Living on the Black

by John Feinstein

  “We need to ask Glavine if he’s not being a little bit of a prima donna not moving back a day,” WFAN’s Christopher Russo said on the air that day to his partner Mike Francesa. “Might be better for the team if he pitches in Miami, wouldn’t it?”

  Actually it might have been better for Glavine to pitch in Miami, where the temperature would be about forty degrees warmer than in Philadelphia. Rick Peterson had come to Glavine after the rainout and informed him that he and Randolph wanted him to take his turn in Philly. Hernandez was very delicate, and they didn’t want him to pitch in the cold weather.

  “Which was fine with me,” Glavine said. “I was planning on pitching in Philly, and I was mentally ready to pitch in the cold again. But I wouldn’t have minded being pushed back at all.”

  The reason Russo and Francesa got a chance to ask Glavine about the rotation was because WFAN paid him $35,000 a year to appear weekly with their afternoon drive duo, who had, arguably, the most popular local sports talk show in the country. It is now com-monplace for broadcast media outlets to pay athletes and coaches to appear regularly on the air, but WFAN must have the largest pay-the-jocks budget in the country. In addition to Glavine, the station paid both local managers, Joe Torre and Willie Randolph, to appear on a weekly basis, and it also paid a number of local pro football players and coaches for appearances. Glavine didn’t mind going on with Russo and Francesa, especially when it gave him a chance to correct a misconception, because unlike some talk-show hosts they would ask him the question rather than talk behind his back.

  Having explained to WFAN’s listeners why he was pitching that night, Glavine went out to pitch. In a way, it was an ideal night to pitch because, even though it was again frigid and windy, the wind was blowing straight in from left field. With the Phillies playing horribly, and the weather just as bad, the crowd in Citizens Bank Park was tiny — far smaller than the announced 27,058.

  Attendance figures can be deceiving, especially early in the season when the weather’s bad or late in the season when a team is out of contention. Major League Baseball announces the number of tickets sold, which means that season-ticket holders who stay away or those who buy a ticket but don’t show because of bad weather or a bad team are counted as being there.

  There were probably no more than fifteen thousand fans in the park when Garcia, wearing a red glove, walked to the mound. Before he could throw a pitch, the umpires made him return to the dugout to change gloves — the red was too distracting for the hitters. He returned with a bright blue glove, which was somehow deemed to be less distracting.

  Apparently the glove didn’t distract Moises Alou, who twice hit balls through the wind into the left-field bleachers, the first time with David Wright on first base, the second time leading off the sixth inning. Carlos Beltran added an RBI double in the fifth, and that was plenty for Glavine who pitched what was becoming a typical game for him: six innings, 103 pitches (exactly the same number as five days earlier), five walks and a hit batter, and six hits. He pitched into trouble, then he pitched out of trouble.

  The first inning was typical: Shane Victorino doubled to left, and Chase Utley walked. That brought up Ryan Howard, the 2006 National League MVP and one of baseball’s best hitters with men on base. Glavine’s first pitch was an outside fastball that Howard hit right back at him. Always prepared to field his position, Glavine grabbed the ball and turned it into a one-six-three double play. End of threat.

  In the third inning, Glavine did something that very few pitchers, if any, would think of doing. He intentionally, though technically unintentionally, walked Howard, with a 2–0 lead and the bases loaded.

  “Let’s put it this way,” he said. “No way was he going to see a fastball with the bases loaded. I would rather let him drive in one with a walk than four with a homer.”

  And so Glavine threw five changeups and one curve ball, which was way outside, and walked in a run. Then he got Pat Burrell to ground out to end the inning.

  It helped Glavine that the Phillies grounded into three double plays. That allowed him to pitch six shutout innings. He also got a hit and scored his first run of the season in the fifth. “I’m not as fast as I used to be,” he said. “But I can still move a little when there’s a run to be scored.”

