plate, where Slaught fielded it before throwing to first base.

  Pirates 3, Cardinals 2.

  And so began one of the more magical runs in recent baseball history.

  For the Pirates and Wakefield both, what happened over the final three months of the 1992 baseball season in Pittsburgh was nothing short of what Leyland would one day term "a whirlwind" that made Wakefield, in the crusty manager's terms, "the [expletive] Elvis Presley of the National League." The log of innings from Wakefield's first seven starts resembled a string of scores on a 10-point scale—9, 8, 8, 9, 6, 9, and 8.67—and the Pirates went on the kind of hot streak that Leyland had been waiting for all season. Prior to Wakefield's arrival, the 1992 Pirates possessed a 3.56 team ERA and a 54–48 record, which was still good enough for first place in the National League East Division. Beginning on July 31, the Pirates went a sizzling 42–18 and lowered their team ERA by more than a half-run per contest, to 3.01. Even though the Pirates were a team stocked with good players—Bonds, King, Bell, and ace Doug Drabek were all well known by that point—most everyone connected t
heir surge with Wakefield, the young knuckleballer who was turning the Pirates and all of baseball on its ear.

  Bonds, in particular, awed Wakefield, and not solely with the raw ability that would make him a Hall of Fame–caliber talent long before his involvement in the steroids scandal that rocked the game years later. In 1992, Bonds was the consummate talent, a player who could hit for average (.311) and power (34 home runs, 103 RBI) while possessing game-changing speed (39 stolen bases, 109 runs scored). The one thing Bonds lacked was a strong throwing arm, but Wakefield marveled at how the outfielder masked that relative weakness by compensating in other ways.

  "I only played with him for a few months, so I never really got to know him," Wakefield said. "But what I do remember is how strong he was, how quick he was. He never had a really strong throwing arm, but he knew how to get to the ball and get rid of it quickly. Teams couldn't run on him as much because of that. I remember times when there would be a guy on third, and someone would hit a fly to left field. [Bonds] would catch the ball, and the throw would be in the air so fast that the third-base coach had no choice but to hold the runner."

  Wakefield's transition from the minors to the majors had been similarly fast and seamless, but even though that aided him in the short term, he believed that it hurt him in the long run. Consumed enough with just doing his job during his first months in the major leagues, he did not get caught up in the playoff race taking place around him. He did not know any better. By season's end, the Pirates had posted a 96–66 record to advance to the National League Championship Series for a third straight season, the previous two trips having resulted in losses to the Cincinnati Reds (by a 4–2 series count in 1990) and the Atlanta Braves (4–3 in 1991). Wakefield's presence and emergence was one of the main reasons the Pirates and their fans believed that the third time would be the charm. In his first run against major league competition, the Wakefield of 1992 had compiled an 8–1 record and a 2.15 ERA in 13 starts during which the Pirates had gone 9–4. He was such a force for Pittsburgh down the stretch that Leyland lined him up to pitch Game 3 of the playoffs, behind Drabek and veteran left-hander Danny Jackson.

  Just before the start of the series with Atlanta, Wakefield joined the Pirates for their pregame workout in Atlanta and, in his terms, was "flabbergasted" by the scene around the batting cage at Fulton County Stadium. There were reporters everywhere, dozens of them, maybe hundreds. Wakefield all but had a panic attack. He had grown up in Melbourne, skipped around the minor leagues, and played for three months in Pittsburgh, where football reigned. He had never seen anything like this. Wakefield had traveled to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia after joining the major league club, but none of those stops prepared him for the virtual circus before him now.

  Everyone's watching. This is bigger than I thought.

  Matched against a formidable Atlanta team built around the pitching trio of right-hander John Smoltz and left-handers Steve Avery and Tom Glavine, the Pirates lost Games 1 and 2 in Atlanta, the latter by an unsightly 13–5 score while Jackson was unceremoniously rocked. Leyland had been hoping to avoid having his young knuckleballer pitch with the Pirates facing a 2–0 series deficit, but he had no choice. Wakefield's turn was up. The series moved to Pittsburgh on the designated travel day after Game 2, at which point Wakefield was asked to participate in a press conference featuring the managers and starting pitchers for Game 3. As he stepped onto the platform and took his seat behind a table, the size of the crowd stunned him. The room was jammed. Even during his regular-season success, Wakefield frequently was interviewed by no more than a small handful of reporters at a time. That was manageable. But this? This was a crowd. This was an audience. The size of the gathering intimidated him. He was anxious.

  A day later, by the start of Game 3, Wakefield had done everything he could to treat his first career playoff start like the games he had pitched during the regular season. He was grateful that the game was being played in Pittsburgh. Though Drabek and Jackson lost in Games 1 and 2, Wakefield had watched them during the pregame hours, all but taking notes on how they prepared. They're really not doing anything different than they did during the regular season. Wakefield tried the same thing, tried to approach the game as he had any other during his brief time in the major leagues, tried to keep it simple. Don't pitch to the names. Slow down. Breathe.

  The rest would take care of itself.

