Despite its lack of aesthetic charm, Great American Ball Park has been almost a personal field of dreams for Cole Hamels. After enduring long hours in Clearwater rehabbing injuries to his elbow, hand, and back, he finally made it to the major leagues and debuted in Cincinnati on May 12, 2006. He was nervous.You could see that in the five walks that he allowed in five innings. But there was also magic in that left arm.You could see that in the zero hits he allowed until his final inning and in the seven strikeouts he rang up.
Hamels had an aura about him as he took the mound that night.
“You heard about him all the time when he was in the minors,” said Brett Myers, who had been the team’s No. 1 pick in 1999, three years before Hamels. “There was nobody else doing what he was doing. I didn’t do it. Gavin Floyd [another former No. 1 pick] didn’t do it. He was making hitters look stupid. It was like, ‘What does he have that makes him so good?’ When he got here he showed us. He had great command and a great changeup. He was polished as hell. And he had heart and attitude.”
Though he’d mix in an occasional curveball, Hamels was working mostly with two pitches—fastball and changeup—in those days. He would eventually learn, painfully, that he’d have to broaden his repertoire, but that was enough for a rookie pitcher who had the benefit of being unfamiliar to big-league hitters.
Hamels went 9-8 with a 4.08 in 23 starts that first season. He was just 22 years old. The next season, he established himself as a mainstay in the rotation, going 15-5 with a 3.39 ERA in 28 starts. One of those starts—made in Cincinnati—figured importantly in the Phillies’ rise to top of the National League.
It was April 21, 2007. The Phillies were off to a dreadful 4-11 start and heat was building on third-year manager Charlie Manuel. When the Phillies arrived at Great American Ball Park for their game against the Reds that night, the beleaguered Manuel called a team meeting. It lasted 80 minutes, so long that batting practice was cancelled. Manuel spoke in the meeting. So did coaches Jimy Williams and Davey Lopes. Veteran pitcher Jamie Moyer was one of several players to speak his mind, telling his teammates they were playing like “a bunch of pussies.”
As the meeting went on, Hamels, just 23, sat and listened. This wasn’t the perfect environment for that night’s starter to prepare for a game, but things were a little desperate, so he had to deal with it. In talking about the meeting a few days later, Chase Utley said it was very beneficial in helping the team come together. But the best thing that happened for the Phillies’ unity—and possibly Manuel’s job status—that night was the performance that Hamels turned in when he took the mound. He pitched the first complete game of his career and struck out 15 in a 4-1 victory that started the five-game win streak that helped the Phillies extricate themselves from their early-season hole. Six months later, the Phils snapped a 14-year playoff drought and won their first of five straight NL East titles.
The Phils were a quick out in the 2007 postseason, but 2008 was a different story. Armed with a little October experience, a ripened lineup, a terrific bullpen, and a white-hot pitcher named Cole Hamels, the Phillies won the World Series that year. Still pitching with mostly fastballs and changeups, and the occasional curveball, Hamels went 5-2 with a 2.35 ERA in his final eight regular-season starts. He then won three Game 1s in the postseason and started the NLCS and World Series clinchers. He went 4-0 with a 1.80 ERA in five starts that October and won two series MVP Awards.
Not bad for a 24-year-old.
But that was just the thing. Hamels was just 24. He was young and on top of the baseball world and he didn’t handle it well.
After brushing the confetti from his shoulders and telling the adoring crowd that he looked forward to winning the World Series “again and again and again,” Hamels bathed a little too deeply in the spoils of success that off-season. He chatted with David Letterman and Ellen DeGeneres on TV. He and his wife, Heidi Strobel, a former contestant on the television reality show Survivor, moved into a penthouse at Liberty Place in Center City Philadelphia. He did autograph shows. In February, he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the headline: “The Fabulous New Life of Cole Hamels.” The only problem was this new life wasn’t so fabulous. While taking his victory lap around America, Hamels forgot what earned him the tour—his magic left arm. He neglected his off-season workouts and came to spring training in 2009 in less than peak condition. He was to be the Phillies’ Opening Day starter that season, but was knocked from the assignment when he experienced elbow soreness in spring training. That soreness was a result of not coming into camp in pitching shape. He had tried to catch up in a hurry and tweaked the elbow.