  The only bad moment of the night for Glavine came in the fifth inning. Shawn Green had doubled with one out and moved to third on a Valentin ground out. Glavine came up. As a pitcher will always do in a situation with a runner on third, Glavine stood outside the batter’s box for a moment checking with third-base coach Sandy Alomar Sr. to see if anything — a squeeze bunt perhaps — had been called by Willie Randolph from the dugout.

  Nothing was on. Glavine took a rip at the first pitch and was stunned to see Green barreling down the third-base line. A squeeze bunt had been on, but Alomar had given Glavine a sign that indicated nothing was on and Glavine swung away. Green was easily thrown out, which was a lot better than what might have happened if Glavine had somehow hit a line drive in his direction.

  Signs get changed all the time in baseball. Since stealing signs is considered part of the game, teams constantly change their signs. In doing so, players have to be reminded that what might have been a bunt sign last week is now a take sign. In every set of signs, there is one sign that indicates to a player that something is on or that, no matter what comes after this, nothing is on. Glavine had seen the sign that indicated nothing was on. Alomar had given it inadvertently, forgetting for an instant that the signs had been switched.

  “It happens a couple times a year,” Glavine said. “We were lucky I swung and missed and lucky that, in the end, it didn’t affect the outcome of the game. As it turned out, it was just embarrassing.”

  The signs between a pitcher and a catcher are different than base-running signs, which involve things like touching one’s face, wiping a hand across the shirt, or touching the bill of one’s cap. A catcher will put down fingers — which can be a problem if a pitcher is at all nearsighted — to suggest to the pitcher what he wants him to throw. The standard signs are one finger for a fastball, two for a curve, three for a changeup or a slider, and, if a pitcher has a fourth pitch — say a cutter in Glavine’s case — that might be four fingers.

  But there are times when those signs change too. When a runner gets to second base, signs almost always change because the runner might see a sign and relay it to the hitter. Normally, the catcher will give two signs: the first one will be the indicator. If he puts down one finger, that means the next sign the pitcher sees is the pitch he wants him to throw. If he puts down two fingers first, that means the second sign he sees is the pitch he wants. It can get more complicated than that. A catcher can give a double indicator, meaning that the second sign he puts down — say a two followed by a three — is the sign indicator. In that case, the third sign that follows the indicator is the pitch that’s called.

  Glavine is fairly simplistic about signs because he rarely shakes off his catcher. “Maybe once a game he’ll do it,” catcher Paul Lo Duca said. “If you have experience catching Tom, you have a good idea what he wants to throw, and he doesn’t worry all that much about what he’s throwing as much as where he’s throwing it.”

  Mussina is different. His catcher, Jorge Posada, knows that his sign is nothing more than a suggestion to Mussina, who will probably shake him off about 50 percent of the time — not unusual for an experienced pitcher who throws as many different pitches as Mussina does. When there’s a runner on second base, Mussina insists on a completely different set of signs from the indicator through the actual pitch call. “He’s as careful with a runner on second as anyone I’ve ever worked with,” Posada said. “That’s part of Mike being Mike; he doesn’t leave anything to chance.”

  The Mets were able to joke about the missed sign in Philadelphia because no one was hurt, and they went on to win the game 8–1. Things were a lot worse for the Phillies. Not only did they lose, but after Glavine struck out to end the inning, th
e Phils threw the ball around the infield, forgetting that Glavine had just made the third out. Not one of the nine men on the field made a move for the dugout.

  At game’s end, while the Mets prepared to head for Miami with an 8–4 record, the Phillies clubhouse was not a happy place to be. The team was 3–9, and Charlie Manuel got into a shouting match with a radio reporter who wondered what in the world was wrong with a team that was supposed to be a contender.

  There were no shouting matches in the Mets clubhouse. Glavine was now 3–1, and his ERA after four starts was 2.70. He had only one complaint at that moment: “Is the temperature ever going to hit fifty?” he asked.

