Abbott’s right arm ends about where his wrist should be. He doesn’t have a right hand, just a loose flap of skin at the end of his underdeveloped arm. Otherwise, he was a strapping 6-foot-3 200-pounder in his prime whose physique could have served as a model for the ideal baseball player.

Abbott, who retired in 1999, pitched with a right-hander’s fielder’s glove perched pocket-down over the end of his stubbed right arm. At the conclusion of his delivery, he would deftly slip his left hand into the glove and be ready to field the ball. After catching the ball, he would cradle the glove against his chest in the crook of his right arm and extract the ball with his left hand, ready to make another throw. Observers invariably marveled at how smoothly and efficiently he could catch and throw the ball with one hand.

Jim Abbott’s parents were still teenagers when he was born in Flint, Michigan, on September 19, 1967. Having a child at such as young age was difficult enough, especially a child with a disability, but Mike and Kathy Abbott resolved to make their son’s life as normal as possible. Mike Abbott sold cars and worked as a meatpacker and Kathy took courses at home while raising Jim. Eventually both parents finished college and went on to successful careers, Mike in management and Kathy as a teacher and later an attorney. Jim’s parents always encouraged him to try things and helped him acquire confidence. “We decided that if Jim wanted to [play sports] then to let him try,” said Mike Abbott in a 1998 USA Today interview. “I helped out with some things. But in the end it was all Jim. It had to be.”1

Jim started showing an interest in sports at an early age. Trying to nudge him toward a sport that didn’t depend on the use of his hands, his parents bought him a soccer ball. But, Jim didn’t really like soccer. After all, every other kid in the neighborhood was playing baseball so that’s what he wanted to do. Ironically, it was Jim’s younger brother, Chad, who became a soccer player.

So Jim Abbott began developing the remarkable hand-eye coordination that would allow him to do with one hand what others did with two. He spent hours throwing a rubber ball against a brick wall and catching it on the rebound. His father helped him develop the technique for handling his glove-hand switch which allowed Jim him to throw and catch the ball with the same hand. Over the years he continued this drill, moving closer and closer to the wall and making the glove transition faster and faster.

When Jim began school, he was fitted with a mechanical hand made of fiberglass and metal. But he hated the prosthesis, which he called a “hook,” because it frightened some of his classmates and made him self-conscious. Eventually his parents stopped making him wear it.

At the age of 11, Jim joined a Little League team and threw a no-hitter in the first game he pitched. Despite his early success, most people figured the competition would soon pass him by. In fact, at every step, from Little League on, he kept hearing that his playing days would probably end at that level. But at each new level, Jim proved his doubters wrong. When he entered high school at Flint Central, his new coach doubted Jim would be able to defend his position adequately. But Jim actually fielded well enough to play first base and the outfield when he wasn’t pitching.

Even his hitting was exceptional. Jim batted from the left side, wrapping his left hand around the bat and the stub of his right arm. He was able to generate remarkable power, blasting seven homers and batting an excellent .427 as a senior. On the mound that year he won ten games and lost three with an incredibly low 0.76 ERA and averaged more than two strikeouts per inning pitched.

Jim was also the backup quarterback for Flint Central until the end of his senior year when he started the last three games, passing for 600 yards and six touchdowns. In addition, he was the squad’s punter, averaging 37.5 yards per kick as a senior. His first national exposure came when his high school football accomplishments were featured on NBC’s The NFL Today pregame show.

Abbott was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays out of high school in the 36th and last round of the draft, but turned down their $50,000 bonus offer to attend the nearby University of Michigan. Despite the major league offer and his high school achievements, colleges with top baseball programs didn’t heavily recruit him. There were still some reservations about his disability, and Abbott himself admitted to having some initial doubts about his ability to play college baseball. But they were quickly dispelled. As a freshman he was named Most Courageous Athlete for 1986 by the Philadelphia Sportswriters Association after posting a record of six wins against two losses. The season was not without embarrassment, however. After his first college game, the modest young hurler was mortified and suffered an unmerciful razzing from his teammates when the press held the team bus up for an hour to interview him.

Over the next two seasons, Jim continued to develop as a pitcher and began to think seriously about a career in professional baseball. In 1987 he pitched the Wolverines to first place in the Big Ten Eastern Division standings and then to the conference championship and threw a shutout in the NCAA tournament. For the season he won 11 games against three losses. He then earned a spot on the U.S. national amateur baseball team, Team USA, and on the warm-up tour threw his three-hit complete-game victory against the vaunted Cuban team in front of 50,000 spectators. In the Pan American Games, he not only carried the flag for the U.S. delegation, but also won two games without giving up an earned run as Team USA captured a silver medal. For the year, his efforts earned him the Sullivan Award, being chosen over hurdler Greg Foster and basketball star David Robinson as the outstanding amateur athlete in the country. He then beat out future major-league stars Jack McDowell, Robin Ventura, and Ken Griffey Jr. for the coveted Golden Spikes Award, given to the top amateur baseball player.

Abbott had another fine season at Michigan in 1988, becoming the first baseball player to ever be named Big Ten Conference Player of the Year. He then pitched the U.S. Olympic Team to victory over Japan with a 5-3 complete-game effort, which he still considers his biggest thrill in sports.

After his Olympic triumph, Abbott decided to forgo his last year of college eligibility to enter the professional ranks. He was selected by the California Angels with the eighth pick in the first round of the amateur draft and negotiated a $207,000 bonus. As happened whenever Jim moved up to another level in sports, skeptics came out of the woodwork to question whether a player with one arm could perform at the next level. The familiar old questions about his ability to defend his position resurfaced.

On bunts and slow rollers Abbott often didn’t have time to field the ball with his glove and make the transfer. So he usually discarded the glove and fielded bunts barehanded. In high school, an opposing coach once ordered the first eight batters to bunt. After the first one reached base, Jim shut down the bunting game by retiring the next seven in a row. Of course, he had to pass the same test in college and the big leaguers would also give it a try. But once again, Abbott answered with great coordination and quick reflexes.

The 1989 edition of the Angels that Abbott joined as a rookie was a talented team — legitimate pennant contenders. They’d finished fourth to Kansas City in 1988 and featured a solid pitching staff that had been bolstered by the off-season acquisition of veteran ace Bert Blyleven, who already had more than 250 major-league victories under his belt. It didn’t seem likely that a raw, 21-year-old rookie could crack the rotation.

Up to that time only 15 players had made their professional debut in the major leagues since the establishment of the amateur draft in 1965. Still fewer enjoyed successful careers while most quickly faded into oblivion. Everyone assumed Abbott would be farmed out to gain needed experience, but he made the team out of spring training and edged into the starting rotation. Injuries to other members of the rotation, as much as his own performance, allowed Abbott to make the opening day roster, but there was still a good deal of second-guessing. Many felt Abbott’s retention was more about public relations than fielding the best roster.

It’s true Abbott was a media sensation. His first spring appearance was in a “B-game” that had to be moved from a practice field to the main stadium to accommodate the throng of fans and media representatives. At the postgame press conference, Abbott patiently discussed his pitching/fielding motion. “I’ve been doing this since I was 5 years old. Now it’s as natural as tying my shoes,” he said to reporters, leaving them to contemplate the complexity of tying one’s shoes with one hand.2

As with the beginning of every new phase in his career, Abbott’s first regular season start was a major event. The media, including four television crews from Japan, converged on Anaheim Stadium in full force for the grand debut. Jim lasted less than five innings and racked up his first major league loss, but left to a standing ovation from the huge crowd. Baseball America ranked his debut second only to Jackie Robinson‘s breaking of the color barrier in terms of historical significance.

After another defeat, Abbott beat the Baltimore Orioles in his third start and settled down to pitch good baseball the rest of the season. He ended the year with 12 wins against the same number of losses. The dozen victories were the most major league wins by a pitcher in his first professional season since long-forgotten Ernie Wingard won 13 in 1924 for the old St. Louis Browns before fading into obscurity.

The Angels finished the 1989 season in third place and Abbott was voted the club’s Rookie of the Year. He was also named the Most Inspirational Player by the Anaheim chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America.

Abbott’s deft handling of the constant public pressure may have been his most impressive accomplishment, however. Handsome and articulate, he was interviewed countless times by the major networks and publications. He turned down repeated book offers, and received tons of mail — including a personal telegram from Nolan Ryan before his first start. Hall of Famers Ernie Banks and Bobby Doerr asked for his autograph, and 363-game-winner Warren Spahn called him his hero. Jim studied communications in college and was better prepared than most 21-year-old rookies to handle the crush. His maturity and cooperation with the press and the public won him a legion of loyal supporters and he naturally became an inspirational role model for kids with all kinds of disabilities.

Questions about his ability still remained, however. Abbott had trouble holding runners on base and his fielding was weak. He was the second easiest pitcher in the league to steal against and he had a rather low fielding percentage. By his own admission, he missed many plays that he should have made.

Abbott experienced a disappointing 1990 sophomore season, compiling a 10-14 won-lost record. He got off to a terrible start in 1991, suffering four straight losses to begin the season after an unimpressive spring performance. Calls for his demotion to the minors lit up the phone lines to the sports talk shows, but the club stuck by him and he managed to turn the corner.

In fact, he ended up enjoying a breakthrough campaign. Although the Angels faded after the All-Star Game, Abbott won eleven games after the break to finish 1991 campaign with an 18-11 won-lost mark and a stingy 2.89 earned run average. In the voting for the American League Cy Young Award, the most prestigious pitching honor in the league, he placed third as Roger Clemens of the Red Sox captured the trophy for the third time. Abbott’s 1991 record is even more impressive when the lack of run support provided by the Angels hitters is taken into account. According to a concept for rating pitcher performance developed by noted baseball statistician and author Bill James, Abbott led the American League in “tough losses” with eight.

Another highlight of Abbott’s excellent 1991 campaign was a 375-foot triple he drove into the gap in a spring training contest against the San Francisco Giants. Since the Angels were in the American League where the designated hitter is used, Abbott didn’t get to bat during the regular season. The triple was his first hit in a major-league uniform and the pitcher drove his teammates crazy talking about it.

In December 1991 Jim married Dana Douty, who had grown up in the Anaheim area. What should have been a very satisfying offseason for young Jim Abbott was marred by antagonistic salary negotiations, but he eventually signed a one-year contract for $1.85 million, which made him the highest-paid fourth-year pitcher in baseball history at that time.

The 1992 season was another memorable one for him, but for all the wrong reasons. The Angels won only 72 games and finished fifth in the seven-team American League Western Division. Despite pitching well all year, Abbott posted a dismal 7-15 won-lost record. But his sparkling 2.77 ERA was a more accurate indicator of the quality of his efforts. Throughout his career Abbott routinely suffered from poor run support, but in 1992 the Angels backed him with the lowest run-support figure in the American League since the adoption of the designated-hitter rule in 1973. In the offseason, Abbott received the Tony Conigliaro Award, which is presented annually to the player who best overcomes obstacles and continues to thrive through adversity.

In December 1992 Abbott was swapped to the New York Yankees for three minor-league prospects when the Angels couldn’t sign him to a long-term agreement. The Yankees, who hadn’t participated in a postseason game in more than a decade, were hungry for a pennant going into the 1993 season. They’d signed Wade Boggs and Jimmy Key as free agents and acquired Paul O’Neill and Abbott in trades and looked like a solid contender. Abbott and agent Scott Boras, who’d rejected a four-year, $4 million-per-season offer from the Angels in October, immediately ran into problems negotiating a contract with the Yankees. They ended up in arbitration, where the Yankees’ $2.35 million offer beat out Abbott’s $3.5 million request. The Yankees’ negative arguments confused and upset the young hurler. “Why did they trade for me if that’s what they think?” he wondered. It was an early sign that the sensitive pitcher might have a tough time in the Bronx. Nevertheless, Abbott tried to embrace the city and the team. But, his entire term in New York was frustrating and his performance was mediocre.

One of the few bright spots was a September 4, 1993, no-hit victory over the Cleveland Indians in the midst of a tight pennant race. The no-hitter catapulted Abbott back into the national spotlight and once again focused on the unique accomplishments of a baseball player performing, and performing exceptionally well, with one hand.

But a little more than a week after his no-hit gem, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner publicly blasted Abbott for not doing the job, even questioning the pitcher’s courage. Steinbrenner’s outburst, with his team only a game and a half out of first place, seemed to take the heart out of the club, and they limped home to a second-place finish, seven games behind Toronto. Abbott finished with a record of 11 wins against 14 losses.

Abbott’s second season in New York started out as turbulently as the first. Before spring training even started, “The Boss” blamed Abbott’s mediocre 1993 performance on his charity work and frequent visits with disabled children. “Jim Abbott’s got to give 100 percent of his attention to baseball!” Steinbrenner demanded.3 Abbott, who’d been selected for the prestigious “Free Spirit Award” for his work with children, was stunned and actually found himself having to defend his charitable efforts. Another confrontation occurred when the Yankees invented a new glove for him with a flap that was supposed to hide his grip on the ball from the opposing first base coach’s sight. The theory was that Abbott was tipping his pitches because he wasn’t able to pitch out of his glove like other pitchers. Jim warmed up with the new glove before his second start of the season, but couldn’t get comfortable with the new device and refused to use it in a game.

The 1994 season ended in mid-August when the players went on strike. Abbott’s final tally for the abbreviated season was nine wins and eight losses. On December 23 the Yankees decided not to tender an offer for the 1995 season and he became a free agent. He was expected to sign with the Angels, who’d just named Marcel Lachemann, Jim’s favorite pitching coach, as their manager. But the Chicago White Sox came up with a better offer.

Abbott pitched respectably in Chicago, but the Sox traded him to the Angels when they dropped out of the Central Division race early. The Angels, who were in the thick of the Western Division race, welcomed Jim back with open arms. He won five games and lost four for California, but the team came up a game short in its quest for the division title. For both teams combined his won-lost record was 11-8 and he posted a 3.70 earned run average, a substantial improvement over his performance in New York.

Before the 1996 season, Jim signed a new three-year deal with the Angels and reported to spring training set for a big season. But he posted a woeful 2-18 won-lost record, accompanied by a horrendous 7.48 earned run average. Even a midseason trip to Vancouver, the first minor league action of his career, didn’t help. His poor performance continued the next spring and the Angels released him, eating the final two years of his $7.8 million contract.

Out of baseball at the age of 29, Jim Abbott went home to spend time with his wife and new baby daughter, and devote more time to his many charitable activities.

After sitting out the entire 1997 season, Abbott attempted a comeback with the White Sox. He worked his way back pitching in the Sox system for Hickory, Winston-Salem, Birmingham, and Calgary before a late-season trial call-up to Chicago. With the White Sox, he won all five of his starts.

The miracle comeback was not to continue, however. The White Sox weren’t confident that Abbott’s resurgence was for real and didn’t re-sign him for the 1999 season. He signed with the Milwaukee Brewers but was released in July with a 2-8 won-lost mark and 6.91 earned run average. He did provide some final heroics, though. Since Milwaukee was in the National League where the designated hitter isn’t employed, Abbott got a chance to bat, and on June 15, 1999, he lined out the first base hit by a one-handed batter in the major leagues in more than 50 years since one-armed outfielder Pete Gray played for the St. Louis Browns in 1945.

Immediately after his release by Milwaukee, Jim announced his retirement from baseball. He now has two children and lives in California. He is in demand as a motivational speaker and is still heavily involved in children’s charities. He’s associated with Amigos de los Ninos, a California organization that aids groups that care for children, has twice been named the March of Dimes Athlete of the Year, and received the Freedom Forum’s Free Spirit Award for his charitable work. He’s still very involved in disabled children’s causes and continues to make appearances for various charitable organizations. In 2004 he was inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.

What happened to Jim Abbott’s promising career? How could a pitcher who was considered to have the best stuff of any left-hander in the league in 1993 be through six years later at 31 years of age? The most popular explanation is that the opposition was able to read his pitches because he couldn’t shield the ball with his glove. Likewise, base runners were able to take advantage because he couldn’t conceal his pickoff move to first base. Other experts insisted that he was bunted out of the league.

Abbott, however, refused to blame his disability. He maintained that the problem was that his fastball started to lose velocity fairly early in his career and it was too big an adjustment to go from power to finesse. In his earlier years, his fastball consistently approached 95 mph, but by the end of his career he was topping out around 85 to 90 mph.

For his major-league career, Jim Abbott won 87 games and lost 108 with a 4.25 earned run average. Yet, he had as much of an impact as any player who played the game, giving renewed hope to thousands with disabilities. He once estimated that he had at least one scheduled meeting with a disabled child during every road series of his career.

“My experiences, added up, make me feel like I’ve had a Hall of Fame career,” Abbott said when announcing his retirement from the game.

Last revised: September 12, 2022 (zp)

This article is an adaptation of a profile of Jim Abbott in Rick Swaine, “Beating the Breaks: Major League Ballplayers Who Overcame Disabilities” (McFarland & Co., 2004). An updated version also appeared in “Overcoming Adversity: The Tony Conigliaro Award” (SABR, 2017), edited by Bill Nowlin and Clayton Trutor.

Sources

Books

Bernotas, Bob, Nothing to Prove: the Jim Abbott Story (New York: Kodansha American, 1995).

Gutman, Bill, Jim Abbott Star Pitcher (New York: Grey Castle Press, Inc., 1992).

Online

CBS Sportsline, March 31, 1997, “Veteran Lefthander Jim Abbott Released by Angels.” cbs.sportsline.com/mlb, (unknown access date)

Lowe, John, “Abbott retires at 31: ‘It’s time to admit reality.'” Detroit Free Press, July 27, 1999, freep.com/sports/baseball/qaabbott27, (3/22/03)

“Former ‘M’ star, Abbott, bats in 1st MLB game.” The Michigan Daily Online, April 9, 1999, pub.umich.edu.daily/1999/apr/04-09-99/sports/sports6, accessed (9/6/02)

Seguine, Jim, “Jim Abbott returns to baseball.” Michigan Today, Summer 1999, umich.edu/~newsinfo/MT/99/Sum99/mtl0j99, (9/6/02)

Rolfe, John, “Jim Dandy,” turnerlearning.com/efts/bball/jimdandy.htm, (9/6/2002)

“Jim Abbott: Career Notes,” espn.go.com/mlb/profiles/notes/4038.html, (10/2/02)

Speakers Platform: Featuring the Finest Keynote Speakers, speaking.com/speakers/jimabbott.html, (10/3/06)

Notes

Baldelli was born on September 25, 1981, in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. As of 2016, only 76 players from the Ocean State have made it to the major leagues. Nevertheless, Woonsocket has been well represented: It is the birthplace of Hall of Famers Nap Lajoie and Gabby Hartnett. While most youngsters in Rhode Island passionately support either the Boston Red Sox or the New York Yankees, Baldelli said he never developed an allegiance to any one team.1

The son of Dan and Michelle Baldelli, Rocco Dan Baldelli has two brothers, Nicholas and Dante. The family is primarily of Italian and French ancestry. Dan Baldelli, a retired Woonsocket firefighter, was as of 2016 a small-business man of many parts; his enterprises included a coffee shop and a pawn shop/check-cashing store in Woonsocket. He coached the Little League teams of each of his sons. Michelle Baldelli seemed destined to be involved in baseball, as she was named after Mickey Mantle.2

The cold, snowy Rhode Island winters prevented Rocco from getting outside and playing as frequently as his peers from the Sunbelt. So he took his game inside, to the basement of his father’s Hava Java Coffee House. The basement, with its 13-foot ceiling, featured a homemade batting cage. The Dungeon, as the basement became known to scouts, allowed Baldelli to take hits cuts even as the temperature outside dipped below freezing. Karl Allaire, an Astros second-round pick out of Rhode Island College in 1984 who worked for Dan Baldelli, would throw Rocco all the batting practice he wanted.

As a 12-year-old, Baldelli played AAU baseball, and his team went to the national finals. In a basketball game at age 13, Rocco suffered a serious injury. He shattered his tibia, severely injuring the tendons in his leg. Doctors thought that the injury looked as if he had been in a car accident, and they encouraged Baldelli to focus on his schoolwork because his injury might prevent further participation in basketball. iii He later said, “I wasn’t really worried about sports. I wanted to concentrate on rehab so I could walk again and maybe even run someday.” iv

He skipped playing baseball in both his freshman and sophomore years of high school, but his father urged him to try out for the local American Legion team. “I hadn’t touched a baseball in two years,” Baldelli said. “Rusty was an understatement. I was pretty awful. Even shagging balls in the outfield – it wasn’t happening.”

“He looked so bad,” Dan said. “He missed everything. I was sitting in the car wondering why I had asked him do this. He came back to the car and gave me a look like, ‘Are you happy now?'” The family was surprised when they learned that Baldelli’s return to baseball had not been a short-lived experiment. He had made the team. v

Baldelli ended up playing baseball, basketball, and volleyball for Bishop Hendricken High School in Warwick, about 25 miles from home. vi In high school, Baldelli had his sights set on attending an academically strong college, hoping that he could play both basketball and baseball. vii An honor student at Bishop Hendricken, Baldelli was considering schools like Wake Forest and Princeton. viii

In the summer before his senior year, Baldelli attended a major-league scouting event at Holy Cross College in nearby Worcester, Massachusetts, which put him on the radar of professional baseball organizations. He had received a nearly-unbelievable 50 scholarship offers from various colleges after impressing observers at the 1999 East Coast Showcase in Wilmington, North Carolina. Though he didn’t have the typical baseball pedigree, pro scouts weren’t always looking for in-game records. “We fell in love with his athletic abilities,” said Dan Jennings, Tampa Bay’s scouting director at the time. “He showed every tool you want to see. His arm was the only thing that wasn’t above average. We made sure we jumped on him right away.” ix

In addition to the attention he received for his baseball skills, Baldelli received a scholarship offer to play volleyball at UCLA. x Baldelli was an elite volleyball player known across the nation for his skills, and when he sent video footage to major-league clubs, the tape included 20 minutes of his play on the volleyball court and only two minutes of action on the baseball field. xi

Skipping basketball in his senior season, Baldelli devoted his free time to taking batting practice in the family’s batting cage. Partway through his senior baseball season, Baldelli pulled an oblique muscle and was unable to play for a month. Though he returned in time to play one game before the 2000 major-league baseball draft, Dan Baldelli said that he didn’t know what to expect from the draft. The family had heard that Baldelli might be drafted somewhere between the 5th and 15th rounds, and they decided that he would go to college unless he was taken in the first round. xii

Just before the draft, Peter Gammons of ESPN wrote that Baldelli could be the top prospect available. He noted that because of Baldelli’s injury and the Rhode Island weather, not many teams had seen him play in person. Baldelli worked out for the Devil Rays only four days before the draft, and the Cleveland Indians found out about him after former Cleveland Browns head football coach Bill Belichick called Indians executives and told them that Baldelli might be the best athlete he had ever seen. xiii

The Devil Rays drafted Baldelli with their first pick; he was the sixth pick overall. Mike Arbuckle, the head of scouting for the Philadelphia Phillies, said that if Baldelli had been available in the draft at the 15th pick of the first round, the Phillies might have selected him instead of taking Chase Utley, the player who became their longtime second baseman. xiv

Shortly after the draft, Baldelli worked out at Tropicana Field before a Devil Rays game. He showed humility in the comments he made after an impressive batting practice. “There’s nothing I do well enough to be a major-league player,” Baldelli said. “This is great, coming to St. Petersburg, getting a little taste of baseball at its highest level, but I am excited about getting on to the Rookie League, where I can learn.” xv

Baldelli struggled with the Rookie-level Princeton Devil Rays that year. He hit just .216 with three home runs in 251 plate appearances over 60 games. He said that he had always tried to pull the ball for a home run in high school, and he had to spend much of his first two professional seasons learning to hit the ball to all fields. xvi

In 2001, playing for the South Atlantic League’s Charleston (South Carolina) River Dogs of the low Class-A South Atlantic League, Baldelli improved his batting average to .249 and homered eight times in 113 games. In 2002 he had his breakout season. He played at three levels, promoted from High-A to Double A to Triple A, and was named the Minor League Player of the Year by Baseball America. xvii “That’s just an honor,” Baldelli said. “Those kind of honors don’t come around too often. It’s a credit to so many who put in so much time to help me out.” xviii

In 77 games with the Bakersfield Blaze (California League), Baldelli hit .333with 14 home runs. For the Double-A Orlando Rays (Southern League), he hit.371 in 17 games, and in Triple A, he hit .292 for the Durham Bulls.

