by Wayne Coffey
I HAVE MY BEST stretch of pitching as a knuckleballer over the next six weeks. I am getting ahead, changing speeds, throwing it with conviction, and when I put together a fourteen-inning scoreless streak out of the pen, I start to think I’m narrowing the gap between Tim and me. We fly to Toronto to take on the Blue Jays and McLaren calls on me in the bottom of the eighth in a 2–2 game. I strike out pinch hitter Brad Wilkerson to get started, then get Lyle Overbay and Marco Scutaro on groundouts.
In the bottom of the ninth, Scott Rolen comes up with the winning run at third. I get him to bounce out to force extra innings, and we win in ten on Miguel Cairo’s suicide squeeze. I am the pitcher of record, and when Putz comes on and gets the save, I have my first big-league victory in almost three years.
J.J. hands me the ball, and I know exactly where it is going. It’s going to the woman who captivated me when she was twelve, curled up in the den with her lion’s-mane hair and homework. She’sback in Nashville with our three kids, but I want her to feel included, to be part of this.
After the game, I take the ball back to my hotel room and write an inscription on it. I have a lot to say and a baseball is not even three inches in diameter. I write small:
Dearest Anne—
I wanted you to have this ball as a memento to keep. It is the win I got vs. the Toronto Blue Jays on 6/9/08, my first win since 2005. Let this ball communicate to you how much I desire you to be a part of my life and who I am authentically made to be. Accept this gift as a celebration of living differently and being in the moment together. You are so valuable to me and I am honored that you would share my life with me and let me be a part of yours. I cannot promise to love you perfectly, but I can promise to give you who I am fully and in earnest. You are cherished.
—R.A.
MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 2011
Citi Field
I feel for my catchers, because catching a knuckleball is one of the hardest and most thankless tasks in baseball. Josh Thole has made huge strides in the last two years in handling the job. This spring, a conversation with Doug Mirabelli, the guy who caught Tim Wakefield all those years in Boston, made all the difference.
Tonight, I throw seven shutout innings and strike out six against the Marlins, raising my record to 6–11. Josh had a fine game behind the plate.
Here is what it’s like to catch me, in Josh’s own words:
Catching a knuckleball is a different cat, for sure. They are the most mentally draining games of all, because you have to concentrate so hard and be so alert, just to try to get the thing to land in your glove. I use a glove called the Rawlings Spark that actually belongs to R.A. It’s a women’s softball catcher’s glove, and about one third bigger than a regular catcher’s glove. I can’t even imagine trying to catch him with a regular glove. I’d be going back to the backstop every pitch.
R.A.’s knuckleball is so unpredictable, and can break so much so late, that it’s almost like you have to surround the pitch more than catch it. Before I talked to Doug, I used to give R.A. a target, the way I do with conventional pitchers. When you do that, you have a tendency to have a stiff wrist and to reach out for pitches, which you can’t do with the knuckleball. Doug told me to just keep the glove relaxed, kind of resting on your left knee. If you watch me catching R.A., you’ll see now that I don’t hold the glove up at all; it’s down, like I’m not even expecting a pitch. That simple change has made all the difference because it makes it much easier to track and keep up with the flight of the ball.
The other change Doug suggested was to angle my body toward the second baseman. That clears my knees out of the way and eliminates lower-half movement, and leaves my glove hand closer to the plate, ready to snag the pitch when it’s done breaking. These two changes have made a 100 percent difference for me.
Doug also was a great help with the mental aspect. He said that if you are catching the knuckleball, no matter how good you are, you are going to lead the league in passed balls. There’s no way around it. Hearing that helped me relax and not get down on myself. The pitch is hard enough to catch without doing it when you are fighting yourself.
KNUCKLEBALLER’S NOTE: Josh did indeed lead the league with sixteen passed balls. But he had only two of them after July 25, so the Mirabelli wisdom clearly kicked in.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GETTING MY PHIL
Three doors down from my locker in the Mariners clubhouse is the baseball home of Ichiro Suzuki. He is such a hit-making marvel, such a singular superstar, you need to use only his first name for everyone to know who you are talking about. I’ve spent my whole career seeking the secret of consistency. Is it repetition? Is it mind-set? Is it purely mechanics—and the ability to repeat them again and again?