  IT WAS STILL APRIL, and for Mike Mussina the month of April felt like a long season. When he began to do rehabilitation exercises on his leg, he was relieved to find that the injury wasn’t serious. The team had done an MRI to be certain there was no tear, and once that had been confirmed he began working toward being able to get back on a mound, throw with some velocity, and land on the injured leg without feeling pain.

  As it turned out, that took about two weeks. Which meant that his first goal — to return to pitching in the minimum fifteen days — wasn’t going to be met.

  “You can’t rush these things,” Joe Torre said. “You especially can’t rush them with a thirty-eight-year-old. I know Moose wants to get back out there, especially with the staff struggling, but he’s smart enough to know the point is to get him out there and keep him out there, not have him go out and hurt it again.”

  Mussina did understand that. He also understood the various steps in coming back from an injury because he had been there before. Once he was back on the mound throwing in the bullpen without pain, he could begin to plan a rehab start. Since he hadn’t been out for that long, one would probably be enough.

  A player can be placed on a rehab assignment for as long as thirty days. After that, if he isn’t called up to the major league team, he must either be assigned to the minor league team or just remain on the DL and not play at all. That rarely happens. Most rehabs last no more than a week for a position player and a start or two for a pitcher.

  Mussina was ready for his rehab start on April 27. The plan was for him to pitch for the Trenton Thunder in a game in Harrisburg, and then, if all went well, he would pitch the following Wednesday on his regular four days’ rest in Texas.

  “It feels fine right now,” he said, sitting in the dugout at Yankee Stadium on the day before the planned rehab game. “But you really can’t tell for sure until you really push it. Even the rehab game doesn’t tell you for sure, but it should give you a pretty good indicator. At least you hope so.”

  There was one problem with the rehab plan: weather.

  “We’re trying to find a place where it isn’t supposed to rain tomorrow,” Torre said. “Right now, there’s no place. Everywhere he could pitch, there’s supposed to be rain.”

  Mussina couldn’t help but roll his eyes when he heard the various weather reports. “Into my life rain always falls — especially when I’m supposed to pitch,” he said, smiling. “I remember one spring it rained so much on days I was pitching that I started to think I was related to Noah. Right now, sitting here, I have no idea where I’m pitching tomorrow. I know it will be someplace, but the last thing I want to do is get on a plane, fly someplace, and not be able to pitch.”

  The alternative to flying someplace to pitch in a minor league game was to stay in New York and pitch a simulated game, either on the Yankee Stadium mound or, if it were raining in New York (which was predicted), in the bullpen. Neither Torre nor Guidry was terribly excited about that idea.

  “I think you need to pitch in a real game of some kind,” Torre said. “You just push yourself harder by instinct when there are fielders around, real hitters at the plate, and a scoreboard behind you. If there’s anyone I would trust to know how hard he needs to push himself, it’s Moose, but I’d much rather get him into a real game.”

  The decision was made not to make a decision until after that night’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays. Mussina’s return was very much under the radar at that moment anyway. The Yankees were floundering at 8–12 and had called up twenty-year-old phenom Philip Hughes, who had been scheduled to spend the season in Triple-A.

  On the same day that Mussina had gone on the DL, Carl Pavano had also gone on the DL. After his impressive outing in Minnesota, he had reported some tightness in his right forearm. The so-called tightness would eventually lead to season-ending surgery. Chien-Ming Wang had made his first start of the season two days earlier, but with Pavano gone and Mussina not back yet and the rookies who had been given starts all struggling, the Yankees were desperate enough to push up Hughes’s schedule by several months.

  While Mussina was studying weather reports, Torre sat a few feet away in the dugout going through his daily meeting with the media, who surrounded him at the start of batting practice each day with microphones, TV cameras, and notebooks. Getting close enough to Torre to actually hear him was so important that some media members would take up spots near where Torre always sat twenty minutes before he was due to arrive.

  One of the Japanese reporters asked Torre the day’s opening question: “Joe, is there panic in the locker room at this point?”

  “Absolutely,” Torre replied, deadpan. “That’s the way we always do things around here.”