In 2003 Baldelli spent all season in the major leagues with the Devil Rays. The child with the seriously injured leg had grown into a 6-foot-4 baseball star listed at 190 pounds. The right-handed center fielder would play in over 500 big-league games. Based on speed and the name of his hometown, he came to be known as the “Woonsocket Rocket,” a nickname that Baldelli said he remembered first hearing on television sports programming. xix

Baldelli started his major-league career with a 13-game hitting streak, the second longest streak to begin a career between 1990 and 2003. The streak also set a rookie record for the Devil Rays, and only four Tampa Bay players had ever hit longer consecutive-game hitting streaks. Baldelli was hitting second in the batting order, and he was expected to see a high number of fastballs because Tampa Bay’s leadoff hitter, Carl Crawford, was an accomplished basestealer. Baldelli had 64 major-league plate appearances before he walked. xx

By late May 2003, Albert Chen of Sports Illustrated had written about Baldelli’s aggressive approach to hitting in his first couple of months as a major leaguer. He had struck out 37 times at that point in the season, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio was 6.2 to 1; only two players had a higher ratio. However, Baldelli was hitting .353, which was also third in the league. He had set a record among rookies by getting 40 hits by the end of April. Chen pointed out that only four major leaguers had ever hit .300 in a season with a strikeout-to-walk ratio greater than 5 to 1. xxi

Baldelli’s hitting philosophy seemed to correlate with a generally restless personality. He said that he often found himself pacing around before games to pass the time, and though he had tried reading and completing crossword puzzles to occupy his time during the season, he found that he lacked the patience to finish those activities. Coach Chuck LaMar noted Baldelli’s uniqueness. “Some players have a magnetism that you can’t measure or explain. It’s something that fans, teammates, even opponents respect. Rocco has it,” he said. xxii

By early July Baldelli was hitting .309 with 5 home runs and 40 runs batted in. No Devil Rays player was voted onto the American League All-Star Team by the fans, but each team would have an All-Star Game representative chosen by AL manager Mike Scioscia. Baldelli and Rays teammate Aubrey Huff were thought to be the likely candidates. However, Scioscia had only five picks and four of those needed to be pitchers, so reliever Lance Carter (4.17 ERA, 14 saves in 20 opportunities) emerged as the surprise selection from Tampa Bay. xxiii

Appearing in 156 games in his rookie season, Baldelli batted .289 with 11 home runs and 78 runs batted in. He showed impressive speed, finishing the season with 27 stolen bases, and he came in third in the AL Rookie of the Year voting, behind Angel Berroa of the Kansas City Royals and Hideki Matsui of the New York Yankees. In a year of controversy over whether Matsui should be considered a rookie because of his playing experience in Japan, Berroa received 12 first-place votes compared with Matsui’s 10 and Baldelli’s 5. xxiv

In his second season, Baldelli got off to a difficult start. A few weeks into the season, when he was hitting below .200, Baldelli remembered, he was called into manager Lou Piniella’s office, thinking he might be demoted to the minor leagues. Instead of a demotion, Piniella reaffirmed the team’s commitment to him as the starter in center field. Baldelli later said that the affirmation helped him to relax and improve his hitting mechanics. xxvA hamstring strain limited Baldelli to 136 games that year, but he hit .280 and his home run total increased to 16.

After the 2004 season, no one knew that Baldelli had already played the two most complete seasons of his major-league career. He tore a ligament in his knee while he was playing in the yard at the family home in Rhode Island in October 2004; the injury sidelined him for several months. He was playing in the minor leagues on a rehab assignment in June when he injured his elbow. Baldelli tried to ignore the injury and he played in a couple of games after that, but he realized that the pain was not getting better. Team physicians diagnosed a torn ulnar collateral ligament. He required Tommy John surgery. xxvi

Though he missed the entire 2005 season, the Devil Rays signed Baldelli to a three-year contract with team options for an additional three years. He would receive $9 million over the first three years, and the full six years could have been worth as much as $32 million. Fellow outfielder Carl Crawford, who had also signed a six-year deal for similar compensation, expressed surprise that Baldelli had commanded that much money despite his injuries. xxvii

In 2006 injuries struck Baldelli again. He missed the opening two months of the season with a strained hamstring he had suffered in spring training. xxviii He hit .302 with 16 home runs in 92 games that year. Baldelli’s name surfaced in trade rumors after the season when Devil Rays manager Joe Maddon noted that the team had outfield depth but could use veteran pitching. xxix

No trade materialized, and in 2007 Baldelli played in 35 games. Though he had recovered from a spring-training hamstring injury in time for the season opener, his regular-season misfortune began when he crashed into a wall in late April and missed a couple of games. Then, mired in a 1-for-40 slump, Baldelli left a mid-May game with another hamstring injury. xxx He missed the rest of the season as the hamstring continued to bother him.

By that point in his career, Baldelli was experiencing frequent muscle cramping and severe fatigue that would set in after even light exercise. Before the 2008 season, he announced that his baseball career was indefinitely on hold. Though he was not retiring, he said that the fatigue rendered him unable to perform the basic baseball functions like running, throwing, and hitting. Baldelli drew an analogy between his condition and a cell phone that would not hold a charge. xxxi

“I feel like I’ve done a serious workout after a very short period of time, and it’s a very odd feeling. I try not to be too dramatic when I explain what’s going on, but it’s not easy when you’re out on the field for a very short period of time and you’re done, and you’re not really worth anything else out there. That’s a tough thing to handle because you wonder why,” Baldelli said at the time. xxxii

Baldelli resolved to continue to seek answers for his condition, and he said he would try to find any solution that could get him back to playing baseball. The Rays were supportive, and executive vice president Andrew Friedman said he was optimistic that Baldelli could play again. He said the team would probably decline the 2009 option on his contract, but that he hoped Baldelli would stay within the organization. xxxiii

Baldelli was sent to several physicians, who evaluated him for conditions like Lou Gehrig’s disease and multiple sclerosis. His symptoms were not consistent with those diagnoses, and doctors began to suspect that he had a mitochondrial disorder, a defect in the energy-producing part of the body’s cells. With medications, nutritional supplements, rest, and dietary changes, his condition seemed to improve. xxxiv

Missing most of the 2008 season, Baldelli returned to play 28 regular-season games in August and September. He hit two home runs in postseason play, including a three-run homer in the ALCS victory that help propel the Rays to the World Series. Alan Schwarz of the New York Times said that the ALCS home run was “as medically remarkable as Kirk Gibson’s wobbly-kneed shot 20 Octobers ago.” Baldelli had returned to action, but he was having to carefully conserve his energy, sometimes skipping batting practice or sitting down on the field when his team brought new pitchers in from the bullpen. xxxv

In November the Boston chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America recognized Baldelli’s determination to get back on the baseball field, presenting him with the 2008 Tony Conigliaro Award. Pitchers Doug Davis and Brad Ziegler finished in second and third place in the award voting. xxxvi

Baldelli was a free agent after that season, and he was pursued seriously by four teams: the Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds, and Philadelphia Phillies. A source told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Baldelli was leaning toward Boston, at least in part because playing in the American League would leave the door open for a role as the team’s designated hitter. Ultimately, the Red Sox prevailed in negotiations with Baldelli. xxxvii

By the time he joined the Red Sox, Baldelli’s diagnosis had been revised to a channelopathy, a protein abnormality that interferes with muscular function. xxxviii That news was thought to be very positive; though channelopathies represent a wide range of conditions, Baldelli’s father said that the new diagnosis meant that his son did not have a progressive and life-threatening disease. (In 2009 Rocco said he did not like talking about his medical condition.) xxxix The Red Sox had signed Baldelli with the understanding that his medical condition would limit his use. The team planned to utilize him as their fourth outfielder, and he was expected to appear primarily against left-handed pitching.

Baldelli was tiring of answering questions about his health by the time he arrived in Boston. “I was going to make a sign that says, ‘Feeling good, thanks for asking,’ and tack it to my locker, so I don’t have to answer that anymore,” Baldelli said. “I’ve been disappointed a lot at times, but as far as self-pity, no one really wants to hear any excuses. No one feels that bad for you, no matter what you’re going through. I’ll be fine. I’ll manage no matter what’s going on.” xl

Though he joined a crowded Red Sox outfield, Baldelli became immediately popular among Boston fans, who gave him a standing ovation the first time he came to the plate in April. Former Tampa Bay teammate Scott Kazmir noted that it was fitting that Baldelli ended up in Boston because he had always had a large fan following when the Rays visited Fenway Park. xli

Baldelli played in 62 games for Boston in 2009. He had a .253 batting average in those games and hit 7 home runs. After the season, three or four teams expressed interest in signing him, but he did not sign a contract. Just before the 2010 season, the Rays hired Baldelli as a special instructor while he continued to work on rehabbing from a shoulder injury. There were no promises that Baldelli would play professionally, but he said he was not officially retiring as a player. xlii

After returning to the field with a rehab stint in the minor leagues, Baldelli was called back up to the Rays in September. In his first major-league at-bat of the 2010 season, Baldelli hit a pinch-hit home run. xliii Teammate Evan Longoria expressed how happy he was to see Baldelli’s home run. “I feel great for the guy,” Longoria said. “He’s a professional in every respect. Just the pure persistence of his journey through the big leagues and back down and back up again – I can’t do anything but commend him.” xliv

Before the American League Division Series that year, Baldelli was named to the postseason roster. Willy Aybar had been left off the postseason roster, with the team opting to include Desmond Jennings, who brought defense and speed to the team. xlv When Baldelli’s play was curtailed by severe muscle cramping, he was replaced on the roster by Aybar before the second game of the ALDS. xlvi

When Baldelli saw that he was no longer contributing as a player during the 2010 postseason, he realized that he needed to retire as a player. He officially announced his retirement in January 2011, having spent the previous three months thinking over the decision at the request of Tampa Bay executives. The Rays kept him in the organization as a special adviser for scouting and player development. Baldelli said he was sad that he had not been able to play more during his career, but that he chose not to focus on the negatives in his life. xlvii

“I don’t regret anything,” he said. “You know what’s sad is that I love to play, and I really didn’t get a chance to do it as much as I wanted to. But I don’t live angrily; I live kind of happy. Why would I look at the negative aspects of everything that I’ve been through and live the rest of my life talking about those things that aren’t the important things to me? The important things to me were all the wonderful things I got to do. It’s tough, because you almost never put playing and being an athlete behind you. But in my mind, I already feel like it’s a step behind me.” xlviii

Though Baldelli had not identified a particular interest for a post-baseball career, the Rays were impressed by his intelligence and his character, so they invited him to stay with the organization in a role that he would help to delineate. In spring training before the 2011 season, Baldelli met with general manager Andrew Friedman, and they decided that he would work in scouting and player development for the Rays.

In his new role, Baldelli specialized in scouting hitters, and he noted that travel was a significant part of the new job. “I’m a Southwest A-List preferred member now and I just became a Marriot Silver member this spring. I think I’m teetering on Gold status already,” Baldelli joked. The Rays, who were preparing to make 12 picks out of the first 89 slots in the 2011 draft, said that Baldelli would have a key role in the team’s “war room” during the draft. xlix

Before the 2015 season, the Rays were dealing with significant personnel changes, including a new general manager, Matt Silverman, and a new manager, Kevin Cash. They moved Baldelli back onto the field as a first-base coach. The 33-year-old became the youngest coach in the major leagues. l

When Baldelli was not coaching, he ran a small thoroughbred-horse breeding operation. His family has never owned horses, but former teammate Dan Dement, manager Lou Piniella, coach Don Zimmer, and baseball executive Gerry Hunsicker all liked horse racing, furthering Baldelli’s interest in it. Baldelli bought his first mare in 2011. In 2014 he sold a colt for $400,000 at auction. li

Baldelli’s younger brother Dante also played center field for Bishop Hendricken High School. Dante said he appreciated learning from Rocco’s major-league experience. Before the 2016 season, MaxPreps named Dante the number-one high-school prospect in Rhode Island. lii He was selected by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 39th round of the June 2016 Draft, but he elected to play baseball at Boston College.

Last revised: September 1, 2016

This biography was published in “Overcoming Adversity: Baseball’s Tony Conigliaro Award” (SABR, 2017), edited by Bill Nowlin and Clayton Trutor.

Sources

In addition to the sources listed below, the author utilized statistics, game logs, and player information available from Baseball-Reference.com.

Notes

A native of the Dominican Republic, Joaquín Antonio Benoit Peña was born on July 26, 1977. His home city of Santiago was founded in 1504. One of the oldest continuously occupied colonial settlements in the Western Hemisphere, Santiago is the second largest city in the Dominican Republic and the fourth largest city in the Caribbean. In a country with a tradition of producing the greatest number of foreign-born players in major-league baseball, Santiago has its own great tradition. Represented in the Dominican Winter League since 1937 by the Cibao Eagles, Santiago has produced 11 players who have made a major-league roster as of Opening Day 2016. On May 20, 1996, Joaquin Benoit joined that list after being signed as a nondrafted free agent by Texas Rangers scouts Omar Minaya and Cornelio Peña.1

Benoit spent his first summer as a professional with the Rangers’ 1996 Dominican Summer League team in Santo Domingo. He finished that short summer season with a 2.28 ERA, earning his way to the Rangers’ Florida Rookie League the next year. Benoit then spent 1997 with the Port Charlotte Rangers of the Gulf Coast League.This was a city Benoit would see a lot of as the Rangers operated both their Gulf Coast League team and their Class-A Florida State League teams out of Port Charlotte from 1996 to 2002.

The 6-foot-4, 250-pound right-hander was initially thought of as a starting pitcher. He made his way through the minor leagues being developed for a starting role. Benoit started 10 games in Port Charlotte in 1997. He ended the year with a 3-3 record, pitching 44 innings and compiling a 2.05 ERA with 10 earned runs surrendered. Benoit closed out the season by pitching eight shutout innings against the Kansas City Royals’ GCL affiliate in the semifinals of the league playoffs.

The Texas Rangers added the A-level Savannah Sand Gnats of the South Atlantic League to their minor-league system in 1998. Benoit started 15 games before his season ended early due to a strain to an ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. The determination was to heal with rehabilitation instead of surgery.2 This was the first of several interruptions to Benoit’s career by injury. Before being shut down on August 4, Benoit had

put together a record of four wins and three losses. Nearly doubling his innings, Benoit increased his workload to 80 innings, giving up 79 hits and 18 walks. His 3.82 ERA was the best among Sand Gnats starters with 15 or more starts.

Benoit was back in Port Charlotte for 1999. His return trip to the city this time was a move up to the Florida State League Port Charlotte Rangers, the Rangers’ high-A affiliate. Benoit started 22 games, going 7-4 with a 5.31 ERA while surpassing 100 innings for the first time. In 105 innings he gave up 117 hits and 50 walks.

Benoit was promoted to Tulsa of the Double-A Texas League for 2000 and was the Opening Day starter.3 Early in the season he injured his right shoulder.4 Limited to 82 innings in 16 starts, Benoit went 4-4 and improved his ERA to 3.83. After the season Benoit pitched in the Arizona Fall League. Going 2-2 with a 1.91 ERA in 33 innings, he was voted the league’s best right-handed starter for that season.5 Benoit returned to Tulsa in 2001 to be the Opening Day starter there for the second year in a row.

After going 1-0 in four starts for Tulsa, Benoit was promoted to the Rangers’ Triple-A team, Oklahoma City RedHawks of the Pacific Coast League.6 There he had control problems.

On May 1 he gave up six runs and six walks in two-thirds of an inning. On May 23 against New Orleans, he walked eight in 3⅔ innings. In spite of this, batters were batting only.188 against him at that point. Manager DeMarlo Hale said of Benoit that even though he had walked five batters in a row on the May 23 game, “[H]e has a bright future. He’s a very good pitcher. He has three pitches that are major-league stuff in his fastball, slider, and changeup, and he mixes in his curveball.”7

Benoit’s 24 starts tied for the team lead with R.A. Dickey, and he finished second to Dickey in innings pitched with 131. On August 8 Benoit was called up to the Rangers for a spot start against Detroit. Making his major-league debut, Benoit lasted five innings in a no-decision, giving up six earned runs

During the 2001-2002 offseason Benoit pitched for his hometown Santiago team, Águilas Cibaeñas (Cibao Eagles), and was named the Dominican Winter League’s Pitcher of the Year.8 Benoit put up a 5-0 record with a 2.37 ERA.9

Heading into the 2002 season Benoit was rated by Baseball America as the seventh best prospect in the Rangers’ farm system.10 He spent most of the season going back and forth between Oklahoma City and the Texas Rangers. This was the year the Rangers began exploring using Benoit out of the bullpen, a decision that resulted in a permanent change in his career path. In the process Benoit set a major-league record while recording his first save. For Oklahoma City Benoit was 8-4 in 16 starts with a 3.56 ERA, striking out 103 batters in 98⅔ innings. He fell into the situation of being a spot starter who is called back and forth as needed between Triple A affiliate and the major-league club, often because of player injuries. Such was the case for Benoit, who was called up for the first time to make a start on May 9.

Called up because pitcher Ismael Valdes was bothered by stiffness in his back, Benoit flew to Arlington overnight and started against the Chicago White Sox on only three hours’ sleep. Benoit pitched six innings in a 4-1 win. After the game he said, “In the first couple of innings, I was trying to do too much, but those last three innings, I was getting my energy back.”11 Two days later he was back pitching for Oklahoma City.12

Benoit got another opportunity to pitch for the Rangers when Rudy Saenz was placed on the disabled list with shoulder tendinitis.13 This time, Benoit was used in long relief, pitching from the second into the sixth inning of a 13-7 loss to the Atlanta Braves on June 7. He walked five, gave up five hits, and surrendered two earned runs. After the game, he was optioned back to Oklahoma City. On June 24 outfielder Gabe Kapler went on the disabled list with tendinitis in his left wrist. Benoit was recalled and struck out two and walked three in five innings in an 8-5 win over the Anaheim Angels. After the game, in which Benoit picked up his second win, he was optioned back to Oklahoma City. After another callup and a start on July 15, a loss to the Kansas City Royals, Benoit came up for the rest of the major-league season at the end of July. He threw 84⅔ innings for the Rangers in 2002, with 13 starts in his 17 appearances with a 5.31 ERA.33

Though still used primarily as a starter, Benoit set a record on September 3, 2002, for the longest save in major-league history. It happened in a contentious meeting with the Baltimore Orioles that had its genesis a few days earlier when Orioles pitcher Travis Driskill hit Rangers star Rafael Palmeiro and Rangers pitcher Aaron Myette threw behind the Orioles’ Chris Richard.14

On the 3rd, Orioles starter John Stephens hit Alex Rodriguez in the first inning. In the bottom of the first, Rangers starter Myette threw the first two pitches behind the Orioles’ leadoff hitter Melvin Mora, and was ejected by home-plate umpire Mark Hirschbeck. Todd Van Poppel then pitched two innings in relief and Benoit entered the game in the third with the Rangers leading 4-0.

Neither Myette nor Van Poppel had given up a hit through the first two innings. Benoit extended the no-hitter to the ninth inning, when he gave up a triple to Jerry Hairston Jr., who scored on a hit by Chris Richard. In seven innings, Benoit struck out four while walking no one. Van Poppel was credited with the win and Benoit with the first save of his career. At seven innings, it was the major leagues’ longest credited save.15

Benoit had a rough spring training in 2003, starting the year at Oklahoma City. On May 2 he made a spot start with the Rangers in a game the Cleveland Indians won in the late innings.16 He soon found himself on the disabled list, but other than rehab innings following injury, Benoit was at the major-league level to stay. While his path to the majors had often come through injuries to others, the new pattern for Benoit was to try to maintain his spot on the major-league roster in spite of his own injuries.

Benoit spent June 1-22, 2003 (elbow inflammation), on the 15-day disabled list, including five days with Oklahoma City. Over the next few years, he would go the list again with right shoulder tendinitis in 2004 and 2005, right elbow tendinitis in 2005, right shoulder inflammation in 2008, and finally the most serious injury to that point, a torn right rotator cuff in April 2009 that cost him the rest of the season.17

As injuries seemed to become more regular, Benoit shifted toward becoming a set-up reliever. In 2004 only 15 of Benoit’s 28 appearances were starts, and in 2005, only 9 of his 32 appearances. In the middle of the 2005 season, he settled into a set-up role. Benoit cemented that position in September, recording a hold in five consecutive appearances between September 15 and 25. In 2006 Benoit pitched in 56 games for the Rangers, 35 of them in the sixth, seventh, or eighth inning. He had no credited saves, and only seven credited holds. He ended 2006 with a 4.86 ERA and 85 strikeouts in 79⅔ innings.

By 2007 Benoit had another healthy year and was able to cement his place in the majors, appearing in 70 games with 82 innings pitched. His highlights that year included 87 strikeouts, only 28 walks, 17 holds, 7 blown saves, and 6 saves while going 7-4 and putting up a 2.85 ERA. Benoit went the entire month of August without giving up a run. However, 2008 was a more difficult year for Benoit, including time on the disabled list. He appeared in only 44 games for the Rangers, throwing 45 innings while putting up a 5.00 ERA. Although he had returned to the big-league club at the end of July, and made a run of appearances in August, he had only two appearances in September before returning the disabled list.18After 2007, the Rangers had high hopes for Benoit, but his right shoulder had been acting up in spring training, limiting him to only four innings in Cactus League play. He attempted to play through that pain, but was shut down by September.

Diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff, Benoit had surgery in January 2009. The procedure was performed by the Cincinnati Reds’ medical director, Dr. Timothy Kremcheck. According to Rangers GM Jon Daniels, “[M]ultiple doctors recommended rehab over surgery late last season. Unfortunately, [he] didn’t respond to the rehab process as we’d hoped. That’s a risk any time you rehab a shoulder.”19 Although projected to possibly return for the second half of the season, Benoit ended up sitting out all of 2009. It also turned out to be the end of his career with the Texas Rangers; the team cut him on November 5, 2009. For his future, the often-injured pitcher would have to try his luck in the free-agent market to find a roster spot for the 2010 season.

Having only one truly successful season under his belt and a history of injury, Benoit was only able to secure a one-year minor-league deal for the 2010 season with the Tampa Bay Rays.20This proved to be a wise move by the Rays, as Benoit not only recovered from his surgery, but came back with his strongest season to that point. Appearing in 63 games as a set-up specialist in front of Rays closer Rafael Soriano, Benoit posted a 1.34 ERA over 60⅓ innings, allowing only 30 hits and giving up only 11 walks. In addition to his ERA being the best among all relievers in the American League, he led the league’s relief corps with a .147 batting average against, as well as 4.48 hits and 6.12 baserunners per nine innings. He attained all of this despite starting the year with the Rays’ Triple-A International League affiliate Durham Bulls. It wasn’t until April 29 that the Rays’ brought Benoit up.

The Rays finished 96-66 and made the playoffs. Benoit found himself in the American League Division Series against his former team, the Rangers. Although the Rangers took the series (on their way to the AL pennant before losing the 2010 World Series to the San Francisco Giants), Benoit himself had a good playoff series. Benoit didn’t see any action until the seventh inning of Game Three, but was able to pick up a win in the game. In three games, he pitched 3⅔ innings with three strikeouts, and no hits, runs, or walks allowed.

After the 2010 season, the Boston Red Sox announced that Benoit had been voted the winner of the 21st annual Tony Conigliaro Award. Citing Benoit’s performance after missing an entire season to injury, the Red Sox noted that the “honor is presented to a Major League player who has overcome adversity through the attributes of spirit, determination and courage that were trademarks of Tony C.” The award was presented on January 20, 2011, at the annual dinner of the Boston chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America.21

Benoit had the highest velocity of his career following his surgery, and he sustained this for several seasons.22 Looking back on his 2010 season, he said, “The first full month I was in the big leagues, I was really inconsistent. I was getting outs because people were swinging. After the first month, my arm responded great.”23 Benoit was able to convert that season into a three-year, $16 million deal with the Detroit Tigers.

For the next three seasons, Benoit was a key member of the Tigers bullpen. He had 66 appearances in 2011, 73 in 2012, and 66 in 2013. He stepped into the closer role at times in 2013, saving 24 games as part of a career-high 43 games finished. The Tigers went to the playoffs each year. In 2011 Benoit was on the losing side against the Rangers again as they went on to win the AL pennant for the second year in a row. Both years, the Rangers lost the World Series.

The Tigers made the Series themselves in 2012, losing to the San Francisco Giants. In 2013 the Tigers lost the American League Championship Series to the Boston Red Sox, four games to two. Benoit finished both Tigers wins, but also gave up an eighth-inning grand slam to David Ortiz, allowing the Red Sox to tie a Game Two they later won in the ninth.

After the 2013 season Benoit was a free agent once more. He signed with the San Diego Padres on December 28 for two years, totaling $15.5 million, with a third-year option on the 2016 season for $8 million, if he pitched in at least 55 games in 2015. Benoit performed well in 2014, appearing in 53 games with a 1.49 ERA in 54⅓ innings, and followed that in 2015 with a 2.34 ERA in 65⅓ innings. He was traded on November 12, 2015, by the Padres to Seattle. His shoulder problems resurfaced in spring training with Seattle.24 After a return to the 15-day disabled list for the first time since the end of the 2008 season, Benoit appeared in only 26 games with a 5.18 ERA with Seattle in 2015.