Hamels opened that season with a poor showing—allowing 11 hits and seven runs in 3⅔ innings—in Denver, then failed to lock down a 7-1 lead against the Padres in an 8-7 loss at home on April 17. After the game, he said he was embarrassed. A few days later, he admitted he lost focus of what was important over the winter and did a poor job preparing for the season.
“If it comes down to the end of the year and we lose the division by one game, I can easily raise my hand and say I screwed up,” he said. “I should be ready and by not being ready I’m jeopardizing the team. I pretty much didn’t fulfill my end of the bargain and get ready the way I should have. This has been a big learning step. I didn’t want to learn it, but I have.”
Hamels was never able to recover from his slow start that season. Oh, he had good games. He had too much talent not to. But he was not able to take the next step toward the greatness that was predicted for him after October 2008. He went 10-11 with a 4.32 ERA in 32 starts in 2009 and struggled in four postseason starts as the Phillies lost the World Series to the New York Yankees. Following a poor start in Game 3 of the World Series, Hamels reflected on what had been a difficult, mentally draining season for him and mentioned how eager he was to put it behind him. That didn’t mean he was giving up on the season or didn’t want to pitch again. In fact, he publicly wished that Charlie Manuel would give him the ball if the series went to a seventh game. He was simply trying to say he was eager to put the learning experience of 2009 behind him, but the words didn’t come out smoothly. In many circles, Hamels’ comments were construed as if he couldn’t wait for the Phillies’ postseason ride to be over. It caused quite a stir and didn’t win Hamels any points with the fans who had cheered him wildly just a year earlier.
At 25 years old, Cole Hamels had some work to do to get his career back on track, and in the winter that followed his latest learning experience, he did it.
Six weeks after losing to the Yankees in the World Series, the Phillies said hello to Roy Halladay and good-bye (temporarily) to Cliff Lee. Halladay came to the Phillies with the reputation of being the best pitcher in baseball, and Phillies officials were banking on a rebound season from Hamels as they tried to build a pitching staff that would take them back to the World Series in 2010.
Much of the early focus in spring training surrounded Halladay, but it soon shifted to Hamels. Lee was gone. The Phillies needed Hamels to be the pitcher he was in 2008, not the pitcher he was in 2009, if they were going to be the club they wanted to be in 2010.
Right from the beginning, it was clear that Hamels had reported to camp in better physical shape than the year before. He went underground during the off-season and stayed away from the spotlight. He worked on his body. He threw all winter. He worked on sharpening his curveball and adding a cutter after hitters started teeing off on his two-pitch repertoire. On the first day of camp, he smiled easily as he threw his new cutter on flat ground while playing catch. Hamels didn’t work only on his body and pitching skills that winter. He also spent hours working on the mental side of the game. He just wasn’t ready to tell anyone about it.
In the opinion of Pitching Coach Rich Dubee, Hamels’ mental makeover was much needed. Throughout the spring of 2010, Dubee frequently mentioned that Hamels had been his own worst enemy in 2009.
“He pitched with a lot of anger,” Dubee said. “He was e
asily frustrated when things didn’t go well. His body language wasn’t good. He wasn’t nearly as focused as he was the previous two years.”
Why the change?
“Cole got good too fast,” Dubee said. “When he first came up he didn’t have a World Series MVP. Now, all of a sudden, expectations of the public and the media are that much higher. When he wasn’t able to tame those expectations, he got mad at himself.”
Dubee didn’t mince words as he laid it all on the line for Hamels.
“The success won’t come back until the demeanor changes,” he said.
Slowly but surely, the demeanor changed. Hamels had seemingly grown up in front of everyone in the Phillies organization, but now, at 26, after high times and low times, he was ready to really grow up.
He fixed his curveball. He added that cutter. Added strength gave his fastball more crackle than ever. And, of course, he had the great changeup that he learned from Mark Furtak way back when. Hamels went 12-11 with a 3.06 ERA in 2010. His 2.23 ERA after the All-Star break was the fifth-best in the majors, and better than the ERA of any other pitcher on the Phillies’ staff. After the break, he struck out 104, second most in the majors.