Then I observe Ichiro, a wiry little top of a man, and realize it is easy: all you need is the hand-eye coordination of an athletic virtuoso; the precision of a Swiss watchmaker; and the drive and discipline of a Japanese martial artist, preparing for every game with utterly fanatical attention to routine and detail.
Ichiro racked up 200-plus hits in each of his first ten seasons, making a stupendous feat seem as inevitable as five o’clock traffic. He won ten straight Gold Gloves, won an MVP in his first year from Japan, and broke George Sisler’s all-time single-season hit record when he knocked 262 hits in 2004. I was in the Rangers bullpen when he broke the record, with a single up the middle off Ryan Drese. Ichiro had three hits and a steal that night.
Just another workday.
Ichiro’s routine is calibrated to the minute, from the time he gets to the park every day to when he uses the bathroom before the game. He takes the same amount of swings in the cage during batting practice. He eats the same pregame meal (a salmon rice ball) at the same time (ninety minutes before game time). His stretching routine is so thorough and intricate, you wonder if he moonlights as a contortionist for Cirque du Soleil. He is such a perfectionist that he refuses to do interviews in English, even though he can speak it quite well. He’s afraid he might get a word wrong, so he always uses his interpreter. Ichiro’s approach over 162 games never varies. Nothing changes regardless of the results. The man is so vigorously regimented that all you can do is simply surrender to the fact that you can try to match his discipline, but you never will.
Ichiro inspires me with his preparation and motivates me to ramp up my own readiness. I feel like it is working as the 2008 season hits its quarter pole. The key to good knuckleballing is having the same feel for the pitch, over and over and over. That means having the same grip on the ball, the same release, the same follow-through. If anything is off even slightly, the ball is going to rotate and your outings are going to be brief.
Though I’m working out of the pen, I feel that I’ve finally found my niche at the big-league level. I have given up three runs in my last twenty innings and walked only five, while striking out thirteen. I am feeling more confident than ever with the pitch. Being hopeful is still something new for me. I am beginning to like the concept.
On the charter flight back to Seattle from Toronto, I’m sitting near the back, listening to my headphones, reveling in my optimism, when I see Mel Stottlemyre, our pitching coach, coming down the aisle. It is not uncommon for coaches to wander to the back of the plane during the flight—a good time to process out what has been going right or wrong with one’s performance.
Mel sits down in the seat next to me.
R.A., you’ve been throwing the ball well, and we want to start you next week against the Nationals, he says.
I gulp but try to disguise it.
Thanks, Mel. I appreciate that. Whatever the club needs is fine with me, I tell him.
We speak for a few minutes and Mel heads back to the front. I gulp again and look out the window and feel a stab of guilt, because I just told a lie to my pitching coach, another pitching coach who is one of the all-time good guys.
Here’s the God’s honest truth: I do not want to go into the Mariners’ rotation. I don’t want to change a
nything. I know it’s a compliment that they want me to take on a bigger role, but my entire career has been a nonstop high-wire act—and I’ve fallen into the net too many times to count. I am finally in a place where I have a niche in the bullpen and I’m pitching effectively. I don’t want to mess with it.
Why now? I say to myself.
It’s not a feeling I can reveal to Mel or anybody else.
I am not proud of my lack of faith in myself, but the truth is that at this point in my journey my career feels about as sturdy as a house of toothpicks. You move one and the whole thing is going to crumble.
Three days go by and I start against the Nationals in Seattle. I get Cristian Guzmán and Elijah Dukes on weak grounders to start the game but then get nicked for a run, and nicked for six more in the second, the Nationals lighting me up like a Roman candle. I don’t have good location, and the knuckleball just isn’t dancing. By the time I leave, after recording 5 outs, I have given up 7 earned runs in 1⅓ innings.
So much for my scoreless streak.