On July 26, 2016, Benoit was traded (on his 39th birthday) to the Toronto Blue Jays for Drew Storen and cash. Pitching on a team contending to win the AL East, he appeared in 25 games during the final two months of the season, giving up only one earned run in 23⅔ innings. His 0.38 ERA in a set-up role proved him to be a timely late-season acquisition for the Blue Jays. Just before the end of the season, on September 26, he tore a calf muscle in a brawl during a 7-5 loss to the New York Yankees.25

At every stage of his career, Benoit had encountered adversity and opportunity through injury, and each year had come back stronger. Then, remarkably, when injury loomed greatest, Benoit was able to respond with his best season ever. Although time will eventually catch up with all players of the game, certainly the way Benoit responded to adversity extended his career and brought him and his teams to a remarkable run of success.

Last revised: May 1, 2017

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, Benoit’s biographical information on MLB.com, and a number of other sources including:

Lagesse, David. “Baseball Is a Field of Dreams and Dashed Hopes For Dominicans,” National Public Radio, npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/04/03/472699693/baseball-is-a-field-of-dreams-and-dashed-hopes-for-dominicans.

Historia del Equipo, Águilas Cibaeñas, aguilas.lidom.com/home/historia-del-equipo/.

Notes

1 Major League Baseball, Joaquin Antonio Benoit biographical information, mlb.com, m.mlb.com/player/276542/joaquin-benoit, Accessed September 9, 2016.

2 Ibid.

3 Barry Lewis, “Drillers Starting With Rare Roster,” Tulsa World, April 5, 2001 (tulsaworld.com/archives/drillers-starting-with-rare-roster/article_e4022f0c-9876-5745-8c18-db17aec46e85.html), accessed September 9, 2016.

4 Player bio, mlb.com.

5 Bob Hersom, “Competition Refines Opening Day Roster,” The Oklahoman (Oklahoma City), April 3, 2001 (newsok.com/article/2736172), accessed September 9, 2016.

6 Bob Hersom, “Zephyrs Take a Stroll in RedHawks’ Park,” The Oklahoman, May 24, 2001 (newsok.com/article/2742502), accessed September 8, 2016.

7 Associated Press, “AL roundup – August 9, 2001,” Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, August 9, 2001 (lubbockonline.com/stories/080901/pro_0809010075.shtml#.V5b6VI-cE2w), accessed September 4, 2016.

8 Cibao Eagles, “Pitcher of the Year,”Águilas Cibaeñas BBC (aguilas.lidom.com/home/premios-obtenidos-por-jugadores-de-aguilas-cibaenas-en-premiacion-de-producciones-apolo/), accessed September 8, 2016.

9 Josh Goldfine, “Rangers 2002 Prospect Report,” USA Today, April 1, 2002 (usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/rangers/prospect.htm), accessed September 17, 2016.

10 Gerry Fraley, “Texas Rangers Top 10 Prospects,” Baseball America 2002 (baseballamerica.com/online/leagues/mlb/rangers/02top10.html), accessed September 17, 2016.

11 Stephen Hawkins, “Rangers’ Benoit Stymies Sox,” Northwest Indiana Times (Munster, Indiana), May 10, 2002 (nwitimes.com/uncategorized/rangers-benoit-stymies-sox/article_7ad15f4f-a2af-5305-85c2-370dfda28f83.html), accessed September 30, 2016.

12 Associated Press, “Rangers’ Benoit Silences Sox,” Northwest Indiana Times, May 10, 2002 (nwitimes.com/uncategorized/rangers-benoit-silences-sox/article_da0667b5-a454-575b-8591-d46c4d6d3de1.html), accessed September 9, 2016.

13 ESPN, “MLB Transactions,” ESPN.com, June 7, 2002 (espn.go.com/mlb/transactions/_/date/20020607), accessed September 17, 2016.

14 Joe Christensen, “Nearly No-Hit, O’s Drop 10th in a Row, 7-1,” Baltimore Sun, September 4, 2002 (articles.baltimoresun.com/2002-09-04/sports/0209040378_1_texas-rangers-orioles-inning), accessed September 8, 2016.

15 Ibid.

16 Game Log, Texas Rangers at Cleveland Indians, May 2, 2003, CBS Sports (cbssports.com/mlb/gametracker/recap/MLB_20030502_TEX@CLE), accessed September 17, 2016.

17 2016 Seattle Mariners Media Information Guide (marinersblog.mlblogs.com/2016/02/18/2016-mariners-media-guide/), accessed September 4, 2016.

18 Ken Daley, “Benoit Trying to Turn Around Tough Start,” MLB.com (texas.rangers.mlb.com/news/print.jsp?ymd=20080430&content_id=2619181&vkey=news_tex&fext=.jsp&c_id=tex), accessed September 17, 2016.

19 Joe Zedalis, “Texas Reliever Benoit Has Rotator Cuff Surgery,” Yahoo Sports (sports.yahoo.com/mlb/rumors/post/Texas-reliever-Benoit-has-rotator-cuff-surgery?urn=mlb,137825), accessed September 17, 2016.

20 Adam J. Morris, “Rays Sign Joaquin Benoit to Minor League Deal,” Lonestarball.com, February 15, 2010 (lonestarball.com/2010/2/15/1311453/rays-sign-joaquin-benoit-to-minor), accessed September 18, 2016.

21 Boston Red Sox, “Joaquin Benoit Wins 2010 Tony Conigliaro Award,” Redsox.com, December 7, 2010 (boston.redsox.mlb.com/content/printer_friendly/bos/y2010/m12/d07/c16272496.jsp), accessed September 18, 2016.

22 Jeff Sullivan, “Mariners Get Joaquin Benoit, Who Won’t Go Away,” Fangraphs.com, November 12, 2015 (fangraphs.com/blogs/mariners-get-joaquin-benoit-who-wont-go-away/), accessed September 18, 2016.

23 Matt Chaprales, “Benoit Receives Boston’s Tony C. Award,” MLB News (m.mlb.com/news/article/16474306//), accessed September 18, 2016.

24 Bob Dutton, “Mariners Notebook: Benoit Placed on Disabled List Because of Sore Shoulder,” Tacoma News-Tribune, April 25, 2016 (thenewstribune.com/sports/mlb/seattle-mariners/mariners-insider-blog/article73826107.html), accessed September 18, 2016.

25 Associated Press, “Blue Jays Lose 2 to Injury in Brawl-Marred Loss to Yankees,” USA Today, September 27, 2016 (usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2016/09/27/blue-jays-lose-2-to-injury-in-brawl-marred-loss-to-yankees/91152846/), accessed October 1, 2016.

Dewon Cortez Brazelton was the first of twin brothers born on June 16, 1980, in Tullahoma, Tennessee. They were born about four weeks prematurely. At the time their mother, Monalisa, became pregnant, she was a star on the women’s basketball team of Tullahoma High School. According to a Washington Post profile in 2005, Monalisa was shunned by the father, Limuel Tilford, and calls to his home phone number for their story were unanswered.

“My whole life changed in three weeks,” Monalisa told the Post, referring to her milestone 18th birthday on May 25, 1980, her high-school graduation the following weekend, and giving birth.1

Monalisa Brazelton only found out from her doctor that she was carrying twins three days before the delivery. Dewon was energetic, but his twin brother, Fewon, didn’t seem well. “He wasn’t breathing, so they had to help him,” Monalisa said of Fewon in a Sports Illustrated profile of the older twin. “He had trouble from the beginning.” He had cerebral palsy, never developed the ability to speak, and couldn’t control his limbs.

“I’ve told Dewon that he was given so much power and personality because it was all made for two, not one,” she added. “That’s the only explanation. He has always been a special child. A lot of that comes from Fewon.”2

In 2005, when Dewon was named Opening Day starter for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and he quickly broke the news to his mom, he linked that achievement to a decision Monalisa made when he was just a few years old. “I thanked her for signing me up for that first T-ball game,” Dewon said. “She could have signed me up for something else like soccer.”3

Monalisa recalled Dewon at 7 years old testing her patience by constantly banging a tennis ball against a wall outside of where they lived. She also remembered him digging holes in the yard to create golf courses. He would welcome friends over to play baseball games in which they would pretend to be major leaguers.4

Monalisa often worked 70-hour weeks to support the twins. Meanwhile, Dewon developed relationships that would stand the test of time, and draw admiration from across Tullahoma (population of about 18,000). For example, little more than a month before that 2001 major-league draft, a college classmate of his, a softball player named Wendy Pollack, looked back on their time during middle and high school as well. “He’s still that same goofy guy I rode on the bus with to middle-school basketball games,” she told a campus newspaper after having declared, “Dewon’s an exceptional human being in every aspect.”5

For a time Monalisa worked days in a factory and nights at a Krystal sliders restaurant. That meant Dewon was often his twin’s caretaker, which was a tall order. Dewon has said that life in the small city’s housing projects sometimes meant encounters with drug dealers and swindlers.

“I was an adult at 13 years old,” he recalled about a decade later. “I drove myself to Little League practice when I was 12. If I had to pick up my brother, I’d go pick him up. I had to do a lot of things a lot of kids couldn’t handle. … And that was my life every day. Not twice a week, but every day.”6

When the twins were 12 years old, Monalisa cracked under the pressure of their situation and left them with her mother, though that arrangement would prove to be temporary. Fewon ended up in the Bedford County Nursing Home, where he would see Monalisa frequently after she became a nurse’s aide there. However, during Dewon’s early teen years, the popular kid bounced from family to family across town.7

The main reason Monalisa had cut Dewon loose was that she was trying to overcome substance abuse. At least early on, Dewon didn’t seem to show signs of anxiety in the new situation. As reported by Sports Illustrated, during eighth grade he would regularly be seen walking around his neighborhood, happy and joking, keeping an eye out for a chance to shoot hoops in someone’s driveway or play Wiffle ball. He’d spend a few hours with one family, and when a parent or older kid drove him home, his mother was never there. “They’d notice my mom wasn’t around, and they’d say, ‘Why don’t you stay over?'” Dewon recalled. “That’s how it started.” Four other households eventually took him in with regularity.8

Dewon had contact from time to time with his father, Lim Tilford, and perhaps because Monalisa had relocated to Shelbyville, about a 30-minute drive to the west, Dewon and Lim spent more time together. In fact, Dewon moved in with his father at one point.

“But it wasn’t really a healthy situation,” he told the Washington Post. “My daddy smoked a lot of pot – he used to do it right in front of me. He’d do it in the car with me there. I’ve never touched drugs – partly because of him and partly because of my mama. I was always trying to do what’s right, and it always bothered me that he would roll a joint up right in front of me.

“I stayed with him for a pretty good while. But I knew it just wasn’t right. He’d beat up my step-mama. It wasn’t a good situation.” One day it came to a boiling point.

“I don’t know what happened. He had to have been high on something, or something,” Dewon said. “I don’t know. But my daddy took me out in the yard and he beat the [expletive] out of me. Beat the [expletive] out of me. Simple as that. I went to school and called my mama in Shelbyville and told her what happened.”

Monalisa phoned Cheryl Frazier, a friend from high school who happened to be white, and asked a huge favor. The Fraziers became the first family in Tullahoma to take Dewon in for an extended period of time, which ended up being two months.9

The Tuggle family was the next to welcome Dewon, and later there were the Barnetts, the Robisons, and the Darlingtons. Dewon met Dianne and Scott Darlington in 1995 at Grace Baptist Church, and two years later the couple gave him a key to their house. “We said, ‘Dewon, this is your home. You always have a place to stay, and you don’t have to call and ask,’” Dianne said. “He is, in many ways, our third child.” As a result, Dewon frequently calls Dianne “Mom,” as he does Deby Barnett, in addition to Monalisa.10

Dewon had one persistent challenge at school, and it often caused other kids to make fun of him: “I had a speech impediment and went to speech class,” he told a group of teens in the Transition Program of the Watson Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, in Largo, Florida, in 2003. “I still can’t say some words now. Anyway, I had the speech problem and I was not what everybody thought was cool.”11

Over time, though, Dewon’s athletic success made him increasingly popular during high school. He excelled in three sports, one of which, not surprisingly, was baseball. The pinnacle may have been in 1997, during his junior year, when he helped lead Tullahoma High’s Wildcats to the finals in the state baseball tournament, though they lost the championship game 3-0 to Christian Brothers High School of Memphis.12

Dewon was the winning pitcher by the same score a year later when Tullahoma defeated Florida’s Crestview High School to win the USA Classic tournament in Millington, Tennessee. The pressure was heightened for Dewon, who at the time stood 6-feet-4 and weighed 160 pounds, because his team wasn’t able to score until the seventh inning. In the end, Tullahoma outperformed the nation’s top-ranked school, Florida’s Miami Southridge, as well as the tournament’s defending champs, Murfreesboro Oakland.13 Dewon was named MVP of the tournament. Under coach Jerry Mathis he was consistently a dominant pitcher in high school, with a career earned-run average of 1.75, and his overall batting average was .350. He was named to the All-District and All-Midstate baseball teams. The other two sports in which he lettered were basketball and football.14

This success was almost derailed permanently before Dewon was halfway through high school. He was the school’s starting quarterback by his sophomore year, but early in the season he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee. He somehow managed to recover by baseball season, only to blow out the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow and undergo reconstructive Tommy John surgery. It’s assumed that these events made major-league teams reluctant to draft Dewon during high school.15 He himself soon became suspicious of his durability. As a college student he admitted, “I am terrified of getting hurt, terrified. I use the railing when I go down the stairs now, like I’m an old man. I used to drive fast but not now.”16

At some point during Dewon’s high school years his mother’s situation improved a bit, and Monalisa Brazelton returned to Tullahoma. She moved into the Carver Homes housing project. She gave Dewon space in her apartment for his possessions, but he preferred to stay with the other families regularly. Shortly before his first semester of college, he found that his key to Mona’s apartment wouldn’t work. He learned nothing from many frantic phone calls to people who knew her, but a long time later he learned that his mother had gone to Nashville and asked to be admitted to a rehab clinic.17

Somewhat ironically, Brazelton had declined an offer of partial scholarship offer from the University of Tennessee, about three hours away in Knoxville by car, and accepted a full ride from Middle Tennessee State in Murfreesboro, which is only 35 miles from Tullahoma.18 “Since I’m a momma’s boy, I didn’t want to go too far away. I also wanted my family to be able to come see me play.”19

Baseball success continued for Brazelton at Middle Tennessee. During his first two seasons with the Blue Raiders his pitching record was 15-8, though with a 4.82 ERA. He wasn’t satisfied with the latter and concluded, “I got beat up a lot by throwing my curveball too much. “He decided to rely more on his fastball, which was sometimes clocked up to 97 miles per hour. He also perceived a need to make a mental adjustment, saying, “I wore my emotions on my sleeve. You could tell if I won or lost by just looking at me.” Brazelton started gaining nationwide attention in August of 2000, when he starred for the US national team that beat Cuba to win the Honkbal Baseball Week tournament in The Netherlands. His record was a perfect 6-0, and no prior Team USA starter had achieved his 0.65 ERA.20

In the next month Brazelton was in experts’ top 10 lists. Philadelphia sportswriter Jim Salisbury noted that with the worst record in the NL, the Phillies would have the second pick in Major League Baseball’s June 2001 amateur draft. “The cream of the 2001 draft crop includes right-handed pitchers Josh Karp (UCLA) and Dewon Brazelton (Middle Tennessee State) and third baseman Mark Teixeira (Georgia Tech.),” he wrote.21 Similarly, Marc Topkin in the Tampa Bay area identified “early front-runners” in that draft as Teixeira “and a slew of right-handed pitchers,” specifically Mark Prior of USC, Karp, and Brazelton, plus high schoolers Gavin Floyd in Maryland and Mike Jones in Arizona.22

In 2001 the honors started piling up. At the beginning of the year, Brazelton was named a baseball All-American; in March he was one of four players selected Louisville Slugger National Players of the Week; and shortly after that he was named national pitcher of the week by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. He was named the Sun Belt Conference’s pitcher of the year after going 13-2 with a 1.42 ERA, limiting opponents to a .178 batting average and piling up 154 strikeouts in 127 innings.23

Brazelton’s time at Middle Tennessee was also successful academically. He carried a 3.2 grade-point average into his junior year.24As his time there was winding down, Deby Barnett seemed as proud of the fact that Dewon had made the honor roll every semester except for one, and he missed it by a whisker then.25

On the eve of the June 2001 draft, Brazelton publicly thanked Middle Tennessee alumnus Jason Maxwell of the Minnesota Twins, who had been a late-round draft pick of the Cubs in 1993. Maxwell worked out at the campus during the offseason. “He’s really helped me a lot,” Brazelton said. “He helped me with a lot of little things and taught me how to carry myself better.” Maxwell returned the praise. “He’s willing to work hard,” he said of Brazelton, “and he knows how to avoid all of the distractions.”26

In the amateur draft, it didn’t take very long at all for Brazelton to be selected. After the Twins chose Joe Mauer and the Cubs selected Mark Prior, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays made Brazelton the third pick overall. “This is what I wanted,” Brazelton said. “There was a rumor going around that I’d be the number-1 pick, but I didn’t want it. I wanted to be a Devil Ray. I don’t want to be in the minor leagues forever.”27

Brazelton signed with Tampa Bay on August 25, and spent the last month of the season with the big leaguers, though with no plans by anyone for him to make his major-league debut. “I’ve always been good about learning by watching,” he said. “You never know what you might pick up being around the team, listening to how they talk, how they think.” His first thrill was reportedly meeting hitting coach Wade Boggs.28

In 2002 Brazelton played in his first pro game for the Double-A Orlando Rays. In 26 games, all starts, his record was just 5-9 but his ERA was a respectable 3.33, so he was given a brief promotion to the Triple-A Durham Bulls, and helped them in an International League playoff game. In his last eight minor-league starts, including two for the Bulls, he was 6-0 with a 1.06 ERA. Soon enough, though, Brazelton was called up to the parent club, and made his major-league debut on September 13, 2002, in Toronto. Despite his defense backing him with a triple play, he gave up five earned runs on five hits and three walks in six innings and was tagged with a loss. He started a second game for the Devil Rays, on the 19th at home against the New York Yankees, and gave up only two runs in seven innings. He left with his team down 2-1 but the Rays tied it in the eighth and won it in the 10th.His ERA was 4.85 ERA over the 13 innings.

Less than three months after his first major-league game, the offseason took on a very somber tone for Brazelton and his loved ones. His twin, Fewon, died on December 2 of pneumonia, which he had suffered in previous winters. He weighed just 90 pounds, in contrast to Brazelton’s usual MLB-listed weight of 215. “He was a part of me. We had a bond better than anyone could know,” Brazelton said. “He’s always in my heart, regardless of whether he’s here or not.” Writing in the St. Petersburg Times, Marc Topkin noted that Fewon’s death was “the latest development in what has been a lifetime of sorrow and success [and] an inspirational story that is sure to make its way to Hollywood.”29

As the Devil Rays were deciding their Opening Day roster for 2003, right knee and left groin injuries undercut Brazelton’s chances of being included. He took the setback in stride. “I’m here to compete, and I don’t want anything handed to me,” he said. “I have to earn it.”30

Brazelton started the season with Triple-A Durham, and after five starts, he was recalled by the Devil Rays before the end of April. He pitched in 10 games for Tampa Bay, all starts, from May 3 to June 24.His record in the first five was 0-4 but on May 30 he picked up his first major-league victory, at home against Anaheim. Over the 10 games he had a 6.89 ERA.

It was no surprise that Brazelton was demoted to the minors on June 25, but it was unusual that he was sent all the way down to a Single-A team, Bakersfield. “The scariest part of what we’re going through right now concerning our young players is that we know we rushed a lot of them to the major leagues and we know that there’s risk involved,” said Chuck LaMar, Tampa Bay’s general manager. Topkin noted that although the move seemed harsh, a similar demotion helped Toronto’s Roy Halladay (the 2003 AL Cy Young Award winner) two years earlier. Topkin observed reasons for applying the same to Dewon. “Brazelton had an unorthodox delivery in college, kicking his left leg higher and dropping his right arm lower, similar to Satchel Paige,” he wrote. “Rays coaches changed Brazelton’s mechanics in the minor leagues, but with his fastball down about 5 mph, they will at least let him experiment with his old delivery.”31

Brazelton pitched in nine games for Bakersfield, all starts. His record was 1-5 with a 5.26 ERA, but in mid-August he threw seven shutout innings in the last of those starts and was promoted to Double-A Orlando. He won both of his starts for Orlando, with a satisfying 2.53 ERA. The Rays next assigned him to the Arizona Fall League. His teammates on the Mesa Solar Bears included Delmon Young, Tampa Bay’s first-round pick a few months earlier, and outfielder Jonny Gomes. Brazelton was named the league’s top right-handed pitcher by virtue of a 4-0 record and 3.27 ERA in seven starts, with a league-leading 36 strikeouts in 33 innings. He was the winning pitcher in the AFL championship game, in which he scattered two hits and two walks in six innings.32

In 2004 Brazelton started the season with Triple-A Durham. From April 9 to May 29 he made 10 starts for the Bulls and had a 4-4 record with a 4.71 ERA. In early June the Rays released starting pitcher Paul Abbott and called up Brazelton. He turned 24 years old on June 16 and less than 10 days later came within four outs of making history at home against Florida, the previous season’s World Series champion.

Brazelton and Florida starter A.J. Burnett held each other’s opposing batters scoreless through the fifth inning. Dewon continued that through the top of the sixth, though more significantly, he had also kept the Marlins hitless. He started cramping in his right hip around then, but he toughed it out. The Rays scored twice in the bottom of the sixth, and Brazelton retired two more Marlins in the top of the seventh. That brought up Mike Lowell with the bases empty.

Brazelton got ahead of Lowell in the count before the veteran Marlin worked it to three balls and two strikes. Lowell fouled off the next three pitches. “When I got 3-2 on him, chances are, no-hitter or not, if I walked this guy, Lou’s going to bring somebody else in,” said Dewon, referring to manager Lou Piniella. “So I went right after him. I made three or four quality pitches that he fouled off. The next one, I threw right down the middle.” Lowell lined a ground-rule double between outfielders Carl Crawford and Joey Gathright. After his125th pitch – a new career high – Brazelton was removed to a standing ovation from the 25,000 fans at Tropicana Field. The score remained unchanged after he left, and he earned only his second major-league win. It happened almost exactly a year after the shortest start of his major-league career, the one against the Yankees after which he was quickly demoted to Class A. Tampa Bay wouldn’t have a pitcher throw the franchise’s first no-hitter until July 26, 2010, when Matt Garza shut down the Detroit Tigers.

The win was an important one for the franchise’s psyche, because their record improved to 35-35 and in their previous six seasons of existence it had never reached the .500 mark that late in a season, beating the old mark by a month. In their second season, 1999, they were 22-22 on May 23 before it all went downhill. What’s more, the near no-hitter meant that the Rays had come back completely from a horrible start and in a short span recovered from 18 games below .500 to break-even. No team had managed that from the year 1900 until then.33 The Rays couldn’t sustain their surge past Independence Day, and finished 2004 at 70-91. Brazelton, by contrast, maintained his momentum longer. Before he was shelled by the Boston Red Sox on August 11, his record stood at 4-3 with a 2.56 ERA. He stayed with the Rays through the end of the season, and in what was his longest major-league stint he had a 6-8 record with a 4.77 ERA in 22 games. In December of 2004 Brazelton was named winner of the Tony Conigliaro Award, presented to a player who had overcome adversity “through the attributes of spirit, determination, and courage.”

Brazelton had a good spring training in 2005, and in mid-March Lou Piniella named him the Opening Day starter at home against Toronto on April 4.To some extent Piniella was playing percentages: All of the young pitcher’s career wins had been at Tropicana Field, and two were over Toronto in 2004. “I’m honored to be the Opening Day starter, but it lets me know I have to step it up more to stay at that level,” he said.34 Brazelton retired the first nine Blue Jays but faltered in the fourth and gave up three runs. Still, he held Toronto there until he left with one out in the seventh inning. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay batters didn’t accomplish much against 2003 Cy Young Award winner Roy Halladay, and the final score was Jays 7, Rays 2.

Brazelton lost two more starts before beating Texas, again at Tropicana Field, on April 21. It proved to be the final victory of his major-league career. Three days after that, he was one of six players ejected during a game against the Red Sox. Presumably in response to Boston pitcher Bronson Arroyo having beaned Aubrey Huff, in the top of the seventh Tampa Bay pitcher Lance Carter threw high-and-tight pitches to Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. A bench-clearing scuffle broke out, and Piniella, Carter, and Brazelton were thrown out, along with Boston’s Trot Nixon. In the bottom of the inning, Arroyo plunked Chris Singleton in the leg, causing the benches to empty again. Arroyo and Boston manager Terry Francona were ejected. A few days later Arroyo was suspended for six games, Carter and Brazelton five, managers Francona and Piniella three, and Nixon two. Ortiz and Singleton were both fined for charging the mound.