  With Hughes making his debut and a series with the Red Sox — who already had a five-and-a-half game lead — beginning the next day, the subject of Mussina’s rehab start was not front-page (or, in New York, back-page) news. Which was fine with Mussina.

  “The less questions I’m asked right now the better,” he said. “Because until I get on a mound and try to throw hard, I really don’t have any answers.”

  He wasn’t nervous about the rehab start because there was really nothing to be nervous about. “Either I’m good enough to pitch next week or I’m not,” he said. “It isn’t as if I have to prepare mentally. This is all physical. The mental part will come again when I can actually pitch in a game.”

  Hughes was unimpressive that night, and the Yankees lost again, this time 6–0. After the game Torre studied the weather reports and made a decision.

  “Nothing looks good,” he told Mussina when Mussina came into his office to check in before driving home. “The last thing we need is for you to not pitch tomorrow because if you’re healthy we need you to pitch Wednesday.”

  Mussina knew that. “I really think I can find out what I need to find out if I stay here and pitch a simulated,” he told Torre.

  Reluctantly, Torre agreed.

  “If we hear something different about the weather, I’ll call you in the morning,” Torre said. “Otherwise, let’s do it here early tomorrow afternoon.”

  Mussina woke up the next morning to find it raining hard. There had been no change in the weather report for any of the cities where he might go to pitch. He arrived back at Yankee Stadium at 1:30, and, with the rain still coming down steadily, he walked under the stands along with Guidry; Ramon Rodriguez, the number two bullpen catcher; and pitching instructor Rich Monteleone, to the Yankee bullpen in right field.

  Mussina warmed up as if he were about to pitch in a game, throwing to Rodriguez, while Guidry stood behind him watching. After Mussina had thrown about thirty pitches, Monteleone stood in at the plate as a batter, and Mussina began to pitch to him. There were differences between this and a real game, of course: Monteleone didn’t swing at any of his pitches, and there was no umpire calling balls and strikes, although Mussina made a mental note about where his pitches were going, and Guidry made a point of noting location.

  He threw about twenty pitches, mixing them up the way he might in a game. Then he sat down for about ten minutes to simulate the wait he would have in the dugout while his team was at bat. He pitched the second “inning” from the stretch, then sat down again. The third inning was from the windup, then one more inning — after another break — from the stretc
h. In all, he threw about sixty-five pitches. He was a little bit tired when he was finished, but there was no pain in the hamstring. He had made a point of focusing on trying to throw hard, trying to imagine a batter swinging at his pitches. He told Guidry he felt fine. He was ready to pitch on Wednesday in Texas.

  “Joe’s right. Being out in the bullpen with no one around, and a hitter who isn’t swinging at your pitches isn’t the same as pitching in a game,” Mussina said. “But I wasn’t really trying to find out that day if I had good stuff or location, even though I was aware of both. I was trying to find out if I could pitch, sit for a while, pitch again and sit again, and not get stiff or tight or feel pain in my hamstring. I was able to do it, and that’s what was important.

  “I didn’t feel relieved; I just felt more like, ‘Okay, let’s go. Let’s get this season on track.’ ”

  Once Torre got the report on Mussina’s performance in the bullpen, he penciled him in to start the next Wednesday in Texas. That would be May 2 — a month into the season. The first month had been a complete washout for Mussina: two starts, six innings pitched, six runs allowed, and a record of 0–1. By the time he took the mound in Texas, the Yankees’ record would be 11–14.

  Not exactly the start anyone had envisioned. But, in case you’ve never heard it before, it’s a long season. It had certainly been a long month.

  14

  Spring in New York

  TOM GLAVINE FINALLY GOT HIS WISH when the Mets came home from Florida. The Braves were in town for three games, and after one more cold, miserable night on Friday, the weather finally broke. The sun came out on Saturday, the temperatures went up, and more than fifty-five thousand people showed up for the second game of the series, which the Mets won, after Tim Hudson had pitched the Braves to a win in the opener.