My second start is another award winner. This time my lighting up is more like a bottle rocket, courtesy of the Florida Marlins, who score 5 runs off me in 3⅔ innings. I have now given up 12 runs in 5⅓ innings as a starter. My momentum has been trashed and I have no one to blame but myself. I pitch without conviction that I can throw my knuckleball for strikes, so the minute I fall behind I throw 85-mile-per-hour fastballs. I pitch with my mind racing, distracted, everywhere but in the moment. I pitch much the way I did in the six-home-run game against the Tigers, throwing it up there and hoping for the best. I thought I was beyond that. Apparently I’m not.
When will I ever get it?
I try to channel my inner Ichiro, but my consistency is still all over the place. Some days I emphatically trust the pitch and do great, and others I abandon it at the first sign of adversity, terrified to make a mistake. Because I have trouble committing to the knuckleball in 2–0, 3–1, and 3–2 counts, I wind up throwing fastballs and get into patterns.
I end up backing up a lot of bases.
I finish the year in the pen, and pitch just well enough to not get sent down. For the season, my ERA in the pen is under 3.0, and as a starter it is 6.72. I am a Jekyll and Hyde character, and in November the Mariners have seen enough and they non-tender me, which means “We don’t want you anymore.”
For the third time in my career, I am a free agent, and despite my ups and downs I believe I’ve shown enough in my good moments that somebody might want me, and the somebody turns out to be the Twins again. They sign me to a contract and extend a big-league invitation for spring training.
Before I get to camp, I decide that I need to see another therapist. This one is not for my head. It’s for my pitch, and who better to consult on that front than Hall of Famer Phil Niekro? The late Dave Niehaus, my friend and the longtime Mariners’ sportscaster, met Phil in Cooperstown in the middle of 2008 and mentioned that I’d like to meet with him and learn from him. Phil said, Anytime. Tell him to give me a call.
Anytime is now.
I call Phil and introduce myself.
I know who you are. I’ve seen you on TV a couple of times this year, he says.
We arrange for me to meet him in Atlanta next week at an indoor baseball facility near his home. It’s the middle of January. I send him video ahead of time so he can get familiar with my mechanics.
Jeff Forehand, my buddy who is the coach at Lipscomb University, comes along to catch me.
Phil is sixty-nine years old and looks great, as if he could still baffle batters with his knuckler.
Let’s get to work, he says. I have my laptop and I pop in one of the DVDs I sent him, one of the stronger games I had over the year.
I want to see one of your bad games, Phil says. We learn more from those.
I insert a new disc and Phil watches intently. Two line-drive base hits into my outing, Phil tells me to stop it.
Watch your hips, R.A., he says. You see them? You’re losing so much finish by not firing your hips toward the plate, not getting your backside involved.
I see instantly what he is referring to. My right foot stays behind, as if glued to the rubber, robbing me of explosion toward the plate and the hand speed that comes with it. Obviously the knuckleball isn’t a power pitch, so the point isn’t to generate speed for the sake of speed. The point is that by firing the hips forward, bringing the body toward the plate in a single, tight motion, you keep your body properly aligned and greatly increase your chances of killing rotation and throwing a good, hard knuckleball with sharp, late movement—or finish, as we like to say.
Your knuckleball is lazy, Phil says. You need to give it energy.
We move to the indoor cages and a mound. I start throwing to Jeff, trying to implement what we talked about in the film room. I think about my hips and detaching my right foot from the rubber.
With every throw, I feel myself almost hop toward the plate, a sign that I am getting my hips involved. I feel myself coming toward the plate hard, with athletic power. The results are staggering. One after another, knuckleballs come out with no spin, dropping by the foot. Jeff, a good ballplayer, looks like a matador, waving at them as they flutter toward him.
That’s the one, Phil says when I throw a knuckleball to his liking. I can’t get back up on the mound fast enough after each throw. It feels great. I feel like I could throw for hours. Before I even get off the mound, I am full of gratitude, not just for Phil, but also for Charlie and Tim—for their expertise and their generosity of spirit. All three of them have made a point to open themselves up for me, to help a knuckleballer in need.