Before mid-May, Brazelton had already lost seven games, with a 6.43 ERA, and was demoted to Durham. On May 16 he was put on the league’s restricted list for failing to report within the required 72 hours. Though his agent, Bo McKinnis, released brief statements, Brazelton’s whereabouts remained a mystery until early June, when he requested and received reinstatement by the league, and immediately went to Tampa Bay’s minor-league complex to work out. Afterward he spoke to a few reporters briefly but didn’t shed much light on his absence. McKinnis released a statement saying that Brazelton “dealt with a personal matter” and asked people to respect his privacy.35 Brazelton started a game on June 21 for the Double-A Montgomery Biscuits and had a good three innings, giving up no runs and two hits while striking out six. He returned to the majors as a reliever, and got into games for the Rays from June 25 to August 7. He then made five starts for Durham from August 14 to September 3, going 2-2 with a 3.72 ERA. He finished up with two more relief outings for Tampa Bay on September 13 and 20. His ERA for the Rays ended up at 7.61.

On December 7, 2005, Tampa Bay traded Brazelton to the San Diego Padres for third baseman Sean Burroughs, another former first-round pick. Brazelton played for Mayaguez in Puerto Rican Winter League before starting the 2006 season on the Padres’ roster. He lost both of his starts with San Diego, on April 8 and 13, then made seven more appearances in relief. His final major-league game was in San Diego against Milwaukee on May 11, 2006. His career major-league record was 8-25 with a 6.38 ERA.

Brazelton started 16 games for the Padres’ Triple-A team in Portland during the remainder of 2006 and did okay, with a 4.53 ERA. On October 15 he was granted free agency, and on December 5 the Kansas City Royals signed him. He pitched poorly for their Omaha team in early 2007 and was released on April 26. The Pittsburgh Pirates signed him on May 31 and he pitched decently for Double-A Altoona, with a 3.53 ERA, but was granted free agency again on October 29. One month later the St. Louis Cardinals signed him to a minor-league contract, but he didn’t play during 2008. In his six minor-league seasons, Brazelton compiled a record of 27-38 with a 4.02 ERA. His only other pro teams were independent ones, the Camden Riversharks in 2009 and the Kansas City (Kansas) T-Bones in 2010. His lone decision for the latter was a win.

Brazelton was back in the news briefly in mid-2011, and for a reason nobody desires. He was jailed briefly for striking his fiancée in public, in St. Petersburg’s International Plaza. “A witness told police the couple got into an argument and he hit her in the head as she pushed away from him,” said the St. Petersburg Times. “The woman, who was not identified, has been living with Brazelton for six years and the two are engaged, the police report said.”36

Fast-forward five years, and before Tampa Bay hosted the Red Sox in mid-2016, superstar Evan Longoria tossed a ball to a 12-year-old Little League pitcher named D.J., who snared it with his mitt. Smiling with great approval was his father, Dewon Brazelton, even though D.J.’s favorite player was on the other team: David Ortiz. At the time, Brazelton was sharing custody of Dewon, Junior, with his son’s mother, Elizabeth Boyce, in Orlando. Their early – and ugly – custody battle was the reason for Brazelton’s mysterious disappearance in May of 2005.The battle took years, but ultimately D.J.’s parents grew friendly again.

Brazelton expressed regret to Roger Mooney of the Tampa Bay Times for missing much of D.J.’s life earlier. “Now I enjoy being a part of my son’s day-to-day life. I looooove going to parent-teacher conferences,” he enthused. “I check his schoolwork. ‘Why did you get a frowny face?’ I looooove being a part of that.”

Brazelton was selling commercial and residential real estate while also managing a gas station and tire shop in the Bay area, but also found time for golf. In 2013 he was enshrined in the Middle Tennessee State athletic hall of fame, and has donated $250,000 for the baseball stadium’s renovation. He proudly showed a photo on his phone of himself with D.J. inside the ballpark, standing at the entrance to the Dewon Brazelton Alumni Suite.37

Notes

1 Dave Sheinin, “Making His Mothers Proud,” Washington Post, April 29, 2005: D1.

2 Jeff Pearlman, “From Afterthought to Ace,” Sports Illustrated, May 14, 2001: 76.

3 Damian Cristodero, “Brazelton Gets Opening Assignment,” St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, March 17 2005: 1C.

4 Pearlman: 79.

5 Courtney Huckabay, “Brazelton Throwing for His Future,” Sidelines (Murfreesboro, Tennessee), April 30, 2001: 4B. 

6 Marc Topkin, “Sensitive Subject,” St. Petersburg Times, March 2, 2003: 1C.

7 Huckabay: 6B.

8 Pearlman: 76.

9 Sheinin: D1.

10 Pearlman: 79.

11 “Close-Up,” Tampa Tribune, June 16, 2003: sports section, 2.

12 Ryan Simmons, “Player Profiles,” Middle Tennessee 2000 Baseball Media Guide (Middle Tennessee State University), 9.

13 Kevin Gorman, “Tullahoma Earns USA Classic Title,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, April 11, 1998: D3. 

14 Simmons, 9.

15 Pearlman: 79.

16 Huckabay: 4B.

17 Sheinin: D1.

18 Pearlman: 79.

19 Huckabay: 4B.

20 Joel Rippel, “2001 Amateur Draft Spotlight:  Dewon Brazelton,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 3, 2001: 16C.

21 Jim Salisbury, “Clemens Shows He’s Back in the Game,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 16, 2000: E5.

22 Marc Topkin, “Questions Abound for Next Year’s Club,” St. Petersburg Times, September 24, 2000: 5C.

23 Rippel: 16C.

24 Pearlman: 76.

25 Tony Stinnett, “Long, Hard Road: MTSU Pitching Phenom Dewon Brazelton Has Traveled a Tough Path,” Murfreesboro Daily News Journal, April 22, 2001.

26 Rippel: 16C.

27 Chris Anderson, “Brazelton Eyes Bigs in 3-4 Months,” Sarasota (Florida) Herald Tribune, June 6, 2001: C1.

28 Marc Topkin, “Brazelton: Let Learning Begin,” St. Petersburg Times, September 1, 2001: 3C.  Topkin indicated early on that Brazelton’s surname is pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable, “Brah-ZEL-ton,” though baseball-reference.com shows it as “BRAZ-el-ton.”

29 Marc Topkin, “Sensitive Subject,” St. Petersburg Times, March 2, 2003: 1C.

30 Carter Gaddis, “Injuries Actually May Benefit Brazelton,” Tampa Tribune, March 23, 2003: 20.

31 Marc Topkin, “Rays Get Brazelton out of Fire,” St. Petersburg Times, June 29, 2003: 9C.

32 Dennis Maffezzoli, “Rays Coach Finalist for Reds Job,” Sarasota Herald Tribune, November 23, 2003: C3.

33 Dennis Maffezzoli, “Devil Rays at .500; They Shut Out World Champs on a Two-Hitter,” Sarasota Herald Tribune, June 26, 2004: C1.

34 Cristodero: 1C.

35 Dave Scheiber, “Brazelton’s Few Words Reveal Almost Nothing,” St. Petersburg Times, June 4, 2005: 3C.

36 Robbyn Mitchell, “Ex-Ray Brazelton Charged With Hitting Fiancee,” St. Petersburg Times, June 5, 2011: 3C.

37 Roger Mooney, “His New Career: Being ‘Daddy,’” Tampa Bay Times, July 22, 2016: 1C.

Only 5-feet-8 and 165 pounds, the left-handed Campana exuded self-confidence. After spending a month in the majors, he boasted, “I’d like to challenge anyone in the league to a race.”2  Campana “said he could oppose Nyjer Morgan, Michael Bourn, Dee Gordon, and ‘Got to add another white guy, so put Brett Gardner in there.’”3

Campana had a great deal of faith in his ability to steal bases in large quantities. “[I]f I played every day and did what I hope I could do at the plate, I could give myself a chance to get close to 100,” he said.4

Campana was born into an athletic family in Kettering, Ohio, on May 30, 1986. His mother, Faye, was a gymnast at Indiana State University and has coached and judged gymnastics.5 His father, Mike (a steel salesman), and his uncle Tom played football at Eastern Illinois University and Ohio State University respectively. Faye and Mike’s two daughters Alex and Nikki, also went in for sports.

Bald as a boy due to chemo treatments he endured to fend off Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a diagnosis he received as a 7-year-old6 at Vanderbilt University Medical Center,7 Campana said in 2015, “I was just a sick kid and knew I needed to get better. It was probably scarier for my parents than for me. As a result, I have fun doing everything I do and no regrets about anything.”8

At the time, of course, Campana had some scary moments. He “once rolled over while sleeping in his hospital bed, dislodging a needle and waking in a pool of blood. But six months of treatment worked, and after years of regular checkups, Campana was declared cancer-free during high school.”9

Campana used his illness as a self-motivational tool. “That’s how I grew up – being a fighter,” he said. “People tell me I can’t do something because I’m sick, because I’m too small, I’m not going to listen to them. I’m going to show them I can.”10

Attending Springboro High near Dayton, Ohio, Campana had a .418 batting average his senior year and made all-area in football. In college, he batted over.300 each of his four years. “After calling everyone I could out of high school,” Campana walked-on at the University of North Carolina-Asheville11 and played there for two years before transferring to the University of Cincinnati for two more. In his freshman year, he hit .321 before falling off slightly as a sophomore to .315. As a junior, he batted .329 and set a school record that still stands with an NCAA-leading 60 stolen bases while making second team all-Big East. In his senior year, his one scholarship season, he upped his hitting to .33812 and made first team all-Big East along with future Pittsburgh star and minor-league teammate Josh Harrison. At the end of the 2015 season, Campana held three other University of Cincinnati records, for career stolen bases (104), at-bats in a season (263), and steals in a game (6).13

The Chicago Cubs drafted Campana in the 13th round of the June 2008 free-agent draft, with his signing credited to scout Lukas McKnight. The Cubs sent Campana to the short-season Boise Hawks, where he broke his hand stealing second in the first inning. “I finished the game, went back to my host family, and iced my hand all night, but it blew up like a balloon. The rest of the year I stopped sliding headfirst into second and didn’t resume doing so until two years later at Double A.”

This unfortunate beginning notwithstanding, at each level Campana stole lots of bases, swiping 22 in 25 games in 2008, 66 in 2009, and 48 in 2010. Off to a strong start with Triple-A Iowa in 2011, Campana joined the plodding Cubs in May 2011.14 “I got called up with [pitcher] Scott Maine,” Campana said. “He had been up to the majors before and thought we would cab from the airport to the park, but my parents picked us up. My mom was crying. I left 50 tickets for the game, but didn’t know I had to pay for them. Kerry Wood ended up taking care of it.”

The Cubs’ manager at the time, Mike Quade, said, “He can fly. So if we have a lead and I can inject him somewhere to make a difference defensively or come up and steal a base, we’re going to do that.”15

Campana saw his call-up as a blow for the little guy: “When I was in high school, all the coaches I talked to said, ‘You’re a little too small to play college ball,’” he told the Chicago Tribune. “Then once I transferred to Cincinnati, they were like, ‘Well, he’s probably a little too small to play pro ball.’ Then finally I got drafted and they were like, ‘Well, he’s fast. Let’s see if anything else happens.’”16

Campana immediately contributed with his bat, legs, and glove. On May 17 he debuted against Cincinnati, the big-league team closest to his hometown. Pinch-running for Alfonso Soriano, Campana scored on a bases-loaded walk to put the Cubs up 4-3 in the seventh inning. Facing Jordan Smith with two on and one out in the eighth, he “got a first-pitch fastball that was probably a ball and pulled a double past Joey Votto” to put Chicago up 5-3. (In the eighth the Reds got four unearned runs off Kerry Wood.)

The next day Campana pinch-ran, stole a base, and scored on a groundout. On May 26, he got his first start, had three hits, and made two sliding catches. “He got an ovation … for nearly beating out a grounder to first,” the Tribune reported.17 On May 30 Campana turned 25, and celebrated by becoming the first Cub in nearly five seasons to steal four bases in a game.18

Campana homered on August 5 against Cincinnati. According to the Tribune, he was “the first Cub to have his first career home run be an inside-the-park-homer at Wrigley Field,”19 on a hit that “barely cleared the infield,”20 then “bounced off the left-field wall and past a fielder.”21 “When I got back in the locker room, I had, like, 64 text messages, something outrageous like that,” he said. “I had to turn my phone on silent because I was still getting text messages at 2 o’clock in the morning.”22

The hit was Campana’s lone homer in 477 plate appearances through 2015. His bat quickly cooled, and Quade used the youngster irregularly. A trade-deadline analysis of the Chicago roster said of Campana: “Cubs like his speed, though not enough to play him. Not much market for a designated pinch-runner.”23

Campana had so little power that he rarely even homered in batting practice. When he did so in September 2011, the Cubs commemorated the occasion by smashing pie in his face,24 a sure sign of a bad team with little to celebrate. Chicago finished 25 games out of first place at 71-91.

A fan favorite, Campana mostly appreciated the attention: “It’s kind of an honor. I hope it’s because of the way I play and not because I’m a small guy. I like that people enjoy watching me play. It’s cool.”25

Campana swiped 24 bases in 26 attempts in his rookie year, finishing second in the NL in stolen-base percentage. He sought to get stronger before the 2012 season and reported in January that he had “gained 10 pounds of muscle working out since November in Mesa, Ariz.”26

The added bulk did not help Campana make the 2012 Cubs to start the season; Chicago kept nonroster invitee Joe Mather instead.27 Campana was sent to Iowa. The Cubs recalled recalled him in April after selling fellow outfielder Marlon Byrd to Boston. Under new skipper Dale Sveum, who planned to give him 80 percent of the starts in center field,28 Campana helped Chicago beat rival St. Louis on April 24 with a 10th-inning single, a controversial stolen base,29 and a walk-off run scored.

On April 27 Campana had two infield hits, two more runs, and a stolen base in a 5-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies. On April 29, in another 5-1 victory against Philadelphia, he again had two hits, two runs, and a steal. He won praise from his manager for tallying on an infield weed-killer:  “It’s going to be very, very difficult to ever throw him out when you let him go on contact on a ground ball, You’ve got to be perfect with the throw because he’s so fast,” Sveum said.30

In a May 22 loss to the Houston Astros, in what a beat reporter later called “the Cubs’ play of the year”31 and Campana called “the coolest play I’ve ever been a part of,” he sped from first to third after an errant pickoff throw to first. As he rounded second, “third baseman Matt Downs took a throw from Carlos Lee, but Campana leaped over Downs, [clearing] Downs’ glove with enough room to spare that umpire Bill Welke could see it. His momentum carried him past third base, but he reversed course and scrambled back before Downs could tag him.”32

By June 24 Campana was leading the majors with 24 steals, but was losing playing time to other outfielders.33 In August, to get him more playing time and to shake up a losing roster, the Cubs returned Campana to Iowa, then recalled him in September after the rosters expanded. Despite the time in the minors, Campana set career highs in plate appearances, at-bats, runs, hits, doubles, steals, walks, and sacrifices. His 30 stolen bases ranked ninth in the National League. Caught just three times, he again finished second in stolen-base percentage.

The Cubs had dipped to 61-101 in 2012.  After the season, Campana returned to Venezuela, where he had also played in 2010. Back in the United States, he would not long remain with Chicago. After picking up outfielder Scott Hairston, Chicago designated Campana for assignment in February 2013.  The Cubs hoped to keep him in the organization but wound up trading him to the Arizona Diamondbacks for a pair of minor-league pitchers. Campana played in just 29 games for the Diamondbacks in 2013. In one memorable game, he walked five times and scored the winning run in an 18-inning marathon against Philadelphia on August 24.

On December 7, 2013, Campana married Whitney Lawson, whom he met through a teammate, in Knoxville, Tennessee.

On April 10, 2014, Campana put together the only four-hit game of his career, at San Francisco. One of the hits was a two-out, two-strike single in the 10th off Yusmeiro Petit that gave Arizona a 6-5 victory.” But overall, Campana struggled for Arizona. Batting only .143 coming into a June 18 game against Milwaukee, he did deliver a walk-off hit to beat the Milwaukee Brewers. “My first career walk-off,” he said. “Probably (at any level).  I don’t think I’ve ever done it in the minor leagues either.”34

Nevertheless, the Diamondbacks the next morning sent Campana back to the minors. “I told him going out the door, ‘You can be better than that,’ manager Kirk Gibson said. “I emphasized to him hitting the ball on the ground more. Not to say he can’t hit line drives, but if he hits the ball in the air, it’s going to be an out.”35

“Gibson treated me really well,” Campana said. “He was really intense. I liked his football mentality, having grown up around it.”

Campana did not stay with the Arizona organization long, going to the Angels as part of a four-player trade soon after being sent down. While he inspired a sportswriter to describe him in spring training in 2014 as “a spitfire sparkplug with a pretty good glove who can get on base and steal bags about as easy as a purse snatcher in a room full of blind grannies,”36 he stole just nine bases in 18 attempts for Salt Lake, the Triple-A affiliate of the Angels.

Recalled again after rosters expanded and used mostly as a pinch-runner, Campana did have a second 2014 batting highlight, on September 15. Hitting in the slot of Albert Pujols, who had been injured, Campana knocked in two runs that helped cement an 8-1 win over Seattle that made the Angels the first team to clinch a spot in the 2014 playoffs.37 

After the season Campana became a free agent after turning down a minor-league assignment.38  He came back to Chicago via an invitation to spring training with the White Sox, but tore his ACL while box jumping in February before spring training had even begun.39 “I knew right away that something was wrong,” he said.

On March 3, 2015, Chicago released Campana. Several months after the injury, he seemed most scarred by his having lost his health-care coverage. “I never knew how much health insurance was until I had to pay for it,” he said.

Relieving the financial burden and professional uncertainty, on August 11, 2015, Washington signed Campana to a two-year minor-league contract. In a close division race, the Nationals would have activated Campana and used him as a late-season pinch-runner, but after the Mets surged, he ended up sitting out the entire 2015 season.40

Going into the 2016 season, Campana seemed a longshot to make a major-league roster. “I’m going to try to compete for a spot in Washington,” he said. “If I don’t make it, I will work my butt off in Syracuse to get to Washington.”

Campana was released by the Nationals in June and spent the latter half of 2016 with the Chicago White Sox’s Triple-A club in Charlotte. He became a free agent at the end of the season and then spent several years in the Mexican League before retiring after the 2021 season.

Campana admirably overcome adversity with a winning personality and a career characterized by a handful of memorable moments, most of which his blazing speed made possible. 

Last revised: March 1, 2022

Notes

1 “Send Tony Campana back to his gnome world to make sure wizards cast spells on opposing pitchers,” suggested a group of wits. Brian Moore, Phil Thompson, Scott Bolohan, Clark Jones, and John Dooley, “GET A W,” Chicago Tribune, May 15, 2012.  When Chicago pitcher Matt Garza borrowed an idea from his Tampa days and proposed the Cubs dress up as superheroes, Campana appropriately went as the Flash. Paul Sullivan, “Nothing heroic about weekend,” Chicago Tribune, July 23, 2012.

2 Paul Sullivan, “A Blue Blazer,” Chicago Tribune, June 15, 2011.

3 John Shea, “Jim Thome Has Clean Reputation Amid Steroid Era,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 14, 2011.

4 Paul Sullivan, “Campana Thinking Triple Digits,” Chicago Tribune, May 3, 2012.

5 See gtcohio.com/gtco-info/coaches-page/10-faye (accessed December 17, 2015).

6 Patrick S., “Determination, Hustle and Tony Campana,” January 18, 2011 at chicagocubsonline.com/archives/2011/01/cubstonycampana.php (accessed December 17, 2015).

7 Nick Gates, “Campana Determined to Succeed,” Knoxville News Sentinel, May 4, 2010.

8 Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations attributed to Campana come from a telephone interview conducted December 19, 2015. The author thanks Campana for taking the time to talk and to Brett Bick of Pro Star Management for arranging the interview.

9 Tyler Kepner, “The Cubs’ Cincinnati Kid,” New York Times, June 4, 2011.

10 Tom Haudricourt, “After Their Plunge, Pirates Hope to Stay Afloat,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 13, 2011.

11 In the 10th game of his freshman year, Campana singled off future big leaguer Darren O’Day and scored the winning run as UNC-Asheville beat Florida 8-5.  “Asheville Holds Back Florida Late,” Gainesville Sun, March 10, 2005.

12 All batting averages in this paragraph come from gobearcats.com/sports/m-basebl/mtt/campana_tony00.html (accessed December 17, 2015).

13 See issuu.com/ucbearcats/docs/2015_media_giude_-_final (accessed December 17, 2015).

14 Chicago had just 69 stolen bases as a team in 2011. Playing part-time for just part of the season, Campana had 24 with the Cubs.

15 “Campana Fills Cubs’ Big Need for Speed,” Chicago Tribune, May 19, 2011.

16 “Major Setback in Cashner’s Rehab,” Chicago Tribune, May 18, 2011.

17 Paul Sullivan, “Another Veteran Arm Joins the Mix,” Chicago Tribune, May 27, 2011.

18 Paul Sullivan, “Add Sori to the Story,” Chicago Tribune, May 31, 2011.

19 Toni Ginnetti, “Cubs’ Tony Campana Hears Buzz About Historic Homer,” Chicago Sun-Times, August 7, 2011.

20 Dave van Dyck, “‘Z’ Hits His Tee-Off Time,” Chicago Tribune, August 7, 2011.

21 Dave van Dyck, “This Homer an Inside Job,” Chicago Tribune, August 6, 2011.

22 Dave van Dyck, “Big Day, Then Back to Bench,” Chicago Tribune, August 7, 2011.

23 Paul Sullivan, “Blowing Through the Trade Winds,” Chicago Tribune, July 29, 2011.

24 Paul Sullivan, “2011’s Best?  (Crickets),” Chicago Tribune, September 23, 2011.

25 Paul Sullivan, “Following No Small Thing,” Chicago Tribune, February 22, 2012.

26 Paul Sullivan, “Epstein:  Wood a ‘No-Brainer,’” Chicago Tribune, January 12, 2012.

27 Paul Sullivan, “Sveum Confident Rotation Is Better,” Chicago Tribune, March 31, 2012.

28 Paul Sullivan, “Cubs Have Leg Up on Halladay,” Chicago Tribune, April 28, 2012.

29 “Umpire Bill Welke ruled that Campana got past [Tyler] Greene’s tag after a dart from catcher Yadier Molina beat the speedy Campana to the base. Before teammate Rafael Furcal pushed him away and [manager Mike] Matheny arrived, Greene argued that Campana still hadn’t touched the bag. ‘He was out 100 percent,’ Greene insisted after the game. ‘For one, I tagged him. Two, he never touched the bag. He missed it, plain and simple. He had my foot the whole time. So he was out.’” Derrick Goold, “Umpires Confound Cardinals,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 25, 2012.

30 Paul Sullivan, “Now That’s ‘Cool,’” Chicago Tribune, April 30, 2012.

31 Phil Rogers, “All-City Pretty Gritty,” Chicago Tribune, June 17, 2012.

32 Phil Rogers, “Campana Flying High on the Run,” Chicago Tribune, May 24, 2012.

33 Paul Sullivan, “Running Game Hits Skids in Last Month,” Chicago Tribune, June 24, 2012.

34 Nathan Brown, “Tony Campana’s RBI Single Lifts Arizona Diamondbacks Over Milwaukee Brewers,” Arizona Republic, June 19, 2014.

35 Scott Bordow, “Arizona Diamondbacks Send Tony Campana Back to Minors,” Arizona Republic, June 19, 2014.

36 Bob McManaman, “Arizona Diamondbacks’ Tony Campana Hopes to Parlay Speed Into Job,” Arizona Republic, March 12, 2014.

37 Mike DiGiovanna, “Angels Clinch Playoff Berth in 8-1 Win Over Mariners,” Los Angeles Times, September 15, 2014.

38 Mike DiGiovanna, “Angels Pick Up Closer Huston Street’s 2015 Option for $7 Million,” Los Angeles Times, October 30, 2014.