  With the Pirates facing a virtual must-win situation—no team in baseball history had ever overcome a 3–0 series deficit at the time—Wakefield went out to the mound at Three Rivers Stadium and pitched a complete game, his fourth in 14 starts since joining the team. He threw just 109 pitches, including 77 strikes, an extremely high percentage for any pitcher, let alone a knuckleballer. The Pirates won by a 3–2 score, injecting life and drama into what had been a one-sided series up to that point and adding to the legend-in-the-making of Wakefield and his knuckleball.

  Even Leyland admitted to having been caught up in the moment.

  "I had no idea of what to expect," the veteran manager said. "I didn't really know who Tim Wakefield was. A lot of people didn't."

  When the Pirates lost Game 4 to fall behind in the series, 3–1, Leyland grew desperate. He had little confidence in Jackson in the aftermath of the Game 2 debacle, so he called upon veteran Bob Walk, who would prove to be nothing short of masterful in a complete-game performance that anchored a 7–1 Pittsburgh victory. Walk's performance trimmed Atlanta's series lead to 3–2, but the Pirates still seemed destined to fail as the series shifted back to Atlanta for Game 6 and, if necessary, Game 7. Like most everyone in Pittsburgh, Leyland had developed a great deal of confidence in his knuckleballer, who continued to pitch in relative obliviousness as the Pirates continued their quest to reach the World Series.

  Wakefield was not quite as dominating in Game 6 as he had been in Game 3—but he was close. The Pirates scored eight times in the second inning against left-hander Glavine—who was matched against Wakefield for the second time in the series—and rolled to a 13–4 victory that forced a final, decisive seventh game. Wakefield allowed single runs in the fourth and seventh innings, the latter of which came after he had a 13–1 lead. After Leyland opted to let his knuckleballer finish what he started, Wakefield gave up another pair of meaningless runs in the ninth, which accounted for the 13–4 final. The knuckleballer had thrown a total of 141 pitches, an amazing 92 of them for strikes.

  Had the 1992 National League Championship Series ended there—or following the eighth inning of Game 7—Tim Wakefield, as a rookie, almost certainly would have been voted the most valuable player of the seven-game epic between Atlanta and Pittsburgh. Of course, it did not. Unavailable to pitch because of his 141-pitch masterpiece the night before, Wakefield watched from the dugout as the Pirates built a 2–0 lead behind a brilliant Drabek. The World Series was only outs away. Wakefield fully believed that the Pirates would win, that the World Series would come next, a belief that spoke not so much to his confidence as to his naïveté. Since the start of the 1991 campaign, Wakefield himself had accomplished everything he had set out to do. Combined, in the minor leagues and the majors and including the postseason, Wakefield had gone 35–13 over the span of two seasons. In 1992 alone—again including the playoffs and his time at Triple A—he had gone 20–4. Wakefield was borderline unbeatable, and he had the sense, the pure gut feeling, that things were playing out exactly as they were supposed to.

  And yet, as Wakefield watched from the dugout, the Pirates began to teeter. Drabek, who had been brilliant all night, allowed a leadoff double to Terry Pendleton. Okay, we're still up 2–0. Then Braves outfielder David Justice reached on an untimely error by Pirates second baseman Jose Lind, putting runners at first and third, both potential tying runs now on base. Damn. Then Drabek walked heavy-legged first baseman Sid Bream on four pitches, loading the bases and further igniting an Atlanta crowd that already was smelling blood, that similarly had come to see victory as a birthright, that
continued the unforgettable, rhythmic tomahawk chop that had become customary at Fulton County Stadium and felt to Wakefield, quite frankly, like a war cry.

  Uh-oh. We're in trouble.

  Thirteen pitches later, with the bases still loaded and the Pirates desperately clinging to a 2–1 lead by virtue of a sacrifice fly from Atlanta outfielder Ron Gant, Braves pinch-hitter Fernando Cabrera pulled a single through the hole between shortstop and third base. Wakefield all but gasped. Bonds fielded the ball and released the throw quickly—as usual—and Pirates catcher Mike LaValliere fielded the ball on a bounce. To Wakefield, as quickly as it all unfolded, the moment seemed suspended in time. Wearing a brace on his knee, a lumbering Bream then slid just beyond the tag of LaValliere as home plate umpire Randy Marsh made his decision—Safe!—and the Braves erupted into a celebration. For the Pirates, the ride was over. Wakefield was left to examine the fast and final events of a season that had felt just as furious, right up until the moment it crashed to a halt.

  "At the time, that was probably the biggest impact of anybody that's ever come to the big leagues," Leyland said, recalling the effect that Wakefield had on the Pirates and, for that matter, the entire 1992 baseball season. "That kind of stuff just doesn't happen. That's a fairy tale."

  Tim Wakefield, for his part, found it to be very real. To that point in his major league career, he had known nothing else. He believed that the 1992 season was just the start of a career that would be filled with winning, that he would soon get another chance at the World Series, that a return trip to October would be as simple as showing up and pitching.

  But all too soon, Tim Wakefield would discover that baseball is as fickle as the pitch that had brought him to the major leagues in the first place.