I’m part of a brotherhood, and the only prerequisite for admission is a passion for the pitch.
I gather my computer, my notebook, and my glove and pack everything up.
I can’t thank you enough, Phil. This has just been a tremendous help. To have the chance to learn from someone like you is just priceless.
I have five hundred dollars in my pocket and try to give it to Phil. He looks insulted.
It’s been my pleasure, R.A., he says. You are a good athlete, I can see that. Remember to be one on the mound as well. If you keep working on being an athlete and getting your hips involved, I think you’re going to get where you want to go.
I will, Phil, thank you.
I drive north out of Atlanta on Interstate 75, feeling as if I’ve got an IV drip of adrenaline. I want to stop at every rest area and throw knuckleballs to Jeff. I want to stop at the Tennessee state line and throw more knuckleballs. I feel as if I’ve just been given the last big piece of a complicated puzzle, and now it all fits. Thanks to Charlie, I have the proper grip and the awareness of coming straight through the doorframe. Thanks to Tim Wakefield, I have the right arm path, releasing the ball and bringing my arm through toward my cup. Thanks to Phil, I’m firing my hips and exploding toward the plate, an action that is giving my ball a devastating finish before it gets to the plate.
You have an angry knuckleball, Phil says. It comes in so much harder than the way guys have historically thrown the pitch. That’s a tremendous asset if you can harness it.
I spend the remaining days before spring training in the Lipscomb gymnasium, refining my delivery, doing all I can to make sure the puzzle pieces fit snugly together. The difference in the quality of my knuckleball is striking; I used to throw maybe three out of ten that had a big late break; now it is happening with almost everyone I throw properly. The only downside is nobody wants to catch me. Jeff is beaten up and doesn’t want to do it anymore. A few college kids take turns, but lately when I show up with a glove and a bucket of balls, they suddenly have pressing commitments.
As I prepare to go to camp with my third organization in three years, the adrenaline drip is stronger than ever, and so is my belief that I can be something other than a mediocre major-league pitcher.
IN MY FIRST OFFICIAL minute as a member of the Minnesota Twins, I slip into an old habit. I walk in the clu
bhouse of their spring-training complex in Fort Myers, Florida, and immediately begin to scan the place for my locker and number. It’s not because I want to know where to go. It’s because I want to know what they think of me.
If you are lockering next to veteran guys—Joe Mauer or Justin Morneau, for instance—and have a number in the thirties or forties, that is the best possible news. If you are in a neighborhood with the bullpen catcher and the second-string batboy with a number 81 shirt in your locker, you’re probably not going to need to shop for real estate.
It takes a little time, but I finally find my space—in a row with Joe Nathan and Francisco Liriano. My number is 39. This is welcome news, and spring unfolds auspiciously. In outing after outing, I am filling up the strike zone with as fierce a knuckleball as I have ever had. The puzzle is getting solved. I face the Orioles one afternoon in Sarasota, Florida. Brian Roberts, the Orioles second baseman is up. I throw him three knuckleballs and he misses all three—the last one so badly that the bat flies into the stands and he looks at the catcher and starts to giggle. (When knuckleballers get the giggle response—which really means I am completely flummoxed and utterly embarrassed—you know you’re having a good day.) I start some games, and throw out of the pen some games, all with good results. I am hoping to show my versatility with the pitch. I finish the spring with 18 strikeouts in 17 innings, 4 walks, and a 2.02 ERA.
Camp is almost over and I still haven’t heard anything. At my locker one morning, I get a tap on the shoulder from Rick Anderson, the Twins’ pitching coach.
Gardy wants to see you in his office, Rick says. Gardy is Ron Gardenhire, the manager.
My heart shudders. Shoulder taps are not good this time of year. Skip-wants-to-see-you-in-his-office messages are even less good this time of year. I don’t want to think about 2008, when I pitched my tail off for the Mariners and got sent to Tacoma, but how can I not? I want to hope for the best, but I’m not very good at that. Given my history of failure and disappointment, you can understand why.