39 Colleen Kane, “The Lineup,” Chicago Tribune, February 11, 2015.

40 Chelsea Janes, “Nationals Sign Outfielder Tony Campana to a Minor League Deal,” Washington Post, August 11, 2015.

Chris Carpenter spent 15 seasons in major-league baseball, first with the Toronto Blue Jays and then with the St. Louis Cardinals .His won-lost record was 144-94 with an earned-run average of 3.76, and in 2005, his 21-5 season and 2.83 ERA won him the National League’s Cy Young Award. But statistics alone don’t tell the story of Carpenter’s career. His determination to play, despite serious injuries that nearly ended his career on several occasions, impressed both the fans and the writers who covered him. As one columnist said of the right-hander, he was “the epitome of persistence — he won three separate Comeback Player of the Year awards in two seasons — as he missed nearly five full seasons with major arm injuries. He had three surgeries on his elbow and two on his shoulder, and had a rib removed in hopes of making a return from thoracic outlet syndrome, which caused weakness in his pitching shoulder.”1 Few pitchers overcame as many obstacles as Carpenter, and yet there was a time in 2003 when he doubted he’d ever throw a baseball again.2

Christopher John Carpenter was born on April 27, 1975, in Exeter, New Hampshire, the son of Bob and Penny Carpenter.3 Raised in nearby Raymond, he developed a love of sports at a young age: Mentored by his father, whom he credited with teaching him the fundamentals of baseball, he began playing that sport before he was 8, getting involved in Little League and then Babe Ruth League.4 (He also followed the Boston Red Sox faithfully; his favorite players were Roger Clemens and Carlton Fisk.)5 Carpenter attended Trinity High School in Manchester, where he continued to excel at baseball. But he also enjoyed playing hockey: despite being 6-feet-6 (or 6-feet-9 on skates, as his dad jokingly recalled), he was a three-time all-state defenseman, and both the Chicago Blackhawks and Boston Bruins scouted him for a possible professional career.6

However, Carpenter’s first choice was baseball. A versatile athlete who could both play the outfield and pitch, he was one of the star players on the Trinity High Pioneers team. By his senior year, baseball scouts rated him in the top 10 among high-school pitchers,7 and local newspapers were predicting that he would be drafted.8 But taking nothing for granted, Chris had signed a letter of intent to attend Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, on a baseball scholarship. As it turned out, going to Nebraska would not be necessary: The Blue Jays drafted him in the first round, as the 15th overall pick. Local sports reporters who had followed his high-school career noted that Carpenter was the first New Hampshire baseball player ever selected in the first round of the amateur draft.9

The 18-year-old right-hander received a signing bonus of more than $500,000 from the Jays, and the team also promised to pay for his education if he decided to go to college.10 As he prepared to report to Dunedin, Florida, home of Toronto’s rookie and Class-A teams, his future looked bright. Ted Lekas, the Jays’ scouting supervisor, said he believed Carpenter had all the tools to be on a major-league team, and the young pitcher agreed with that assessment; in fact, he predicted he’d be in the majors within four years.11

In 1994 Carpenter made his professional debut, pitching for the Medicine Hat (Alberta) Blue Jays in the rookie-level Pioneer League; he won six and lost three, with a 2.76 earned-run average. The following year, he began the season with the Dunedin Blue Jays in the Florida State League; he went 3-5, with an ERA of 2.17, and opposing teams batted only .229 against him. This earned Carpenter a midseason promotion to the Knoxville Smokies of the Double-A Southern League.12 His record there was just 3-7, with a 5.18 ERA. When he returned to Knoxville for the 1996 season, Carpenter was determined to improve, and he did. His record was 7-9 with a 3.94 ERA.

In 1997 Carpenter was in Triple A, pitching for the Syracuse Sky Chiefs. But prior to reporting, he had the chance to meet one of his childhood heroes, Roger Clemens, who was now with the Blue Jays; when Carpenter arrived early at the Jays training camp in Dunedin in early February, there was Clemens, the man he had emulated even as a Little Leaguer. Carpenter was just 11 when Clemens won his first Cy Young Award in 1986, and he wanted to be as good a pitcher as the Red Sox ace. “When I thought of baseball, I thought of Roger Clemens,” Carpenter recalled. He also remembered how he would pretend to be Clemens when pitching in an important Little League game.13 Now, more than a decade later, the two were at spring training together; and in the future, they might be major-league teammates.

But there was no plan to hurry Carpenter along: the Blue Jays, while impressed with his potential, felt he still needed more time in the minor leagues. At Syracuse, Carpenter’s fastball continued to impress, but he was still learning to improve command of his curveball and changeup. He was only 1-4, with a 3.88 ERA in early May, when something unexpected happened: Toronto pitcher Erik Hanson developed shoulder trouble, and after his replacement, Robert Person, also got a sore shoulder,14 Carpenter was suddenly on his way to Toronto to make his major-league debut.15

It did not go well. Pitching against the Minnesota Twins on May 12, 1997, he lasted only three innings, giving up seven runs (five earned) and eight hits, as the Jays lost to the Twins 12-2. Carpenter was the losing pitcher.16 In his brief time with the Jays, he was 0-2, with a less-than-impressive 12.71 ERA.17 When Person was able to come off the disabled list, Carpenter was optioned back to Syracuse.18 On the other hand, reporters observed that the 21-year-old pitcher had good stuff, and with some more experience, he would undoubtedly do much better the next time he was called up.

In late July Carpenter’s record with Syracuse was 4-9, with a 4.50 ERA, but local baseball writers noted that his record was deceptive — the Sky Chiefs’ poor defense and lack of timely hitting had cost him several games, yet despite that, he had shown steady improvement.19 The writers believed Carpenter would get called up again soon, and Chris was confident that this time things would go better.

On July 29 Carpenter was recalled by the Blue Jays, but it would take a few more starts (and several more losses) before he finally got his first major-league win, on August 19, when the Jays defeated the Chicago White Sox 6-5. Carpenter gave up four runs in six innings, but a win was a win, and he was happy to get one. As the season progressed, he used every available moment to soak up additional information about the art of pitching from the team’s veterans,20 and gradually he began to show improvement. On September 9 he gave his best major-league performance, beating the Anaheim Angels, 2-0. It was his first shutout and his first complete game, and he gave up just three hits; only two runners reached second base.21

Carpenter finished the season with an overall record of 3-7 and an ERA of 5.09, much of that the result of his early outings. When the Jays began the 1998 season, he was in the starting rotation, eager to build on what he had learned during his rookie year. He made 24 starts that year, compiling a record of 12-7, with a 4.37 ERA. Most of those wins came in the second half of the year; he went 6-1 over a period from July through September. His manager, Tim Johnson, stated that Carpenter was showing an ability to use all of his pitches consistently; Johnson also stated with certainty, “He’ll be a quality pitcher for years.”22

As the 1999 season approached, Carpenter seemed poised to have a breakout season. He was about to be part of a rotation that featured Roy Halladay, Kelvim Escobar, Pat Hentgen and David Wells. Although Chris had a couple of minor health problems in 1998 (including several weeks during spring training when he had some tightness in his shoulder,23 and a time in the late summer when he saw an asthma specialist after experiencing some breathing problems),24 neither situation caused any lasting effects. During April and May of 1999, Carpenter led all Jays pitchers in innings pitched and complete games and was the only starter with an ERA under five — his was 3.63.25 Then, without warning, in early June he suddenly began to experience soreness in his elbow. He ended up on the 15-day disabled list, then did a rehab start at Class-A St. Catharine’s (Ontario), and prepared to rejoin the Jays.26

But although he said he felt good, his pitching was once again inconsistent, and he was having problems with control.27 As it turned out, his elbow was not 100 percent after all. He decided to see a specialist to find out why he continued to experience recurring pain. The Jays’ trainer thought it might be a bone spur, and that meant surgery would be needed.28 Carpenter finished 1999 with a record of 9-8 and a 4.38 ERA. In the offseason, he had elbow surgery, after which he worked on strengthening his arm, and said he would be ready for the 2000 season.29 But just like before, he pitched inconsistently; in early May, he was 3-3 with a 4.50 ERA. He insisted he was fine, but some players who knew him suspected he was in more pain than he wanted to admit.30 Carpenter soldiered on throughout 2000, but he rarely was the dominant pitcher everyone hoped for. He was in and out of the starting rotation, and he finished up with a losing record, 10-12 with an unimpressive 6.26 ERA. By this point, fans and baseball writers alike were wondering why he continued to underachieve. Said one reporter, Carpenter was one of several pitchers on the Jays who were “long on potential but short on performance.”31 No one, including Chris Carpenter himself, had a good explanation.

In fairness, Carpenter was playing for a team that had endured quite a bit of management turmoil. By spring training of 2001, the Jays were on their fourth manager and coaching staff since Carpenter’s major-league debut, and along the way, several of the coaches insisted on changing his mechanics in hopes of addressing his inconsistency.32 But Carpenter refused to make excuses. He was now 25, had plenty of major-league experience under his belt, and he wanted to step up and become the team’s ace. At times during the early part of the season, he seemed ready to do just that, like when he overpowered the White Sox in late May, pitching a six-hit shutout and boosting his record to 5-2.33 But then the inconsistency and loss of control recurred and he began losing (and giving up too many runs). In early August, Carpenter’s record was 7-9 with a 4.33 ERA, he hadn’t won a game since late June, and he admitted he had lost command of his curveball.34 Carpenter was unable to turn things around until late August, when he finally won a game, pitching seven shutout innings in the Jays’ 5-0 victory over Baltimore — his first win in 11 starts. For the remainder of the season, Carpenter once again pitched well, and brought his record up to 11-11, with a 4.09 ERA; he also pitched a career-high 215⅔ innings.

In the offseason, with his three-year contract up, Carpenter found that the Jays’ new management (general manager Gord Ash was gone, replaced by J.P. Ricciardi) was not as accommodating as the previous management had been. The Jays refused to give him a multiyear deal, nor did they offer him the kind of money he had hoped to make. In fact, his agent believed Carpenter’s days with Toronto were numbered.35 In the end, the Jays and Carpenter avoided salary arbitration, but he was signed to only a one-year contract, worth $3.45 million, less than the $4.5 million he wanted.36

And yet again, it was a difficult year for Carpenter. In early April, after a game in which he gave up four home runs in less than three innings, he was put on the disabled list with shoulder tendinitis (which he admitted had begun during spring training).37 He returned, but ended up on the DL again — in fact, he was on it a total of three times, as his shoulder continued to bother him throughout the season. By early September, Chris had a record of 4-5 and a 5.28 ERA, and he had pitched only 73⅓ innings for the Jays. The team announced that the hard-luck pitcher would need surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder, and even if everything went well, he would not be able to pitch for at least nine months. But few of the beat reporters in Toronto expected to see Carpenter in a Jays uniform again. With his contract up again, the consensus was that Carpenter’s time with the Blue Jays was over.38 In his six years with the Jays, he had compiled a record of 49-50, with a 4.83 ERA. Few people thought that was all he was capable of. Perhaps a new start would be for the best.

As it turned out, those who predicted Carpenter’s time with Toronto had ended were correct. When the Jays wanted to assign him to Triple-A Syracuse, Carpenter instead decided to test the free-agent market. It was a good decision: The day after he severed ties with the Jays, the St. Louis Cardinals made him an offer. Even though he would be unable to pitch till at least July of 2003, the Cardinals guaranteed $300,000, which would grow to $500,000 as soon as he was put on the active roster that year.39 There was also a $2 million option for 2004.40 Best of all, he would not have to go to the minors and work his way back to the big leagues. Carpenter expressed frustration at the previous couple of seasons, and especially at his inability to improve his won-lost record. And while he and his wife loved Toronto, he agreed that it was time for a change.

Things did not go the way either Carpenter or his new team planned. Instead of being able to come back to the Cardinals in July, there were unexpected complications. The team had sent him to do a quick rehab stint in late June, first for the Class-A Palm Beach Cardinals, and then at the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds. When he took the mound for the Redbirds, Carpenter gave up three runs and four hits in the first inning, and he definitely did not look ready for the majors. Rather than rush him, it was decided he needed more time in the minors.41 But when Carpenter did not pitch any better in a subsequent rehab appearance, the Cardinals grew concerned. They had good reason. Not only was he giving up a lot of runs, he was once again feeling discomfort in his surgically repaired shoulder. He was sent to St. Louis to get an MRI, and Cardinals manager Tony La Russa acknowledged that it was unlikely Carpenter would pitch for the team in 2003.42

The test results confirmed La Russa’s assessment. Carpenter needed additional surgery, this time to remove scar tissue from his shoulder. The operation took place in late July, and the Cardinals said that once this was taken care of, he would be ready for spring training in 2004.43 Of course, this was not what St. Louis fans had hoped for. The Cardinals needed pitching, and Carpenter had been expected to help the team in 2003. Now, everyone would have to wait and see, and some fans were skeptical about whether the team had made the right decision to sign him. But showing they still believed Carpenter would come back and contribute positively, the Cardinals gave him another one-year contract, with terms similar to the last year’s, and additional incentives once he had reached 10 starts. GM Walt Jocketty expressed confidence that in 2004 Carpenter would be one of the team’s starters.44

And after living through so many disappointments and setbacks, Carpenter was eager to get some results. He was also confident that this surgery had worked: Back home in New Hampshire, he was pitching to some college players, and noticed that his pitches had the kind of movement they used to have before his arm trouble. His location was back, and he could even throw his changeup for strikes.45 Before this most recent surgery, he had considered retiring, concerned that the constant pain would never go away and he would never be able to pitch effectively again.46 It was his wife, Alyson, who encouraged him and persuaded him not to quit,47 and now, finally, he was pain-free. He was optimistic again, and he couldn’t wait to get to spring training. And when Cardinals players saw how good Carpenter’s stuff was, they were optimistic too.

In fact, 2004 turned out to be the kind of year people had long believed Carpenter was capable of. His velocity and command were back, and he pitched 182 innings, going 15-5, with a 3.46 ERA. The Cardinals were heading for the playoffs, and everyone was excited to see what Carpenter would do. But once again there was a roadblock. In late September Carpenter began feeling pain in the biceps in his throwing arm. Resting it did not help; there was some kind of nerve irritation in the arm, and neither the team doctor nor the specialist could predict when it would get better.48 The Cardinals waited to see if Carpenter would be available during the playoffs, but he never was. The team subsequently lost the World Series to the Red Sox, much to the frustration of the fans, who had been excited by Carpenter’s 2004 comeback and disappointed that he couldn’t pitch in the postseason.

No one was more frustrated and disappointed than Carpenter. While Red Sox fans rejoiced in their first World Series win in 86 years, Cardinals fans wondered if he would ever stay healthy for a full season. Meanwhile, Carpenter won The Sporting News’ Comeback Player of the Year award for 2004, a year before a similar award was given by Major League Baseball.49 But better than winning an award was the fact that resting his arm had allowed the nerve disorder to heal; Carpenter returned to the Cardinals once again able to throw without pain.50 He looked so good in spring training that manager LaRussa named him the Cardinals’ Opening Day starter. He did not disappoint, pitching seven innings of four-hit, one-run baseball in a 7-3 victory over Houston.51

It was a preview of things to come. By the All-Star break Carpenter had 128 strikeouts and 13 wins, one of which was against his former team, the Blue Jays; he overpowered them, throwing a one-hitter in an interleague game the Cardinals won 7-0.52 When players were named for the All-Star Game, Carpenter was selected It was his first time, and La Russa chose him as the National League’s starting pitcher. He gave up two hits, induced a double play, and pitched a scoreless inning.

Throughout the rest of 2005, Carpenter’s pitching was outstanding; no one used words like “mediocre” or “underachiever” any more. Now, he was “brilliant” and “dominant and his teammates praised his focus, his intensity, and his desire to win. He was so overpowering that he did not lose a game in 16 starts from June 14 to September 8; during that period, he went 13-0 with a 1.36 earned-run average.53 His final four outings were subpar, but he still ended the season with a record of 21-5 and a personal best 2.83 ERA. Carpenter’s peers voted him the winner of a Players Choice Award, as the National League’s Outstanding Pitcher.54 Carpenter also won the Cy Young Award; he beat out Florida Marlins left-hander Dontrelle Willis in a close vote. His career had totally turned around — from a time in 2003 when he thought he would never play again to being honored as the National League’s best pitcher in 2005. He was now making $13 million (a far cry from the $500,000 he had signed for), but many reporters noted that compared with some other star pitchers, he was quite underpaid. Carpenter said he didn’t mind; he was healthy, he was winning, and he felt he was with the right team.55

In May 2006 Carpenter made another sudden trip to the disabled list, but this time it wasn’t his arm. He had experienced back spasms in April, and they had never improved; he now had some stiffness in the shoulder area, and was finally diagnosed with bursitis. It was affecting his mechanics, and some time on the DL seemed prudent, given his history.56 When he returned in June, he felt better, and he gave the Cardinals some quality starts; but at several points during the season, he had to leave games with painful cramping in his arms or legs, said to be caused by dehydration.57 And while he didn’t put up Cy Young numbers, he still finished with a solid record: 15-8 and a 3.09 ERA in 221⅔ innings; more importantly, whenever the Cardinals needed a big win from him, he usually produced, including during the playoffs. For example, although the Cards barely made it into the postseason, Carpenter gave them 6⅓ innings of clutch pitching in Game One of the NLDS versus San Diego; he was the winning pitcher, allowing five hits and one run in the Cardinals’ 5-1 victory. That win improved Carpenter’s lifetime playoff record to 3-0, with an ERA of 1.98. Meanwhile, the Cardinals began to play like champs, defeating the Detroit Tigers in five games in the World Series. And one of the Cardinals’ wins came from Chris Carpenter, who pitched eight shutout innings in Game Three, giving up only three hits as the Cardinals won 5-0.

But nothing ever was simple in Chris Carpenter’s career. When he came to spring training in 2007, he soon began to experience elbow stiffness, soreness, and inflammation. He was diagnosed with arthritis and an MRI showed bone spurs. It was hoped that a cortisone shot and some rest would be all that was needed.58 But the elbow did not improve, and by May it became obvious that Carpenter would need surgery to remove the bone spurs. The hope was that he would return to the Cardinals in about three months.59 But in July management admitted that its original optimistic report was inaccurate. In fact, not only was Carpenter not coming back in August; he needed additional elbow surgery, to replace his medial collateral ligament, better known as Tommy John surgery. He would probably miss much of 2008.60 This was a major disappointment for the fans, the team, and of course, for Carpenter, who had hoped his arm troubles were behind him.

By mid-July of 2008 Carpenter was far enough along in his recovery to begin an injury rehab assignment; he pitched four pain-free innings for the Double-A Springfield (Missouri) Cardinals, and while he did not have his command back yet, the outing was encouraging. In fact, Cardinals said he would return to the team at the end of the month. He made several appearances with the Cardinals, and all seemed to be going well; but then, in mid-August, Carpenter experienced soreness in his triceps area. Again, he had to go see the specialists. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the diagnosis was just a mild muscle strain on the back side of his right shoulder. But it still meant another trip to the DL, certainly not what Carpenter had hoped. And there was worse news: Tests showed nerve irritation in his shoulder, and he was told not to pitch any more in 2008.61 He also required one more surgery, to reduce pressure on a compressed nerve in his shoulder. It was becoming increasingly difficult for Carpenter to remain positive. All he wanted to do was pitch, but it seemed there was one obstacle after another.

Still, Carpenter persevered. He was back at spring training in 2009, and early indications were that his velocity had returned. He returned to the Cardinals’ rotation, determined to win games and not worry about his arm. The season brought him some much-needed good news: he threw well, and looked like the dominant pitcher everyone saw in 2005. In fact, from early July through mid-August of 2009, he was 7-0 in eight starts, with an ERA of 1.67.62 And at season’s end, he had an impressive 17-4 record, with a league-leading ERA of 2.24. And there was one other interesting note: In early October, on the last day of the season, Carpenter (a .105 lifetime hitter as of 2009) hit a grand slam and knocked in six runs in a game the Cardinals won 13-0 against the Cincinnati Reds.63 In early October Carpenter was voted the National League’s Comeback Player of the Year. Some of the baseball writers also expected Chris to win another Cy Young, but he lost out to San Francisco Giants ace Tim Lincecum. The vote was very close, and not everyone agreed with the decision.64 But Carpenter’s amazing season also earned him other accolades: In January 2010 the Boston chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America announced it had unanimously chosen him for the 20th annual Tony Conigliaro Award, given to “a Major League player who has overcome adversity through the attributes of spirit, determination and courage.”65

The 2010 season saw Carpenter continuing to put up good numbers. He was 35 now, but just as his injuries hadn’t stopped him, neither did his age. He made a league-leading 35 starts, finishing at 16-9 and a 3.22 ERA. But he pitched one complete game, and said that at times he felt uncomfortable with his mechanics.66 In 2011 he was once again the Cardinals’ Opening Day pitcher, the fifth time he had been chosen.67 During the season, he was sometimes inconsistent, but he came up big when the Cardinals needed him to. And he was still a workhorse: Carpenter led the National League with 237⅓ innings pitched. His record was 11-9, with a 3.45 earned-run average. But he was especially dominant during the Cardinals’ pennant drive late in the season. Then, in Game Five of the NLDS, Carpenter outpitched his friend and former Blue Jays teammate Roy Halladay, throwing a three-hitter and winning, 1-0. Throughout the playoffs, he continued to win big games, including giving the Cards six-plus innings on only three days’ rest in Game Seven of the World Series, helping his team to defeat the Texas Rangers and win the Series again. Carpenter’s hometown newspaper, the Manchester (New Hampshire) Union Leader, editorialized that he was the epitome of good sportsmanship, competitiveness, and character, someone that every young athlete could emulate.68

In 2012, however, Carpenter was injured again, this time with a nerve problem that affected his rotator cuff. Determined to continue pitching, he agreed to another surgical procedure, but he made only three starts that year, and was winless. Things did not improve for him in 2013, when he experienced periods of numbness in his pitching hand. He was unsuccessful in completing a rehab assignment. Finally, Carpenter decided there was no point in living with continued pain that made it impossible for him to be effective. In November 2013 he announced his retirement. In spite of all the injuries, he compiled an impressive record during his major-league career: 144 wins and 94 losses (he went 95-44 with the Cardinals), with an ERA of 3.76 and 1,697 strikeouts. He had won a Cy Young Award, been named Comeback Player of the Year, played on three All-Star teams, and was on two championship World Series teams.69 Not bad for a young man from Raymond, New Hampshire, who almost became a hockey player. After his playing days ended, the popular Carpenter was given a job in the Cardinals’ front office, but he left that position after only a year; he told reporters he had been going through some personal changes (including getting divorced, and ultimately remarrying), and did not feel he was able to focus on what the organization needed. He hoped to come back to the Cardinals in some capacity in the future.70 In 2016 he was voted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.

Last revised: March 1, 2017

Notes

1 Jim Connell, “Carpenter at Home on the Sidelines,” Springfield (Missouri) News-Leader, January 24, 2015:D1.

2 Lori Shontz, “Pitching on Wife Support.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 30, 2004: D1.

3 Joe Strauss, “That’s a Winner,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 16, 2005: D1.

4 Ronald Blum, “American League Stars Shine Bright in Detroit,” Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Herald, July 13, 2005: B1-2.

5 “Chris Carpenter, Toronto Blue Jays Pitcher,” Hamilton (Ontario) Spectator, July 2, 1999: E6.

6 Joe Strauss, “That’s a Winner,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 16, 2005: D1.

7 Tom King, “Welch Now a Met,” Nashua (New Hampshire) Telegraph, June 4, 1993: 23.

8 “Area High Schools: Baseball,” Nashua Telegraph, April 17, 1993: 18.

9 “Trinity’s Carpenter Signs With the Jays,” Nashua Telegraph, August 12, 1993: 27.

10 Ibid.

11 “Jays Come to Terms With NH Prospect,” Lowell (Massachusetts) Sun, August 12, 1993: 26.

12 “A Walk Through the Parks,” Toronto Globe and Mail, June 27, 1995: C4.

13 Matt Michael, “SkyChief Prospect Idolizes Clemens,” Syracuse (New York) Post-Standard, March 27, 1997: C1.

14 S.P. Services, “Expos Mighty Pleased with 5-4 Coast Record,” Saskatoon (Saskatchewan) Star-Phoenix, May 12, 1997: C4.

15 John Benson, “New Faces Offer Rotisserie Risks and Opportunities,” Stamford (Connecticut) Daily Advocate, May 18, 1997: C2.

16 “Twins Get Back on Victory Lane,” Aberdeen (South Dakota) Daily News, May 13, 1997: 4C.

17 Matt Michael, “Struggling Syracuse Gets Help,” Syracuse Herald-Journal, May 28, 1997: C3.

18 “Transactions,” Stamford Daily Advocate, May 28, 1997: C5.

19 Matt Michael, “Carpenter Twirls a Dandy, But SkyChiefs Fall,” Syracuse Herald-American, July 13, 1997: C8.

20 Richard Griffin, “Rookie Pitcher Carpenter Could Be the Real Deal,” Toronto Star, August 21, 1997: D6.

21 “Toronto Led by Young Lineup,” Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World, September 10, 1997: 4C.

22 Scot Gregor, “Blue Jays Carpenter Silences Belle, Rest of White Sox,” Daily Herald (Arlington Heights Illinois), July 17, 1998: Section 2, p. 3.

23 Tom Maloney, “Guzman’s the Wild Card in Jays’ Rotation,” Kitchener (Ontario) Record, February 18, 1998: E5.

24 “Carpenter Works on Control — Of His Mind,” Toronto Star, August 12, 1998: 1.

25 “Baseball: Hurting Jays Lose Top Starter,” Kingston (Ontario) Whig-Standard, June 7, 1999: 19.

26 Chris Jones, “It Was Only Class-A, but It Was a Game Worth Catching,” The National Post (Don Mills, Ontario), June 24, 1999: B16.

27 Robert MacLeod, “Texas Hitters Hammer Carpenter,” Toronto Globe and Mail, August 28, 1999: A21.

28 “Carpenter Sees Specialist,” Toronto Star, September 14, 1999: 1.

29 “Blue Jays Starting Rotation on the Mend,” Alaska Highway News (Fort St. John, British Columbia), February 21, 2000: 8.

30 Geoff Baker, “Walking Wounded Straddle a Fine Line,” Toronto Star, May 30, 2000: C7.

31Bob Matthews, “Indians Will Return to Prominence,” Rockford (Illinois) Register Star, March 31, 2001: 6C.