Late that season, Hamels talked about how he turned things around. First and foremost, he said, he had learned that baseball was his job and required year-round focus and commitment. After the 2009 season, Hamels began carrying an equipment bag with him, and whether he’s visiting family in San Diego or vacationing in Tahoe, he finds time to condition his body for two hours a day. Hamels said the cutter helped him immensely and gave him another weapon, making him a four-pitch guy. And finally, late in the 2010 season, he admitted to taking a suggestion from his younger brother, Mitchell, and reaching out to Jim Brogan, a San Diego-based performance specialist who helps athletes sharpen the mental side of their games.
Brogan, who played two seasons in the NBA, recalled the first time Hamels called him.
“OK,” Brogan said. “Meet me at six in the morning.”
“Six in the morning?” Hamels asked, incredulously.
“What are others doing at six in the morning?” Brogan asked Hamels.
“Sleeping,” the pitcher said.
“That’s just my point,” Brogan said.
Brogan convinced Hamels that his failures were actually opportunities for improvement.
“You’ll never be great if you worry about what just happened,” Brogan told the pitcher. “Look forward. If you’re successful at everything, if you’re not failing every once in a while, you’re probably not doing what you’re supposed to be doing.You grow from failure.”
Brogan taught Hamels that frustration was poison and oxygen was gold. Relax. Breathe. Perform. Excel. In 18 sessions that winter, and in text messages before every start in 2010, Hamels took in everything Brogan taught him.
“I have a better idea of how to succeed for a full season now,” Hamels said late in the 2010 season. “I’ve learned that you can always start over. Throw a bad pitch—start over. I’ve learned you can’t let your emotions distract you from what you’re trying to do. That will drag you down. I don’t stress anymore.”
Why would a young man with so much talent stress in the first place?
“Expectations,” Hamels said. “When you’ve been there, done that, and you get there again and don’t have the results you’re supposed to, you stress. You press instead of breathing. I can calm myself now.”
In October 2010, Hamels found himself in the postseason for the fourth-straight year. He was back in Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, a place where he always seemed to shine. It was Game 3 of the National League Division Series and Hamels was never better. He struck out nine and walked none in a brilliant shutout that propelled the Phillies to a third-straight National League Championship Series.
As he blew a 94-mph fastball by Scott Rolen to end that game, Hamels pumped his left arm in triumph.
The magic never went out of that left arm. It just veered off course a time or two. Back in the fast lane and all grown up, Cole Hamels was ready for his best season yet in 2011.
ROY HALLADAY
In June 1995, the Phillies had a chance to get Roy Halladay. They passed. Of course, Roy Halladay wasn’t Roy Halladay then. At least he wasn’t the guy you see now. In 1995, he was a tall, lanky schoolboy. He threw straight over the top and blew through high school competition around Denver, Colorado, on raw talent. He’d fire a couple fastballs by an overmatched hitter, and then drop a curveball on him, and . . . good morning, good afternoon, good night.
Phillies scouts spent a lot of time watching Halladay that spring and seriously considered taking him with the 14th pick in the first round of that year’s draft. In fact, Halladay was still available when it was time for the Phils to make their selection.
The Angels opened that draft by selecting University of Nebraska outfielder Darin Erstad and the Padres followed by taking Ben Davis, a high school catcher from suburban Philadelphia. Anticipation in the Phillies’ war room at Veterans Stadium grew as the Twins made University of Oklahoma pitcher Mark Redman the 13th pick.
A hush fell over the room. Mike Arbuckle, then the team’s scouting director, announced to the Commissioner’s Office via a conference call that with the 14th pick the Phillies would take Reggie Taylor, a high-upside highschool outfielder from Newberry, South Carolina.
“Our room was split in half,” recalled Marti Wolever, the Phillies’ No. 2 man in scouting at the time. “Reggie was a legit, five-tool guy. He had everything you were looking for. He could run, throw, he hit for power—he could do everything. We had genuine concerns about Roy. His arm action was a concern to us. It was a little long in back. We had questions. Was there deception in his delivery? We weren’t sure about his plane to the plate. Could he get the ball down? There were concerns about his breaking ball.