32 Mark Zwolinski, “Carpenter Out to Rebuild Reputation,” Guelph (Ontario) Daily Mercury, February 27, 2001: B4.

33 “Carpenter Whitewashes Sox,” Chatham (Ontario) Daily News, May 30, 2001: 11.

34 “Carpenter Needs Work,” Timmins (Ontario) Daily Press, August 3, 2001: 9.

35 Allan Ryan, “Blue Jays’ Carpenter Feels Chill in Post-Ash Era,” Toronto Star, January 19, 2002: E4.

36 Richard Griffin, “Who Loves Ya, Chris? Not the Blue Jays,” Toronto Star, February 14, 2002: C18.

37 “Blue Jays: Carpenter Placed on Disabled List,” Kingston Whig-Standard, April 8, 2002: 18.

38 Richard Griffin, “Carpenter’s Cut Leaves Jays in a Quandary,” Toronto Star, September 5, 2002: D2.

39 “Carpenter Signs With Cardinals,” Barrie (Ontario) Examiner, December 14, 2002: B1.

40 Drew Olson, “Job One: Keeping Your Own,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 14, 2002: 6C.

41 Joe Strauss, “Knee Pain Again Gives Drew Cause for Concern,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 6, 2003: F9.

42 Joe Strauss, “Jocketty Won’t Deal for Pitcher Right Now,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 24, 2003: D5.

43 “Cards Pitcher Carpenter’s Season Is Over Following More Surgery,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 6, 2003: D5.

44 Joe Strauss, “Cards Still Like Carpenter’s Tools,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 2, 2003: D2.

45 Dan O’Neill. “Cards Hitters Say This Carpenter Is Electric,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 28, 2004:OT5.

46 Tom D’Angelo, “Carpenter Retools,” Palm Beach Post, March 2, 2004: 8C.

47 Lori Shontz, “Pitching on Wife Support,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 30, 2004: D1.

48 Derrick Goold, “Pitchers’ Injuries Strike Raw Nerve,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 8, 2004: C4.

49 Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer, eds., ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia (New York: Sterling Publishing, 2007), 1769.

50 Joe Strauss, “Carpenter Bounces Back,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 21, 2005: D1.

51 Derrick Goold, “Carpenter’s Opening Effort Draws Accolades,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 6, 2005: B5.

52 “Carpenter, the Ace That Got Away, Rips Apart Blue Jays,” Peace River Daily News (Dawson Creek, British Columbia), June 15, 2005: 6.

53 Pat Borzi, “Cardinals’ Top Starters Not Strong to Finish,” New York Times, October 4, 2005: D4.

54 Derrick Goold, “Players Honor Cards’ Carpenter,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 4, 2005: D3.

55 Joe Strauss, “No-Brainer for Carpenter,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 19, 2006: D1.

56 Joe Strauss, “Cards Will Put Carpenter on DL,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 29, 2006: D5.

57 Derrick Goold, “Muscles Cramp Carpenter’s Style,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 27, 2006: D5.

58 Derrick Goold, “To Help Heal His Aching Elbow, Carpenter Must Rest,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 14, 2007: B7.

59 “Cards’ Ace May Be Out Until August,” Deseret News (Salt Lake City), May 6, 2007: D12.

60 Joe Strauss, “Season Ends for Cards Pitcher,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 20, 2007: D1.

61 “Cards Drop in Wild-Card Race,” Toronto Globe and Mail, September 13, 2008: S3.

62 “Pujols, Holliday Back Carpenter to Topple Reds,” Fort Wayne (Indiana) Journal-Gazette, August 13, 2009: B4.

63 Rick Hummel, “Carp Uses His Hammer” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 2, 2009, C1.

64 Joe Strauss, “Sigh! It’s Lincecum’s Cy; Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright Finish Second and Third in Cy Young Voting,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 20, 2009: C1.

65 Neil Keefe, “Chris Carpenter Wins 2009 Tony Conigliaro Award,” Online at nesn.com/2010/01/chris-carpenter-wins-2009-tony-conigliaro-award/.

66 Joe Strauss, “Mad on the Mound,” St Louis Post-Dispatch, March 13, 2011: C1.

67 Derrick Goold, “Carpenter Set to Go First,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 31, 2011: C5.

68 “Cheering Carpenter: Elite Talent, Elite Ethic,” Manchester Union Leader, October 23, 2011. Online at unionleader.com/article/20111023/OPINION01/710239971/0/.

69 Derrick Goold, “End of an Era as Carpenter Retires,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 21, 2013. Online at stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/end-of-an-era-as-carpenter-retires/article_fa898878-d869-59d8-9207-94b978f26642.html.

70 Rich Hummel, “Hall of Fame Induction Special for Carpenter,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 28, 2016: C9.

As if that wasn’t enough, Tony Conigliaro was a bona-fide celebrity and singer with a couple of regional hit records to his credit.

Tony C was born on January 7, 1945, in Revere, Massachusetts, a few miles north of Boston, and grew up both there and in East Boston, where he first played Little League ball at age 9. Tony and his younger brother Billy (b. 1947) were obsessed with baseball, playing it at every possible opportunity, usually with the support and guidance of their uncle Vinnie Martelli. “He used to pitch batting practice to me for hours, till my hands bled,” wrote Conigliaro in his autobiography Seeing It Through.1  In his very first at-bat for the Orient Heights Little League team, Tony hit a home run over the center-field fence. He credited coach Ben Campbell for giving him tremendous encouragement in youth baseball.

Tony confessed that at a very early age, “I discovered how much I hated to lose.”2 His teams didn’t lose that often. By the time he was 13 and in Pony League, they were traveling out of state in tournament play. Tony went to high school at St. Mary’s in Lynn, where his father, Sal, was working at Triangle Tool and Dye. Sal and Tony’s mother, Teresa, were very supportive of his athletic endeavors and were a fixture at Tony’s various ballgames.

As both a shortstop and pitcher, Tony had already come to the attention of scouts like Lennie Merullo and Milt Bolling, and by the time he graduated claimed to have had as many as 14 scouts tracking him. In his final couple of years, he recalled batting over .600 and having won 16 games on the mound, and remembered his team winning the Catholic Conference championship.  He played American Legion ball in the summers, with the same .600 batting average. The Red Sox asked Tony to come to a 1962 workout at Fenway Park, where both he and Tony Horton showed their stuff. When the Legion season ended and Tony’s father courted bids, Boston’s Milt Bolling and Red Sox farm director Neil Mahoney made the best bid at $20,000 and Tony signed with the Red Sox.3 He was sent to Bradenton for the Florida Instructional League.

It was Conigliaro’s first time far from home, and he didn’t stand out that well at winter ball. In the spring of 1963, he was invited to the Red Sox minor-league camp at Ocala. He did well there, and was assigned to Wellsville in the New York-Penn League. Before he reported, he went home to see his girlfriend, got in a fight with a local boy, and broke his thumb. He wasn’t able to report to Wellsville until the end of May. That was the end of Conigliaro’s pitching career, but the scouts were looking at his hitting more than his pitching anyway. Tony did well at Wellsville, batting .363, hitting 24 homers, and winning the league’s Rookie of the Year and MVP awards. He played that autumn at instructional league in Sarasota and was added to the Red Sox’ 40-man roster. The next spring, 1964, the Sox brought him to their big-league spring-training headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Boston’s manager was Johnny Pesky who, as it happened, lived on the same street in Swampscott to which the Conigliaro family had recently moved: Parsons Street. Pesky saw the fire in Tony Conigliaro and played him that spring; Tony hit a monster home run off Cleveland’s Gary Bell on March 22, the first day his parents came to visit him in Scottsdale. Ted Williams admired Conigliaro’s style and told him, whatever he did, “Don’t change that solid stance of yours, no matter what you’re told.” Ted told reporters, though, “He’s just a kid; he’s two years away.”4 

Johnny Pesky saw otherwise. Tony C was 19 and only in his second year in Organized Baseball, but he made the big-league club as the center fielder for the Red Sox. Pesky was taking a chance on a relatively untested player, but the 1964 Sox, frankly, didn’t have a great deal of talent.

Conigliaro’s first major-league game was in Yankee Stadium on April 16. In his first major-league at-bat, against Whitey Ford, he stepped into the box with men on first and second and grounded into a double play. His third time up, he singled and finished the day 1-for-5. The next day, April 17, was the home opener at Fenway Park. Tony was batting seventh in the order, facing Joe Horlen of the White Sox. He swung at Horlen’s first pitch and hit it over the Green Monster in left field, and even over the net that hung above the Wall. Tony Conigliaro, wearing number 25, took his first home-run trot. Tony told writers afterward that he always swung at the first good pitch he saw. “I don’t like to give the pitcher any kind of edge,” he said.5

In that same spirit, Conigliaro crowded the plate. And pitchers, quite naturally, tried to back him off the plate. He was often hit by pitches, and suffered his first injury on May 24 when Kansas City’s Moe Drabowsky hit him in the left wrist, causing a hairline fracture. Fortunately, Tony missed only four games.

Back in the lineup, back pounding out homers, Tony hit number 20 in the first game of a July 26 doubleheader against Cleveland. In the second game, he got hit for the fifth time in the season, by Pedro Ramos. It broke his arm. This time he missed a month, out until September 4. Conigliaro finished the season with 24 homers and a .290 average.

In 1965, under manager Billy Herman, Tony played in 138 games and hit 32 more homers, enough to lead the league, though his average dipped to .269. During the June free-agent draft, there was more good news for the Conigliaro family: The Red Sox used their first pick to select Tony’s younger brother, Billy. Tony was struck yet again by a ball on July 28, when a Wes Stock pitch broke his left wrist. It was the third broken bone Tony had suffered in just over 14 months. He simply refused to back off the plate. Orioles executive Frank Lane intimated that Red Sox pitchers could defend Tony a bit better by retaliating.

Suffering no serious injuries in 1966, Tony got in a very full season, seeing action in 150 games. He banged out 28 homers and drove in 93 runs, leading the league in sacrifice flies with seven. His average was .265 and the Boston writers voted him Red Sox MVP. The Red Sox as a team, though, played poorly in these years. In 1966 they were spared the ignominy of last place only because the Yankees played even worse. Boston ended the year in ninth place, 26 games out of first, and the Yankees ended in tenth, 26½ games behind the Orioles. In his first three years in the majors, the highest that one of Tony’s teams finished was eighth place in 1964.

Tony C’s brilliant play shone all the more because of the colorless team around him. The local boy made good was a teenage heartthrob and the 6-foot-3 handsome star attracted a lot of attention from local girls, and girls on the road. Assigning older players as roommates to provide a stabilizing presence didn’t do the trick. Dick Williams wrote in his autobiography, “I never saw him. Not late at night, not first thing in the morning, never. I was providing veteran influence to a suitcase.”6 In the early part of 1965, Tony Conigliaro the pop star released his first recording. He recorded a couple of singles and might have developed a career in this area, but kept his focus on baseball.

Billy Conigliaro joined his brother as the two traveled together to spring training in 1967. Tony was hit by a fastball in early workouts and he hurt his back as well. Billy was sent out for more seasoning; he first made the big-league club in 1969. Tony got off to a slow start, batting well enough but without much power. He didn’t hit his third home run until June 11. And he still crowded the plate. Johnny Pesky told author David Cataneo, “He was fearless of the ball. He would just move his head, like Williams did. A ball up and in, Tony would just move his head. He thought the ball would never hit him.”7

The Red Sox surprised everyone with their play in 1967. Conigliaro contributed as well. One game that stood out was an extra-inning affair at Fenway on June 15. Boston was hosting the White Sox and the game was scoreless for 10 full innings. Chicago took a 1-0 lead in the top of the 11th, but Joe Foy singled and then Conigliaro hit a two-run homer off John Buzhardt for a walkoff win. The win moved the Red Sox up by percentage points to put them in a tie for third place, just four games out of first, and the next day’s Boston Globe referred to the “Impossible Dream” season the Red Sox team was having for itself.

It was on July 23 that Tony hit the 100th and 101st home runs of his major-league career. The Red Sox were just a half-game out of first place. It was a tight race, with Boston hanging just out of first, but never quite making it to the top. As late as August 14, the Red Sox were in fifth place – but only three games out.

On the 17th, Tony’s partner in the music business, Ed Penney, was visiting his sons at the Ted Williams Baseball Camp in Lakeville, Massachusetts. Ted warned Penney, “Tell Tony that he’s crowding the plate. Tell him to back off.” He said, “It’s getting too serious now with the Red Sox.” Penney remembered, “I told him I would. I’d see him the next night. When we were walking across the field to get the kids, and Ted was going up to the stands to make some kind of talk, he turned around and yelled over to me and said, ‘Don’t forget what I told you to tell Tony. Back off, because they’ll be throwing at him.’”8 Penney did tell Tony, before the game the very next night. Tony was in a slump at the time, and told his brother Billy he couldn’t back off the plate or pitchers wouldn’t take him seriously. If anything, he was going to dig in a little closer.

The Red Sox were facing the California Angels the next day – August 18 – and Jack Hamilton’s fourth-inning fastball came in and struck Tony in the face, just missing his temple but hitting him in the left eye and cheekbone. Tony later wrote that he jerked his head back “so hard that my helmet flipped off just before impact.”9 He never lost consciousness, but as he lay on the ground, David Cataneo wrote, Tony prayed, “God, please, please don’t let me die right here in the dirt at home plate at Fenway Park.”10 Tony was fortunate to escape with his life, but his season – and quite possibly his career – was over. Conigliaro had been very badly injured.

The 1967 Red Sox made it to Game Seven of the World Series before the bubble burst. It had nonetheless been a tremendous year for the team, and reignited the passion for the Sox in the city of Boston. Since 1967, tickets for Fenway Park have been hard to come by. Tony, however, felt he’d let the team down. He was down on himself and downplayed his contribution in the drive to the pennant. His teammates were the first to reassure him that they never would have reached the postseason had it not been for his contributions early on. There is little doubt, though, that Conigliaro was missed in the World Series itself. George Scott was unambiguous in his assessment: “I’ve said it a million times, if Tony had been in the lineup, we would have won. He was one of those guys. Reggie Jackson was a big-game player. Tony was that kind of player.”11

There was concern that Conigliaro might lose the sight in his left eye. He tried to come back in spring training, but there was just no way. His vision was inadequate, and his doctor told him, “I don’t want to be cruel, and there’s no way of telling you this in a nice way, but it’s not safe for you to play ball anymore.”12 Tony C wouldn’t quit, though, and against all odds, his vision slowly began to improve. By late May he was told he could begin to work out again. Tony also learned new ways to see the ball. When he looked straight on at the pitcher, he couldn’t see the ball, but he learned to use his peripheral vision to pick up the ball and was able to see well enough by looking a couple of inches to the left. Tony wanted badly to get back into baseball. He spent a good amount of time in the late summer of 1968 trying to learn to become a pitcher, and started several games in the Winter Instructional League for the Sarasota Red Sox beginning on November 4, but he rolled up a record of 0-3, giving up 15 runs in one game, and developed a sore arm as well. He played in the outfield on the days he wasn’t pitching and he began to connect for a few solid hits. He gave up the idea of pitching, emboldened to try to come back as a hitter in spring training 1969.

Not only did Tony make the team in 1969, but he broke back in with a bang, hitting a two-run homer in the top of the 10th on Opening Day in Baltimore, on April 8. The O’s retied the game, but Tony led off in the 12th and worked a walk, eventually coming home to score on Dalton Jones’s sacrifice fly to right. Tony delivered the game-winning hit in the fourth inning of the home opener at Fenway Park on April 14, though admittedly it wasn’t much of a hit. He came up with the bases loaded and wanted to break the game open. Instead, he sent a slow dribbler toward Brooks Robinson at third, and beat it out as Ray Culp scored from third. Tony C was back. It was never easy, and the various books on his struggle document how hard he had to work at what once seemed so effortless, but Tony played in 141 games, hit 20 home runs, and drove in 82 runs. Tony won the Comeback Player of the Year Award. There wasn’t any question who would win it.

The 1970 season was Conigliaro’s best at the plate, with 36 homers and 116 RBIs. He also scored a career-high 89 runs. Brother Billy had made the Red Sox, too, in 1969, getting himself 80 at-bats and acquitting himself well. Billy became a regular in 1970, appearing in 114 games and batting .271. Add his 18 homers to Tony’s 36, and the resulting total of 54 set a record for the most home runs by two brothers on the same major-league club. On July 4 and September 19, they each homered in the same game.

In October the Red Sox traded Tony. Stats aside, they knew that Conigliaro was playing on guts and native talent, but may have sensed that his vision was still questionable. His trade value was as high as it likely ever would be. Not even waiting for Baltimore and Cincinnati to finish the World Series, they packaged Conigliaro with Ray Jarvis and Jerry Moses and swapped him to the California Angels for Ken Tatum, Jarvis Tatum, and Doug Griffin. Even years later, Red Sox executives neither explained nor took credit (or responsibility) for the trade. The news stunned the baseball world – and Red Sox fans in particular. As author Herb Crehan wrote in Red Sox Heroes of Yesteryear, referring to Boston’s then-mayor, “it was as if Mayor Menino were to trade the USS Constitution to Baltimore for the USS Constellation.”13 Ken Tatum may have been the key to the trade; the Sox were after a strong reliever and he’d done very well for California.

Tony was crushed, and as Crehan noted, he “never adjusted to life as a California Angel.” David Cataneo wrote, “Tony C and Southern California just didn’t happen.”14 Conigliaro batted just .222 in 1971, with only 4 homers and 15 RBIs just before the All-Star break. His headaches had returned. He wasn’t feeling well. Cataneo mentioned a string of ailments, from a bad leg to a pinched nerve. Tony even put himself in traction for an hour before every game. Some of the Angels lost patience with him and began to mock him. Finally, fed up, he packed his bags and left the team after the July 9 game, announcing his retirement. He told reporters that he simply couldn’t see well enough, but took the Red Sox off the hook for having dealt tarnished goods. “My eyesight never came back to normal. … I pick up the spin on the ball late, by looking away to the side. I don’t know how I do it. I kept it away from the Red Sox. … I had a lot of headaches because of the strain to see. … My search for that damn baseball.”15

When he heard the news that Tony had left the Angels, Billy Conigliaro exploded in the Red Sox clubhouse, telling reporters that the reason for the trade to California in the first place had been Carl Yastrzemski, that Yaz had all the influence on the ballclub. “Tony was traded because of one guy – over there,” he charged, indicating Yastrzemski. Yaz “got rid of Pesky, Ken Harrelson, and Tony. I know I’m next. Yaz and Reggie [Smith] are being babied, and the club better do something about it.”16

Billy was part of a major 10-player trade with Milwaukee, but the trade was not made until October. Billy never rejoined the Red Sox. Tony did, but it took a while.

An eye exam Tony underwent after returning to Boston showed that the blind spot in his vision had grown considerably; his vision was deteriorating once more. Tony hadn’t given up yet and in October 1973 talked about wanting to mount another comeback with the Angels in 1974. It appears that the Angels wanted him to play for their Salt Lake City affiliate, to see how he worked out, but Tony was past wanting to play for a minor-league team and so stayed retired. Late in 1974, he wrote to the Red Sox asking for another shot at a comeback and GM Dick O’Connell said he could come to spring training, but not at financial cost to the Red Sox. If he was willing to pay his own way, he was welcome to give it a try. The Angels graciously granted Tony his outright release in November 1974. The Red Sox offered him a contract with the Pawtucket Red Sox, which he signed on March 5, 1975.

Tony took up the challenge, and he had an exceptional spring. On April 4 he got word that he had made the big-league team. Opening Day 1975 was four days later, at Fenway Park on April 8, and Tony was the designated hitter, batting cleanup. With two outs and Yaz on first, Tony singled and Yaz took third. The crowd gave Tony C a three-minute standing ovation. Perhaps Milwaukee pitcher Jim Slaton and his batterymate, Darrell Porter, were caught a little off-guard; the Red Sox scored a run when Tony and Yaz pulled off a double steal. 

Tony’s first home run came three days later, off Mike Cuellar in Baltimore. With a first-inning single the following day, he drove in another run, but his .200 average after the April 12 game was the highest he posted for the rest of the season. He appeared only in 21 games, for 57 at-bats, and was batting just .123 after the game on June 12. He was hampered by a couple of injuries; it just wasn’t working out. The Red Sox needed to make room on the 25-man roster for newly acquired infielder Denny Doyle and they asked Tony to go to Pawtucket. After thinking it over for a week, he agreed to and reported, traveling with the PawSox, but getting only sporadic playing time. Manager Joe Morgan said, “He had lost those real good reflexes,” and teammate Buddy Hunter told David Cataneo, “Any guy who threw real hard, he had trouble with.” Hunter added, “He was dropping easy fly balls in the outfield.”17 In August Tony Conigliaro finally called it a day, and retired once again, this time for good. “My body is falling apart,” he explained.18

Before too long, Tony found work as a broadcaster, first in Providence and then in the San Francisco area. He lost a nice gig in the Bay Area in early 1980, but filled in with other stations. In a life full of setbacks, even the health-food store Tony owned in California was lost to mudslides in December 1981. 

In early 1982, though, Tony learned that Ken Harrelson was leaving his job as color commentator with Channel 38 in Boston, the Red Sox station. Now there was a job with appeal! He interviewed for the position on the day he turned 37, January 7, 1982. The audition went very well, and he was told he’d got the job. Tony had a couple of other stops to make, and then planned to return to the Bay Area to pack up his gear for the move back to Boston.

On January 9, 1982, Billy Conigliaro was driving Tony to Logan Airport when Tony suffered a heart attack in the car. Though rushed to the hospital, Tony suffered irreversible brain damage and was hospitalized for two months before being discharged into the care of Billy and the Conigliaro family. He lived another eight years before succumbing at age 45 on February 24, 1990.

A version of this biography appeared in “’75: The Red Sox Team That Saved Baseball” (Rounder Books, 2005; SABR, 2015), edited by Bill Nowlin and Cecilia Tan.

Sources

Cataneo, David. Tony C. (Nashville, Tennessee: Rutledge Hill Press, 1997).

Conigliaro, Tony, with Jack Zanger. Seeing It Through (New York: Macmillan, 1970).

Crehan, Herb. Red Sox Heroes of Yesteryear (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Rounder Books, 2005).

Williams, Dick, with Bill Plaschke. No More Mr. Nice Guy (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990).

Thanks to Wayne McElreavy for considerable assistance with this profile. 

Notes

“My teacher didn’t understand,” Cook recalled. “She said, ‘You can’t do that, you have to do something serious.’ I said, ‘I want to be a professional baseball player.’”1

Cook grew up in Hamilton, Ohio, where his father worked in the local paper mill. Garry Cook, Aaron’s father, offered support to his son by coaching his teams as often as he could. Garry mentioned a pivotal moment when young Aaron was one out away from defeating the New England Mariners at a national AAU tournament in Des Moines, Iowa, “Aaron motioned for me to come out to the mound. Keep in mind he was just 13. I thought he wanted me to take him out. Instead, he said ‘I just need a minute here to calm down.’ On the way back to the dugout, I thought, ‘He’s actually got a chance to do something big with baseball.”2 Aaron added, appreciatively, “He was always there for me. He never missed a tournament or anything until I was 16. He helped me chase my dreams.”3

Aaron’s mother, Veronica, left when he was 15, after a divorce. Aaron’s best friend growing up was Curtus Moak. As Patrick Saunders wrote, “Cook and Moak competed against each other in Little League before becoming best friends the summer before their sophomore year at Hamilton High. Because Cook’s house was far out of town, he often spent the night at Moak’s house. ‘We’d sleep in these bunk beds and we’d talk for hours,’ Moak recalled. ‘We became like brothers. My mom became his second mom.’”4

The two Hamilton High teammates helped lead the team to two statewide baseball titles. Moak, a left-handed pitcher, later played for the University of Cincinnati and in 2001 was drafted in the 25th round by the Cincinnati Reds. He played four years in the minors, but never rose as high as Double A.

As a young teenager, Cook threw a fastball in the low 80s. By the time he was 18 years old he had harnessed a 90-mph fastball with exceptional control. On June 3, 1997, the high-school senior was drafted by the Colorado Rockies in the second round of the amateur draft. He grew to 6-feet-3 and was listed at 215 pounds.

The Rockies placed Cook in Mesa, pitching Rookie-league ball in the Arizona League; he was 1-3 in 46 innings of work, with a 3.13 earned-run average. He devoted five years to development before rising as high as Double A. In 1998 he was with the Portland Rockies (Northwest League), and in 1999 he pitched ball for the Asheville Tourists in the Class-A South Atlantic League. There he might have felt discouraged, winning only four games against 12 losses and with an ERA of 6.44. Asheville finished in last place in the six-team league. But Cook kept working, trying to hone his craft.

In 2000, his second year with Asheville, he began to turn things around and, though the Tourists still had a losing record at 66-69, Cook improved dramatically in his control, converting his 1.74 strikeouts/walks ratio to 5.13, halving his walks to 23 while striking out 118. His ERA dropped to 2.96 and he was 10-7 in wins and losses.  He spent part of the season in high A ball, pitching for Salem (Virginia) Avalanche in the Carolina League. He was overmatched (1-6, 5.44), but once more he improved with experience, and in 2001 he started 27 games for Salem and worked to a 3.08 ERA. He was 11-11 for the 70-68 Avalanche.

In 2002 Cook climbed the ladder rapidly. First, in Raleigh with the Double-A Southern League’s Carolina Mudcats, he was 7-2 (1.42); and then in Triple A with the Pacific Coast League Colorado Springs Sky Sox, he held his own (4-4, 3.78).

Cook got the call to come to the big leagues. On August 10, 2002, at age 23, he made his debut for the Rockies against the Chicago Cubs. After five innings, the Cubs were winning 14-1, and manager Clint Hurdle called on Cook as the third of five Rockies pitchers that day. The first batter he faced was Cubs left fielder Moises Alou, who homered to make it 15-1, but Cook retired the next three batters. He also worked the top of the seventh, giving up a leadoff single but then getting the next three batters. On August 26 he was given his first start, against the visiting San Francisco Giants, and acquitted himself well enough, working six innings while giving up three runs, in a game the Rockies ultimately lost. Cook gave up three runs again, working seven innings in San Diego in his second start, but lost his first decision; the Rockies were shut out, 3-0. Cook then won back-to-back starts, against the Padres in Denver and the Astros in Houston. He finished the season appearing in nine games, five of them starts, with a record of 2-1 and a 4.54 ERA in 35⅔ innings.5

In both 2003 and 2004, Cook spent some time on Interstate 25 traveling the hour or so between Colorado Springs and Denver and working for both teams, though the lion’s share of his time was with the big-league club in 2003, when he pitched in 43 games, 16 of them starts. Cook’s ERA was a disappointing 6.02 and his final record 4-6, but the Rockies kept the faith.

By the 2004 season, Cook had developed full trust in his sinkerball, one he worked diligently to develop with Rockies minor-league pitching coach Bryn Smith.6 His sinker developed from his straight fastball. Eventually, a conventional grip of two fingers on both seams was tweaked and became one finger across one seam to become his signature sinkerball.

Bob McClure of the Rockies’ minor-league pitching staff taught Cook that contact was OK. “One thing I give Bob McClure credit for is teaching me how to pitch to contact and trusting that I can get guys out with groundballs,” said Cook. “Swings and misses, for me, are more of a timely thing – certain situations with guys on, less than two outs, less than one out, that’s the time I really try to go for the strikeouts. But other than that, I really try to make guys mis-hit the ball, hit pitches that I’m trying to make.”7 Once Cook trusted contact, he went from throwing 110-115 pitches per game to around 80. His sinkerball technique in combination with a pitch flying at upward of 90 mph made his pitches unhittable.

After beating the Diamondbacks with a complete-game 10-2 win on August 1, 2004, Cook was feeling good about himself; he was 25 years old and seeing the fruits of his technique training. Six days later, on August 7, Cook took the mound against the Cincinnati Reds at Coors Field. After three innings, 10 batters and five hits, Cook complained of dizziness and shortness of breath. He left the mound and was taken to Rose Medical Center, where he was diagnosed with pulmonary embolisms, a sudden blockage of the arteries, in both lungs. Doctors, medics, and the Rockies medical team all told Cook later that it was a miracle he was alive. Indeed, he told the Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo several years later, “I had the paramedic and doctor telling me as I was lying on the stretcher that I should be dead,” Cook recalled. “At that point, I’m fighting for my life. I wasn’t thinking about baseball. I was thinking about my family and my health and whether I was going to make it.”8

Cook had essentially gone from the peak of his young career to a debilitating condition. “I had experienced trouble breathing for a couple of days before that start,” Cook said. “I don’t think I could have thrown another pitch in the game.”9 The clots originated near his first rib, constricting flow against his collarbone. He had two surgeries; his top rib was removed to correct the problem that was causing the clots. After rehabilitation lasting the better part of a year, Cook got back to baseball.

It was a bit of a slog to get back in the big leagues after recovery, and in 2005, Cook pitched for four minor-league teams. First he pitched in two games for the Tri-City Dust Devils (Pasco, Washington) of the Northwest League. Then he advanced to the Modesto Nuts (Class-A California League) for one game, then on to the Double-A Tulsa Drillers for one game, then to the Triple-A Sky Sox in Colorado Springs for three games. In late July he was deemed ready for the Rockies.

Cook was activated from the disabled list in time to start on July 30 at Coors Field against the visiting Phillies. It did not go well; he was hit for seven runs, all earned, in 4⅓ innings. But he had made his way back to big-league baseball and was pitching from a major-league mound. Next time out, on August 5, he yielded only one run in six innings. Then he won six games in a row. He took one more loss, and then added another win. By the end of his half-season, Cook was 7-2 with an ERA of 3.67. It was a remarkable recovery after a near-fatal illness.

Bob Apodaca, the Rockies’ pitching coach, commented on Cook’s dedication after his surgeries: “I think that changed him. … Any success he is getting now is the result of pure hard work. Before, I think he did rely on pure ability. I think that’s why we would scratch our head and wonder, what kind of pitcher he would be? Now we don’t have to wonder any more. He’s shown us.”10

In January 2006 Cook was given the Tony Conigliaro Award for his quick comeback and dedication to the game. The day after receiving the award, he signed a two- year, $4.55 million contract with the Rockies.

Cook had 32 starts in 2006, winning nine and losing 15 with a 4.23 ERA. That he had worked 212⅔ innings was a testament to his having regained full health.

In 2007 Cook worked a full load through August 10, when he suffered an oblique injury that kept him out for the rest of the regular season. He was 8-7, 4.12.That was the year the Rockies caught fire and won 14 of their last 15 games, earning them a wild-card slot in the postseason. Cook was not on the postseason roster for either the Division Series, which they swept in three games from the Phillies, or for the NLCS, which they swept in four from the Arizona Diamondbacks. With the back-to-back sweeps, the team had now won 21 of its last 22 games and was headed to the World Series against the Boston Red Sox. Cook was with the team in Phoenix and enjoyed the champagne the Rockies sprayed on one another.

Cook was activated for the World Series, and he started Game Four at Coors Field. The pendulum of sweeps had started to go the other way, with Boston taking the first three games of the World Series and on the brink of a sweep if Cook couldn’t stop them. It could hardly have been a more emotional time for a return. Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said, “The opportunity to tell him, ‘You’re going to get the ball in Game Four’ was very special. And it was meaningful, but again, for all the right reasons. If it was about sentiment, he would have pitched in the NLCS, and he understood that.” For his part, Cook said, “I feel ready to go. I feel as strong as ever.”11

Game Four was, as the New York Times observed, “a duel of survivors. [Red Sox pitcher Jon] Lester fought his way back after offseason treatment for lymphoma, and Colorado’s Aaron Cook once missed almost a year with blood clots in both lungs.”12

Both pitched good games. Cook gave up a leadoff double to Jacoby Ellsbury, who moved to third base on a grounder by Dustin Pedroia, then scored when David Ortiz singled to right field. In the top of the fifth, the score still 1-0, Mike Lowell doubled to lead off and Jason Varitek singled him in. Lowell homered leading off the seventh, making it 3-0 Red Sox, and Hurdle brought in Jeremy Affeldt to take over from Cook. Lester had departed after 5⅔ innings. The Rockies came back with a run in the bottom of the seventh. Boston’s Bobby Kielty pinch-hit for Mike Timlin in the top of the eighth and homered, so when the Rockies got two more in the bottom of the eighth, they still trailed, 4-3, and that was the final score. Cook bore the loss.

Cook had his winningest season in 2008. He was 11-5 through July 1, and had won six consecutive starts from April 13 to May 9. Cook was named to the National League All-Star team. He pitched three scoreless innings, the 10th, 11th, and 12th. In the 10th he faced a bases-loaded situation with no outs after second baseman Dan Uggla made back-to-back errors, and Carlos Guillen was walked intentionally. Cook worked his way out of the jam, inducing three groundouts, the first two resulting in forces at home. It was said that he could have been named the game’s MVP had the National League won,13 but AL prevailed in 15 innings, 4-3.

Cook finished the 2008 season 16-9 (3.96). In 2009 he was 11-6 in 27 starts with a 4.16 ERA. He had also enjoyed the day on May 29 when he attended the dedication of a “Field of Dreams” baseball complex in Windsor, Colorado, a facility for which he had been a major donor.14

In 2009 Cook had another opportunity to play postseason baseball. The Rockies were the wild-card team again after Clint Hurdle (18-28) was replaced as manager by Jim Tracy (74-42). They faced the Phillies in the Division Series, and Cook started and won Game Two, 5-4, giving up three runs in five-plus innings of work. All three runs scored in the top of the sixth, when he allowed two singles and a double without securing an out. The two runners inherited by reliever Jose Contreras both scored, but then the bleeding was stopped and Cook got the win, the only game Colorado won in the NLDS.

In 2010 Cook started 23 games and was 6-8 (5.08), while in 2011 he had another subpar year (3-10, 6.03), his most disappointing year, after accidentally breaking his index finger in a screen door during spring training. He said, “I couldn’t pick up a baseball for four weeks after I broke my finger.”15

The Rockies granted Cook free agency after the season. With the Rockies he had been 72-68 over the course of 10 seasons, as of 2016 second only to Jorge de la Rosa in wins among Rockies pitchers.

The Red Sox took a chance on Cook, signing him to a minor-league deal in early January 2012. The incoming Red Sox pitching coach was Bob McClure, who had tutored Cook as Cook was ascending through the minors.

After arriving in Boston, he spoke about receiving the Tony Conigliaro Award. “It was an honor to be recognized for what had happened to me and that I was able to overcome what happened to me to resume my career,” Cook said. “I grew up in church, and what happened to me renewed my faith in the Lord. He got me through a challenging time in my life, and the whole experience made me stronger as a person. It’s allowed me to put everything in perspective. I know what’s important. I know better what things I need to worry about and what things I have no control over. But it’s made me stronger. No doubt about that.”16

With the Red Sox Cook was 4-11, 5.65, pitching in only three games before July 4. He was 3-0 in Triple-A Pawtucket, but working in the majors in what proved to be his last season in the big leagues was difficult. In his four wins combined, he allowed a total of only four earned runs, but the rest of the time he was challenged.

A free agent after the season, Cook signed with the Phillies for 2013, but was released in spring training and later signed a minor-league contract with the Rockies. With Colorado Springs he added a cutter to his repertoire, but finished 0-5 with an 8.15 ERA.

In 2014, as a free agent, Cook decided to put a hold on his career, recuperate from repeated instances of severe inflammation in his elbow, and focus on getting himself in front of major-league teams for the 2015 season. He was unable to find a team willing to take a chance.

Longtime friendships and strong faith have supported Cook. A longtime member of the Hamilton Christian Center,17 he met his wife, Holly there, and counted as one of his best friends Curtus Moak, youth pastor at the church.18

Cook and Holly have three children – daughter Alexis and sons Elijah and Colton. When he realized in 2013 that retirement might be in his future, he said, “I’d be a better dad with my summers open.”19

Last revised: January 5, 2018

This biography originally appeared in “Overcoming Adversity: The Tony Conigliaro Award” (SABR, 2017), edited by Bill Nowlin and Clayton Trutor. It also appears in “Major League Baseball A Mile High: The First Quarter Century of the Colorado Rockies” (SABR, 2018), edited by Bill Nowlin and Paul T. Parker.

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the authors also consulted baseball-almanac.com and baseball-reference.com.

Joy dedicates this article to her father, Gary, born with cerebral palsy in the 1940s, long before he could benefit from the Americans with Disabilities Act; the ADA specifies that students with disabilities must have the same opportunities to participate in sports and activities as anyone else.    

Notes

1 Patrick Saunders, “Aaron Cook: Midwestern Success Story,” Denver Post, July 12, 2008. 

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Baseball-almanac.com, Aaron Cook 2002 Game-by-Game Pitching Logs.

6 Alex Speier, “Outlier: Why Aaron Cook Is a Pitcher Like Few Others,” WEEI.com, May 5, 2012. weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/alex-speier/2012/05/05/outlier-why-aaron-cook-pitcher-few-others.

7 Ibid.

8 Nick Cafardo, “Cook’s Story Is Stirring,” Boston Globe, March 1, 2012: C1.

9 Irv Moss, “Colorado Classics: Aaron Cook, Colorado Rockies’ Winningest Pitcher,” Denver Post, May 28, 2013. 

10 Saunders.

11 John Powers, “Game 4 Is on Cook’s Menu,” Boston Globe, October 28, 2007: F7.

12 Tyler Kepner. “Red Sox Coronation,” New York Times, October 29, 2007: D1.

13 “National League All-Stars vs. American League All-Stars,” ESPN, July 15, 2008. 

14 Colorado Rockies press release, May 27, 2009.

15 Cafardo.

16 Ibid.

17Associated Press, “Blood Clots Unable to Block Cook’s Faith,” ESPN, July 29, 2005.  espn.com/espn/wire/_/section/mlb/id/2119671

18 Ibid.

19 Moss.

Parker was right on all counts but one; Davis suffered far too many injuries and endured too much serious illness to allow him to play into his fifth decade. But he had all the tools, and when his body was right, he was one heck of a ballplayer. He had enough power and speed to earn membership in the 30-30 club — very nearly becoming the first 40-40 hitter — and was a good enough center fielder to earn three Gold Gloves during his career. He won a World Series with Cincinnati in 1990, but later in his career defeated a far more ruthless and dangerous opponent, colon cancer.

Eric Keith Davis was born on May 29, 1962, in Los Angeles, one of three children born to Jimmy and Shirley Davis; his siblings include an older brother, Jim Jr., and a sister, Sharletha. Eric’s father worked for Boys Market, a grocery-store chain. The family lived in very tough South Central Los Angeles, and Jimmy would go to the playground with his sons not only to shoot hoops, but to protect them from the dangers that lurked in the neighborhood. On one occasion, someone at the playground was shooting a gun wildly.

“Here I was, there to protect Eric, but the shooting was so close, I panicked,” said Jimmy.“ All I could say was just, ‘Eric, hit the dirt.’ We all ran behind the school. That’s the kind of area it is. It’s a blessing he got out without getting hurt.”2

It wasn’t unusual for kids in that area to be enticed into the drug culture. Davis was often offered narcotics as a youngster, but avoided the trap of addiction by playing sports. He played baseball and basketball at Fremont High School and often went up against childhood friend, rival, and future major leaguer Darryl Strawberry, who played at Crenshaw High School. Davis’s favorite sport was basketball, and he never took baseball seriously until his senior year in high school, when he hit .531 with 50 stolen bases. Numbers like those tend to draw scouts’ attention; it was at that point that baseball superseded basketball as a career path.

“I guess the first time I took baseball seriously was when the scouts started paying attention to me,” said Davis, who played shortstop in high school. “Darryl (at Crenshaw) always had more scouts watching him. There weren’t too many scouts who would come down to Fremont looking for talent.”3

A few teams did scout Davis, including the Dodgers and Brewers, but it was the Reds who signed him after selecting him in the eighth round of the June 1980 draft. His first stop was up the coast with the Eugene Emeralds of the short-season Northwest League. He didn’t set the world on fire immediately, hitting only .219 in 33 games as an 18-year-old.He hit only one home run, but he made it count — it was a two-run walk-off blast in the bottom of the ninth against the Central Oregon Phillies on August 18.

Davis worked his way up through the minors showing an impressive combination of speed and power; the power was especially surprising because although he was 6-feet-2, he played at only 165 pounds. He hit 48 home runs and stole 141 bases between 1981 and 1983, earning him a place on the Reds’ 40-man roster prior to the 1984 season. The Reds also decided to take advantage of Davis’s speed for defensive purposes by switching him from shortstop to the outfield, beginning in 1981 at Eugene.

Being on the 40-man roster doesn’t guarantee a trip up north with the big club, and such was the case with Davis, who began the 1984 campaign with the Wichita Aeros, Cincinnati’s affiliate in the Triple-A American Association. But sometimes you have to get a break to succeed; in Davis’s case, a hamstring injury to Duane Walker on May 17 earned Davis his first call-up to the majors. That Davis was hitting .311 with 10 home runs and 35 RBIs on the farm didn’t hurt.

Even as a rookie, Davis showed that he could both do magical things on a ballfield and lose playing time due to injury. The injury occurred when he hurt his knee sliding in a July 19 game against the Mets. He was benched for a while in the hopes that the injury would improve but the team finally put him on the disabled list on August 14. He returned on September 1 and celebrated by hitting five home runs in four games.

As impressed as he was by Davis’s power outburst, Reds manager Pete Rose was more concerned that he make contact rather than just aim for the long ball. “I told him to just be quick with the bat and the homers will come,” Rose said. “I told him, too, that I’d be watching him like a hawk. The kid understands. He has a chance to be the best player on this club.”4

Maybe the kid didn’t understand as much as Rose thought. He went north with the team after spring training in 1985 and turned some heads on Opening Day when he stole second and third on successive pitches during the Reds’ 4-1 win over Montreal. From that point on, about the only thing Davis turned was Rose’s stomach, for by June 4 he was hitting only .189, with 31 strikeouts in 90 at-bats. That’s when Rose sent Davis down to the Triple-A Denver Zephyrs, where he hit .277 in 64 games with 15 home runs, 38 RBIs, and 35 steals. The Reds recalled him in September, and Davis remained with the parent club the rest of the year. He admitted that returning to the minors was good for him. “The only thing good about going back was that it helped me mentally,” he said. “It was a test of my character, especially when I failed after all the media hype last spring.”5

Davis made the parent club again in 1986, when the Reds left spring training with seven outfielders. Rookies Paul O’Neill and Kal Daniels won jobs in Florida to join holdovers Davis, Parker, Eddie Milner, Nick Esasky, and Max Venable. As he did the previous season, he impressed on Opening Day, belting a three-run homer to lead Cincinnati to a 7-4 win over the Phillies. Unlike 1985, however, he stuck around awhile and began exhibiting some of the power and speed that had Reds executives salivating.

Davis really began to prove himself when Esasky went on the disabled list on June 14 with sore thigh muscles. After starting 12 games in April, he had been benched in early May when he was hitting .214 with 4 home runs, 12 RBIs, and 17 stolen bases in 98 at-bats. He started sizzling as soon as he resumed a regular role, hitting .371 in his first 25 games after Esasky’s injury, with 8 home runs, 19 RBIs, and 23 stolen bases. The Reds lost anyway, 8-4.

Davis joined some select company on August 25, 1986, when he hit his 20th homer of the year, off the Pirates’ Rick Rhoden. The blast qualified him for entry into the exclusive 20-60 club (20 home runs and 60 stolen bases), joining future Hall of Famers Joe Morgan and Rickey Henderson. He eventually reached the 20-80 echelon, with 27 homers and 80 steals to go with a .277 batting average, 71 RBIs, and a .901 OPS.6

Davis credited batting coach Billy DeMars with his improvement as a hitter, because DeMars changed his approach at the plate, getting him to tighten up his swing and go with the pitch instead of trying to pull everything. This meant that instead of trying to hit an outside pitch to left (Davis was a right-handed hitter), he could hit it to right, and with authority.

The lessons Davis applied in 1986 worked even better in 1987. By the All-Star break he was batting .321, with 27 home runs and 68 RBIs, including three grand slams in May. Not surprisingly, he started in the All-Star Game for the first time, going 0-for-3. He started well in the second half; on August 2 he smacked his 30th home run of the season, making him the seventh player to join the 30-30 club (30 home runs and 30 stolen bases — he already had 37 steals). It seemed inevitable that Davis would become the first player ever to become a 40-40 man.7 But he went through a second-half slump, due in part to a rib injury he suffered on September 4 crashing into the outfield wall at Wrigley Field while taking an extra-base hit away from Ryne Sandberg. The injury also forced Davis to miss 17 of the team’s last 27 games. His numbers for the season were still very impressive: 37 home runs, 100 RBIs, and 50 stolen bases. After the season, Davis had to make room on the mantelpiece in his home because he won his first Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards. There would be more to come.

Davis could kiss a 40-40 season goodbye early in 1988 as injuries and poor production led to a terrible start. After missing three games in mid-May with a hamstring injury, he entered the “can’t-win-for-trying” society when some people thought he was hurting the team by coming back too soon from the injury, less than a year after facing accusations of malingering.

“Yes, I’ve heard both sides,” he said. “I heard I don’t play hurt, and now I hear I shouldn’t play hurt. I know some of my teammates and the manager have said things, but not to me. They say it to the media.”8

By May 31 Davis was hitting only .220 with 6 home runs, 23 RBIs, and 15 stolen bases. These numbers were so far below what he had reached the previous season that speculation as to why was inevitable. An article in the Cincinnati Enquirer on June 7 cited an unnamed National League executive as saying that rumors were going around that Davis was using drugs. Reds GM Murray Cook, who was said to be offering Davis as trade bait, flatly rejected the allegations.

“My official response is that I won’t grace it with a reply,” Cook said. “I’ll say one thing, he’s handled it [the adversity of the season] well and very maturely.”9

That maturity manifested itself in a vastly improved performance spurred on, perhaps, by Davis’s intention to disprove the drug allegations. His bat got hot just as the weather did, and he finished the year with a .273 batting average, 26 home runs, 93 RBIs, and 35 stolen bases. He also suffered the dings and bruises of outrageous fortune, as he sustained a number of freakish minor injuries that forced him to miss games on several occasions during the season. He sat out four games (and was only a pinch-runner in a fifth) with a swollen elbow after the Giants’ Atlee Hammaker hit him with a pitch on June 17. He then celebrated Independence Day by bruising his knee after colliding with teammates Barry Larkin and Jeff Treadway while chasing a fly ball. He had to be carried off the field and missed three games.

After the season Davis met reporters for the first time since imposing a personal gag order on June 1. He explained that his bad start was more typical for him than the amazing start he had in 1987. “The way I started last year [1987], that doesn’t happen often,” said Davis. In a way, it was unfortunate, because that’s what people are going to expect me to do all the time.”10

Davis signed a one-year, $1.35 million contract, plus incentives, after stories in the media appeared about his wanting to be traded. Once the season started, he managed to avoid a visit from the boo-birds of unhappiness by getting off to a hot start By June 30 he already had 14 home runs, 49 RBIs, a .293 batting average, and a .919 OPS, but only four stolen bases. The numbers were particularly impressive considering he injured himself yet again, missing 14 games after tearing his hamstring in a 6-4 loss to the Expos in Montreal on May 2.

Davis continued to play well after returning from the injury, and was named to the National League All-Star team by manager Tom Lasorda. It was typical of Davis’s emotional roller-coaster-type season that even that bit of good news became mired in controversy. Davis’s contract called for a $55,000 bonus for being “elected” to the All-Star team, but he finished fourth in fan balloting with 810,744 votes. There seemed to be some confusion about the details, with his agent, Eric Goldschmidt, contending that Davis was entitled to the bonus regardless of how he made the team. The Reds eventually paid the bonus.

After the All-Star break, Davis was good until September 3, when he continued his habit of running into outfield walls, this time at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, while catching a fly ball in foul territory. He missed four games with a strained wrist. None of these injuries prevented Davis from having an excellent season, with a .281 batting average, 34 home runs, 101 RBIs, and 21 stolen bases, earning him his second Silver Slugger award. He also stood out again defensively, winning his third straight Gold Glove.

The 1990 season was bittersweet for Davis. He signed a three-year, $9.3 million contract in the winter, then proceeded to have a horrible start to the season which included — you guessed it — yet another visit to the disabled list. He missed 23 games in April and May with a knee injury, and just never got on track. He finished the season with a .260 average, 24 home runs, a team-leading 86 RBIs, and 21 steals in 127 games. But this was a different year for the Reds, as new manager Lou Piniella led them all the way to a stunning four-game sweep of the Oakland A’s in the World Series. Davis played well in the first three games, batting .286 with one home run and five RBIs. Disaster struck in Game Four, in Oakland.

Playing in his typical all-out way, Davis dove after and missed a Willie McGee fly ball in the first inning. After the trainer came out to have a look at him, he finished the inning, but collapsed on returning to the dugout. His teammates carried him to the clubhouse, and he was taken to the hospital after producing a blood-filled urine sample. He was diagnosed with a lacerated kidney, and spent 40 days in the hospital. A controversy erupted when he took a private plane home to Cincinnati, because Davis expected the Reds to pay for it.

“My agent talked to [then GM Bob] Quinn and asked him and he said, ‘He’s making $3 million, let him get his own plane,’” said Davis. “So I did. Then I sent them the bill.”11 The Reds eventually paid it.

Davis’s doctor said he should take the entire 1991 season off, but he was on the field against the Astros on Opening Day at Riverfront Stadium. His 2-for-4 performance indicated that maybe his doctor was being overly cautious, but as the season progressed it was clear that Davis wasn’t 100 percent. By July 20 he was hitting .252 with 10 home runs, 26 RBIs, 13 stolen bases, and a case of chronic fatigue that shelved him for 27 games in August — this was his second stint of the season on the disabled list, after he missed 14 games in June with a hamstring injury — and never did play up to his capabilities. He appeared in only 89 games all season, hitting only one home run and driving in five runs after returning from the DL.