“Some of our guys were on board with Roy, some weren’t. But everyone was on board with Reggie. We chose Reggie based on the information we had. Mike made the right decision at the time.”
The decision to take Taylor over Halladay illustrates the imperfect science that is scouting. Scouts look at an 18-year-old piece of clay and try to project if it can be molded into artwork by the time it’s 22. It’s not easy. If it were easy, Albert Pujols wouldn’t have been the 402nd player taken in the 1999 draft—he would have been first. Taylor never developed into the player Phillies officials envisioned. He hit just .231 with 14 homers and 58 RBIs in 260 career games with three clubs. Halladay, taken by Toronto three picks later, blossomed into someone widely hailed as the best pitcher in baseball for his excellence over a long period.
Though Phillies officials often look back at that 1995 draft and wonder what might have been, they may indeed have made the right call in passing on Halladay. Turns out the Blue Jays had the same concerns about Halladay’s delivery and arm action. Those concerns just didn’t come to the fore until six years later. Halladay could have been on his way to becoming a journeyman, a fringe big-leaguer just like Taylor, if the Jays hadn’t done something radical in spring training in 2001.
On pure talent, Halladay had risen to the big leagues quickly. Juan Samuel saw it. The Phillies third-base coach in 2011, Samuel finished up his playing career as a utility man with the Blue Jays in 1998. On the second-to-last day of the season, Samuel was in the clubhouse getting a head start on packing his belongings when someone said, “Hey, the kid is pitching a no-hitter.” Samuel headed down to the dugout and, sure enough, saw a string of zeroes on the scoreboard. In just his second big-league start, Halladay was throwing a no-hitter against the Detroit Tigers. He lost the no-hit bid on a pinch-hit two-out homer by Bobby Higginson in the ninth. As tough as it was to see the 21-year-old kid lose his no-hitter with one out to go, Jays officials loved what they saw. Maybe that over-the-top delivery and straight fastball would play in the big leagues. Maybe they made the right call taking Halladay with the 17th pick in the 1995 draft.
Halladay continued to br
eak into the majors in 1999 but by 2000 was veering badly offtrack. He had an ERA bigger than a big baby’s birth weight that season and things weren’t much better the following spring.
“He was getting his ass kicked,” said Buck Martinez, the Jays manager in 2001.
Halladay was dazed and confused and he didn’t know which way to turn. As a youth in Denver and on his way up the minor-league ladder, he’d always been the best pitcher on his team, a pitcher destined for greatness. Now, in the big leagues, the place he’d always dreamed of being, he was awful. He couldn’t get people out. He was as confused and scared as a 16-year-old on a learner’s permit trying to navigate rush-hour traffic. He was down in the dumps, his confidence in tatters.
“The one thing I knew is when I went out there I wasn’t sure what was going to happen,” Halladay recalled in the summer of 2011. “I was tentative. I wasn’t aggressive. I didn’t have a good approach.
“Pitching always seemed easy and even when it wasn’t easy, I still always managed to get through things. I really didn’t need the mental part of the game. I’d throw and get through it. I think you can do that to a certain point, but when things get bad they snowball on you, especially if you don’t have that good mental approach, and there’s no way to correct it. It continues to breed bad thoughts.”
Big-league hitters are hungry lions that can sense when a pitcher is tentative, when his confidence is down, when he is vulnerable. Halladay had become a skittish impala by the spring of 2001 and there was no way the Jays could let him loose in the jungle, not with all those hungry lions in the American League East.
Halladay was the dominant topic of conversation in Jays’ organizational meetings that spring.
“There was a lot of internal conversation about trading him,” recalled Gord Ash, then the Jays’ general manager. “Some quarters even called for him to be released.”
Halladay’s ERA in 2000 was 10.64, the highest single-season mark for a pitcher with 50 or more big-league innings. Ash knew he wasn’t going to get great value for Halladay in a trade after a season like that, and he damn well knew he wasn’t going to release a 23-year-old with an arm like that, even if scouts sometimes derisively referred to Halladay as “Iron Mike” because his upright stance, over-the-top delivery and straight fastball resembled one of those old metal-armed pitching machines that hitters used for batting practice.
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