Despite his valiant effort in 1991, Reds brass determined that Davis would never again be the player he once was or could be, and on November 27 he was traded with pitcher Kip Gross to the Los Angeles Dodgers for pitchers Tim Belcher and John Wetteland. For Davis it meant going home and playing with his childhood buddy Strawberry.

“The reality is they felt I couldn’t perform any more,” said Davis. “The No. 1 thing about how I performed last year was I had a kidney torn in three places. They held me accountable for that.”12

It turns out the Reds were right. The much-ballyhooed reunion of the boyhood mates didn’t result in a comeback for either player. Strawberry’s personal problems and injuries limited him to 43 games in 1992, and Davis’s hell-bent playing style led to more injuries, including a broken collarbone and a shoulder injury requiring surgery that ended his season in early September. Davis played in only 76 games.

Davis was a free agent after the season and, perhaps hoping there was still some of the 1987 player left in him, the Dodgers signed him to a one-year, $1million free-agent contract for 1993, plus $5,494.51 for every day he was on the active roster.13 Well, as the saying goes, a million dollars doesn’t buy what it used to. Dodgers general manager Fred Claire almost cut Davis in May when he was hitting .211, but he held on to him until August 31, when he traded Davis to the Detroit Tigers for a player to be named later.

That player was John DaSilva, who pitched in a total of six major-league games. For what the Tigers got from Davis, it was a pretty fair exchange. He played 23 games for them at the end of 1993. In 1994 he was batting .186 went on the disabled list on May 23 with a pinched nerve in his neck. He was out for 57 games, then left the first game he started upon his return (on July 26) in the seventh inning with a pulled groin.

The 1994 season was cut short due to the players’ strike, but Davis would not have returned anyway. He underwent surgery for a herniated disc in his neck — his eighth operation in seven years — then called it a career at age 32 when doctors advised him of how extensive the damage was.

Davis spent 1995 in Los Angeles overseeing several businesses, including a PR firm, and working out. But along about October, when his two favorite teams, the Reds and Dodgers, met in the NLDS, the ol’ competitive juices started flowing and visions of a comeback started dancing in his head. Finally, on January 2, 1996, Davis signed a minor-league contract with Cincinnati that promised him $500,000 if he made the team.

Davis had a great spring and did indeed make the team. The year off and a lot of work with hitting coach Hal McRae brought back some of the old Davis. Granted, he had his annual trip to the disabled list, when he missed 11 games with bruised his ribs he suffered making a diving catch in Denver on May 25, but notoriously stingy Reds owner Marge Schott really got her money’s worth, as Davis went on to hit .287, with 26 home runs, 83 RBIs, and 23 stolen bases in 129 games. His homer and ribbie totals were second on the team behind Barry Larkin, and he was third in thefts. All in all it was a great season, culminating in Davis’s winning the National League Comeback Player of the Year Award.

The Reds decided that even though Davis came back, he wasn’t going forward, and didn’t sign him for 1997. The Baltimore Orioles, on the other hand, were looking to replace Bobby Bonilla, who had left via free agency, and signed Davis to a one-year contract for $2.2 million with an option for 1998. He started the 1997 season off well, and was hitting .302 through May 25, when he had to stop paying due to a stomach ailment. That “ailment” turned out to be colon cancer, and he had a portion of his colon removed on Friday, June 13, at Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore.

There were some who thought that Davis was a malingerer because of all the playing time he missed due to injury. Most were no doubt impressed by his 1996 comeback after missing more than a year because of his neck problems; certainly no one would begrudge him if he decided the hell with it after undergoing cancer surgery. But on September 15 Davis returned to the Orioles’ lineup, even while he was still getting weekly chemotherapy treatments, and helped them clinch the American League East title. He appeared in the ALDS victory over Seattle and the ALCS loss to the Cleveland Indians. Although he didn’t get a second World Series ring, Davis won the Roberto Clemente Award for being the most inspirational player, and the Fred Hutchinson Award, which is given to the player who best exemplifies character, dedication, and competitive spirit.14 In Boston, he was also honored with the Tony Conigliaro Award, presented annually to a player who has overcome an obstacle and adversity with spirit, determination, and courage.

“I was able to get operated on four days after I was diagnosed,” he said. “It was just a matter of getting this baseball-sized tumor out of me.”15

Davis returned to the Orioles in 1998, and after that season dictionaries could have put his picture beside the words comeback, courage, or determination — take your pick. He spent a lot of time as DH and none on the DL, and had a magnificent season: a .327 average (fourth in the American League), 28 home runs, and 89 RBIs. He also led the team with a .970 OPS.

The 1998 season was Davis’s last hurrah. He signed a two-year, $9 million deal with St. Louis, but the Cardinals didn’t get their money’s worth. His 1999 campaign was cut short after 58 games due to surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff, and he appeared in 92 games as a part-time player in 2000. He retired after playing in 74 games with the Giants in 2001.

Davis got involved in a number of business and baseball activities. He served as a roving instructor for the Reds, dabbled in real estate, and produced two documentaries. The first, Hitting From the Heart, is a motivational DVD that shows how athletes can overcome any obstacle to achieve their goals. The second, Harvard Park, is about how the park where Davis and Strawberry played in as kids produced so many great athletes despite being in a crime-ridden neighbourhood.

But Davis’s heart belonged to baseball. As of 2016, Davis was a special assistant to Reds general manager Dick Williams. He and his wife, Sherrie, had two daughters, Erica and Sacha.

Last revised: January 5, 2017

This biography appears in “Overcoming Adversity: The Tony Conigliaro Award” (SABR, 2017), edited by Bill Nowlin and Clayton Trutor.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the following:

Websites

Cincinnati.reds.mlb.com.

Fredhutch.org.

UPI.com.

Newspapers

Orlando Sentinel.

Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Seguin (Texas) Gazette-Enterprise.

Star-Democrat (Easton, Maryland).

Books

Swaine, Rick. Baseball’s Comeback Players: Forty Major Leaguers Who Fell and Rose Again (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2014).

Notes

1 Ralph Wiley, “These Are Red Letter Days,” Sports Illustrated, May 25, 1887: 36.

2 Sam McManis, “South-Central L.A. Was Where It Began for Reds’ Eric
Davis — But Now, the Sky’s the Limit,” Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1987.

3 Ibid. That’s a surprising statement because the school also produced major leaguers Chet Lemon, George Hendrick, Bobby Tolan, and Bob Watson.

4 Earl Lawson, “Davis’ HR Binge Impresses Reds,” The Sporting News, September 17, 1984: 22.

5 Hal McCoy, “Davis Job-Hunting Again With Reds,” The Sporting News, April 7, 1986: 49.

6 Henderson was already in that elite group, having hit 24 homers with 80 steals in 1985.  In 1986 he had 28 home runs and 87 stolen bases.

7 Jose Canseco of the Oakland A’s achieved the feat in 1988 with 42 home runs and 40 stolen bases. By his own admission, Canseco used steroids while playing. Davis, whose playing weight was 165 pounds, was never suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs.

8 McCoy, “Is an Injured Davis Hurting Reds,” The Sporting News, June 13, 1988: 25.

9 Michael Paolercio, “Davis: I Have No Drug Problem,” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 7, 1988: C-1.

10 Greg Hoard, “Eric Davis Finally Has His Say,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 4, 1988: A-16.

11 Steve Dilbeck, “Davis Tells His Side of Incidents,’” San Bernardino County Sun, August 1, 1993: G5.

12 Joe Kay, San Bernardino County Sun, November 28, 1991: C7.

13 If the Dodgers were hoping that Davis would spend considerable time on the disabled list so they wouldn’t have to pay this particular bonus, they were sorely disappointed.  He was on the roster all season.

14 Called the Hutch Award, it was created to honor Hutchinson by Pirates broadcaster Bob Prince. Hutchinson was the Reds manager when he was diagnosed with cancer in December 1963 and was given less than one year to live. He came back to manage the Reds in 1964, but had to stop in midseason. He died on November 12 of that year.

15 “Baseball Star Eric Davis’ Heroic Battle With Cancer an Inspiration On and Off the Field,” Jet, Volume 94, Number 16, September 14, 1998: 52.

“I try to glean wisdom from a game and apply it to my life.”1

His purpose is being a husband, father, competitor, and philanthropist. But it all began when he became a star athlete in high school as a quarterback, shooting guard, and pitcher/shortstop.2

Robert Allen Dickey was born in Nashville on October 29, 1974, to Harry Dickey, a construction worker, and his wife, Leslie, a receptionist.

His athletic talent shined brightly. On June 30, 1993, R.A. tossed a seven-inning perfect game for Nashville’s Montgomery Bell Academy, striking out 14, to improve his record to 8-1. It was his third no-hit game of the season.3 A football and basketball star, in his 1993 senior season he struck out 112 in 60 innings4 and had a 15-3 record for the AAA state championship Big Red.

The accolades continued to pour in: Tennessean All-Metro (twice), All-State, Tennessee Baseball Player of the Year, Most Valuable Player in the AAA tournament.5 Dickey’s success caught the attention of the baseball scouts, and he was drafted by Detroit in the 10th round of the 1993 June Amateur Draft. He passed up the Tigers opportunity to fulfill another dream: to pitch for the University of Tennessee.

College meant taking on a weight-training regimen, something he had never participated in. “I go from 175 pounds to 210 pounds, and my fastball jumps from the 87- to the 89- to the 93- to the 94-miles-per-hour range. I’m still not a prototypical, strike-out-the-side power pitcher, but I can bring enough heat that it makes my breaking pitches and changeup more effective.”6

Travis Copley, a Vols teammate, called Dickey one of the fiercest competitors he ever knew. “He had to win at everything: team basketball, conditioning tests, everything. He did more for me in understanding how to compete, and really had a fierce, built-in bulldog mentality about winning.”7

Dickey’s college career record was 38-10 with a 3.40 ERA; the Volunteers won three SEC baseball titles and made an appearance in the College World Series. He was named Baseball America’s 1994 Freshman of the Year, was All-SEC twice, was a three-time All American, an Academic All-SEC, and Academic All-American.8 He was named to the U.S. national baseball team for the 1996 Olympics, which won a Bronze Medal.

The Texas Rangers made Dickey the 18th player selected in the 1996 amateur draft, and were ready to reward his signing with an $810,000 contract. The 6-foot-3, 215-pound right-hander would throw out the first ball at a Rangers home game, and the signing was scheduled to happen before the event.

But when the Rangers’ trainer, Danny Wheat, noticed a peculiar position of Dickey’s elbow in a Baseball America cover photo,9 he notified Dr. John Conway, the team orthopedist.10

It was discovered that the pitcher had no ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, and doctors were baffled that he could throw at all.11 The Rangers backed off their offer. Surgery was imminent, and Dickey decided to go back to college and play baseball his senior year.

The day before Dickey was to head back to college, the Rangers replaced their offer with one for $75,000 and medical help.12 Dickey accepted it. His journey to the majors would be a long one.

Assigned to Port Charlotte to begin his professional career, in 1997 and 1998, Dickey won only one game in each season, but struck out nearly one batter an inning. Oklahoma City and Tulsa were his destinations for the next two seasons, and in 2001 he was called up to the Rangers.

On April 22, 2001, Dickey made his major-league debut in the top of the ninth inning at Arlington Stadium facing the Oakland third baseman, Mark Bellhorn. A flyout and two popups later, he had played in his first game to aid an 11-2 win over the A’s.

With three relief appearances under his belt, on May 7 Dickey entered a game against the Chicago White Sox with no outs in the top of the first inning. Starting pitcher Darren Oliver had been hit on the thumb by a line drive by leadoff batter Tony Graffanino, and manager Jerry Narron called on Dickey. He allowed six runs in 4⅔ innings and collected his first career loss as Chicago won 7-4 over Texas.

Returned to Oklahoma City, Dickey was 11-7 with a 3.75 ERA for the season, striking out 120 in 163 innings. He began 2003 with Oklahoma but was called up after three appearances, and won a position on the Rangers pitching staff as a long reliever. By July he was in the starting rotation.13

Dickey had begun to throw an unusual forkball he named “the thing.” In truth, it was a hard knuckleball. Former knuckleballer Charlie Hough began to work with him to change his grip.14

In an interview in 2012, Dickey explained Hough’s knuckleball experience: “Charlie Hough told me the first day that I met with him: “It took me one day to learn how to throw a knuckleball and a lifetime to learn how to throw it for strikes.”15

On August 20 at Detroit’s Comerica Park, Dickey pitched his first career shutout, holding the Tigers to six hits and a walk, and moving his record to 8-5. Two days earlier, he had earned his first career save, also against Detroit, retiring Bobby Higginson, Dmitri Young, and Carlos Peña on 11 pitches in the 16th inning.16 The Rangers had scored two runs in the top of the inning, and won the game, 4-2.

By the end of the 2003 season Dickey was 9-8 but his ERA had ballooned to 5.09. In spring training in 2004 he earned a roster spot and made his first start of the new season on April 9 at home against Anaheim. Holding the Angels to six hits in seven innings, he won and allowed no earned runs although the opposition scored three runs in the second inning on two errors by Michael Young and a home run by Adam Kennedy.

On May 2 at Arlington Stadium against the Boston Red Sox, Dickey pitched well for 8⅔ innings before giving way to Francisco Cordero with the bases loaded. The Rangers won 4-1, and Dickey’s record improved to 4-1. In August he was sent to Frisco (Double-A Texas League) and pitched in four games before being recalled to complete the season with the Rangers at 6-7, 5.61.

In May 2005, after spending time on the 15-day disabled list, Dickey was optioned to Oklahoma once again, and was 10-6 before being being recalled again. In four September appearances, he gave up 17 earned runs, winning one and losing one. His velocity was beginning to slow down.

“When Orel [Hershiser] was a pitching coach in 2003 and, you know, there was some real hope for me to become maybe a fourth or fifth starter, a really good swingman, I was low 90s — you know, high 80s, low 90s, and could really change speeds well. But in 2004, 2005, I just started — the velocity started dropping from low 90s to max 88, to max 86. I’d run out of gas as a conventional pitcher [with the Rangers] and was kind of just hanging on, just trying to survive as long as I could before I felt like the inevitable call would come.”17

In the fourth game of the 2006 season, Dickey started against Detroit at Ameriquest Field in Arlington, and lasted 3⅓ innings. After giving up home runs to Brandon Inge and Magglio Ordonez in the first, Chris Shelton in the second, and Shelton (again), Craig Monroe, and Marcus Thames in the third, he was yanked. It was Dickey’s last appearance in a Texas Rangers uniform.

Again he spent the balance of the year at Oklahoma. He was let go on October 11 after going 9-8 with only 61 strikeouts in 131⅔ innings.

On January 10, 2007, Dickey signed with the Milwaukee Brewers and was assigned to Triple-A Nashville. By then he had perfected his knuckleball grip, and his reputation as a solid pitcher returned. With a 13-6 record, he lowered his ERA to 3.72 with 6.3 strikeouts per nine innings. Dickey was named the Pacific Coast League pitcher of the year.

“The Brewers say that they don’t have a roster spot for me but tell me to stay ready in case they need me for the pennant race in September,” he recalled in an autobiography published in 2012. “They are fighting for a divisional title and I am their top minor-league pitcher and they don’t want me. You try not to take it personally, but how can you not?”18

He did not receive a call from the Brewers, and was let go on October 29. A curious chain of events soon occurred.

With hints of an offer to play for the Samsung Lions in the Korean Baseball League, Dickey signed with the Minnesota Twins for $525,000 in November 2007, and on December 6 was drafted by the Seattle Mariners from Minnesota in the Rule 5 draft. On March 29, 2008, he was returned to the Twins by the Mariners, then traded back to the Mariners for Jair Fernandez.

Dickey wondered about plot twists in his baseball life.

“I report to Mariners spring training in Peoria, Arizona, and have one of the best springs of my life. I pitch as both a starter and a reliever. They put me out there in every situation they can. My knuckleball holds up well, and I know it’s dancing because Kenji Johjima, the Mariners catcher, catches about three of every ten knuckleballs I throw,” he said in the 2012 autobiography.19

But disappointment followed, as Dickey failed to make the club and was sent to Triple-A Tacoma. Then he was recalled by the Mariners in mid-April. With Boston due to appear in Seattle at the end of May, he knew Red Sox knuckleballer Tim Wakefield was on the club.

“He’s the best knuckleballer in the game — and the only full-time one besides me. I get to the park early on Memorial Day afternoon and write a note to Tim, asking if we might get together and talk for a bit…

“Meet me behind the plate in ten minutes, Tim says.”

They talked for 45 minutes, discussing grip, spin, even how he keeps his fingernails.

“Knuckleballers don’t keep secrets.”20

Dickey finished the 2008 season 5-8. He was nontendered on December 9 and a few weeks later, at the age of 34, was signed by the Twins and invited to spring training. He pitched in 35 games (one as starter) for Minnesota before being sent to Rochester, ending the season with five starts for the Red Wings but without a September call-up. Instead, he became a free agent once again before the New York Mets came calling.

On December 21 Dickey signed a minor-league deal with the Mets. When the season began he was with the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons. On April 29, in a home game against the Durham Bulls, Dickey threw a knuckler to leadoff batter Fernando Perez on an 0-and-2 count. He recalled:

“He gets under it and pops it weakly over second base. It plops in for a single.

“I retire the next twenty-seven hitters in order. A perfect game, with one mulligan.”21

Five weeks into the season, Dickey had a 4-2 record with a much-improved 2.23 ERA, striking out 37 batters in 60⅔ innings and walking only eight. The Mets called him up, and on May 19 in Washington, he started against the Nationals. He pitched six innings, allowing five hits, and gave up two earned runs before giving way to Raul Valdes in relief. Dickey got a no-decision but he was in the major leagues to stay.

On August 13 he held the Phillies to one hit, by pitcher Cole Hamels, in a 5-1 home win. By season’s end he had started 26 games, appearing in relief only once. He finished 11-9 with an ERA of 2.84, seventh-best in the National League.

In 2011 Dickey’s record fell to 8-13 and his ERA climbed to 3.28, but he had134 strikeouts. In his last start of the season, against Philadelphia at Citi Field on September 24, Dickey tossed 6⅓ innings of no-hit ball until Shane Victorino drove a double to left field.

Once the season was over, Dickey prepared for a journey of another kind: Mount Kilimanjaro — to benefit Red Light District Outreach Mumbai, which combats human trafficking in India. He included two friends, Kevin Slowey from the Minnesota Twins and Dave Racaniello, bullpen catcher for the New York Mets organization.

“I always thought it would be a fantastic pilgrimage to hike to the summit,” Dickey said.22

Though the Mets advised Dickey to reconsider the climb, even telling him there would be risk of voiding his $4.25 million contract for 2012 if he were injured.23

Undaunted, he and his friends reached the summit on January 14.

On March 29, 2012, Dickey’s first book, Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball (Penguin Press), was published. It includes a descriptive incident when, as an 8-year-old boy, he was sexually assaulted by his babysitter. In another occurrence, the offender was a teenage male.

In terms of Dickey’s baseball success, the 2012 season was memorable. He led the National League with 223⅔ innings pitched, 230 strikeouts, 33 starts, five complete games, and three shutouts. He was 20-6, had a 2.73 ERA, and was named to the National League All-Star team. Selected NL Pitcher of the Year by The Sporting News, he also won the Branch Rickey Award in recognition of his community service. He captured the Cy Young Award as best pitcher in the National League, taking 27 of the 32 first-place votes and finishing with 209 points, well in front of 2011 winner Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers (96 points).

On December 6, 2012, Dickey was named to receive the Tony Conigliaro Award. The award goes to a player “who has overcome adversity through the attributes of spirit, determination and courage that were trademarks of Tony C.”24 Dickey obtained the recognition for confronting child sexual abuse and prevailing over the lack of the ulnar collateral ligament in his right arm.25

As successful as 2012 may have been, the Mets finished in fourth place in the N.L. East division again, and on December 17, 2012, Dickey was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays.

His second book, Throwing Strikes: My Quest for Truth and the Perfect Knuckleball (Penguin Press), was published on March 26, 2013.

Dickey won 14 games while losing 13 for Toronto in 2013, and won the AL Gold Glove Award after leading the league in assists by a pitcher with 40. He duplicated his won-lost record in 2014 as his salary increased from $5 million to $12 million. In 2015 he was 11-11, but his record fell to 10-15 in 2016 as the Blue Jays won the AL East.

The team beat the Texas Rangers three games to two in the Division Series. Dickey started Game Four, allowing five hits and one run in 4⅔ innings as the Blue Jays beat the Rangers, 8-4. In the American League Championship Series he started Game Four and was the losing pitcher in the 14-2 loss to the Royals. He lasted only 1⅔ innings. Beating the Blue Jays in six games, the Royals went on to win the 2015 World Series.

In 2016 Toronto earned a wild-card slot against Baltimore, winning 5-2. The Blue Jays swept the ALDS from Texas, but lost the Championship Series to the Cleveland Indians in five games.

Dickey was not on the active roster for the postseason. Tom Dakers, Toronto blogger for SB Nation, explained why:

“After a crappy April, he was pretty good in the first half. His second half was terrible, and on a team with an embarrassment of riches in the starting pitching department, he was left off the playoff roster.”26

As he pondered retirement, on November 3, 2016, Dickey was granted free agency for the fifth time. Atlanta wasted little time scooping him up: On November 10 he signed a two-year contract with the Braves worth $15,500,000.

Dickey’s life and his faith walk have been committed to the “bulldog” mentality his former Tennessee teammate Travis Copley spoke of.

“You may hit me. You may knock me around and knock balls out of the park.

“But I am always going to get back up and keep coming at you.”27

R.A. and his wife, Anne, have four children and as of 2016 resided in the Nashville area. He was selected to the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 2013.

Last revised: March 1, 2017

Notes

1 Skip Nipper, “The Pride of Nashville: R.A. Dickey,” 262downright.com, January 5, 2014. [Blog post]. Retrieved October 6, 2016, from 262downright.com/2014/01/05/the-pride-of-nashville-r-a-dickey/.

2 R.A. Dickey, Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball (New York: Penguin Group, 2012), 65.

3 The Tennessean (Nashville), May 1, 1993: 66.

4 The Tennessean, May 6, 1993: 26.

5 The Tennessean, June 1, 1993: 13.

6 Dickey, Wherever I Wind Up, 80.

7 Telephone interview with R.A. Dickey, December 1, 2016.

8 2015-16 University of Tennessee Baseball Media Guide

9 Ross Newhan, “Case of Missing Ligament Gets Draftee Out of Joint,” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 1996. Retrieved October 9, 2016, from articles.latimes.com/1996-08-25/sports/sp-37663_1_collateral-ligament/.

10 R.A. Dickey, Throwing Strikes: My Quest for Truth and the Perfect Knuckleball (New York: Penguin Group, 2013), 84.

11 Alan Schwarz, “New Twist Keeps Dickey’s Career Afloat,” New York Times, February 27, 2008. Retrieved October 9, 2016, from nytimes.com/2008/02/27/sports/baseball/27dickey.html/.

12 Newhan.

13 The Sporting News, August 25, 2003: 46.

14 Schwarz.

15 Tim Kurkjian, “The Knuckleball Experiment,” ESPN.com, December 1, 2012. espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/8677078/mets-pitcher-ra-dickey-orel-hershiser-making-knuckleballer-espn-magazine-interview-issue/. Accessed November 2, 2016.

16The Tennessean (box score), August 19, 2003: 18.

17 Kurkjian.

18 Wherever I Wind Up, 230.

19 Wherever I Wind Up, 246.

20 Wherever I Wind Up. 252.

21 Wherever I Wind Up, 283.

22 Jonathan Zeller, “R.A. Dickey on Embracing the Knuckleball and Preparing to Climb Mount Kilimanjaro,” New York Magazine, November 1, 2011. ,nymag.com/daily/sports/2011/11/ra-dickey-on-preparing-to-climb-kilimanjaro.html. Accessed November 1, 2016.

23 Wayne Coffey, “NY Mets Starting Pitcher R.A. Dickey Completes Grueling Journey and Gets to the Top of Mt. Kilimanjaro,” New York Daily News, January 15, 2012. nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-mets-starting-pitcher-dickey-completes-grueling-journey-top-mt-kilimanjaro-article-1.1006343. Accessed October 30, 2016.

24 Matt Pepin, “R.A. Dickey wins Tony Conigliaro Award,” Boston.com. December 6, 2012. boston.com/sports/extra-bases/2012/12/06/ra_dickey_wins. Accessed November 27, 2016.

25 http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Tony_Conigliaro_Award, accessed November 5, 2016.

26 Tom Dakers, “On R.A. Dickey,” Bluebird Banter.com. October 25, 2016. bluebirdbanter.com/2016/10/25/13406972/on-r-a-dickey. Accessed December 5, 2016.

27 Wherever I Wind Up, 3.