High Heat (9 page)

During the labor wars of the mid-1990s, an Olympic-style international tournament had been one of the few things that the owners and the players' union were able to agree upon. One could even argue that this infatuation to see the game's superstars competing under their nations' flags had played a major role in eventually leading baseball back from the abyss. What better way for a sport to get back on track than by producing another “must-see TV” sporting event?

Despite smiles all around, the WBC had plenty of problems. It was a far different animal than what I'd heard Paul Beeston, then
representing the owners, and union boss Donald Fehr praise 15 years before. First off, the timing was all wrong. Crucial games, with national pride on the line were contested when the players weren't yet in midseason form. And to help prevent injury, pitchers were often limited to how many pitches they could throw—a rule that led to some curious pitching changes and perhaps helped foster such surprising outcomes as Italy defeating Canada (a squad that included Justin Morneau, Russell Martin, and Jason Bay), the Netherlands downing the Dominican Republic not once but twice, and Team Japan repeating as overall champs.

Through it all, Tampa Bay's David Price, a bona fide fireballer and one of the most promising young pitchers in the game, put in his work at the Rays' spring training complex in Port Charlotte, Florida. On potential alone, Price should have had a starting spot in the Rays' rotation locked up. After all, his fastball sometimes neared 100 miles per hour, and it wasn't unreasonable to expect him to gain even more velocity as he grew stronger and accustomed to the professional game. Only two years out of Vanderbilt University, where he had won college baseball's top honor, the Dick Howser Award, Price had sped through the Rays' farm system. In mid-August 2007, he signed a six-year deal with Tampa Bay, which included a $5.6-million signing bonus, reportedly the second largest in draft history to that point. (Justin Upton of the Arizona Diamondbacks received $6.1 million in 2005.) He had then gone 11–0 on the lower rungs of the Rays' farm system, turning heads every step of the way.

“He's amazing,” three-time Cy Young winner Pedro Martinez, who ended up squaring off against Price during a rehab assignment in the minors, told the Associated Press. “That kid is very mature for his time in [the professional ranks], and very talented.

“At that age, I don't think I was like that. He seems far superior. . . . God bless him and keep him healthy.”

In 2008, the Rays were one of the top stories in baseball. Rising from the cellar in the American League East, they reached the World Series, with Price a major reason for their postseason success.
He came out of the bullpen to win Game Two of the American League Championship Series against the Boston Red Sox and then came on in relief again in Game Seven to record his first career save, eliminating the defending champions. With that Price reached the World Series faster than any other top overall June draft selection, surpassing Atlanta's Chipper Jones and the Los Angeles Dodgers' Tim Belcher, who was drafted by the New York Yankees in 1984. In addition, he was only the third rookie pitcher to record a victory and a save in the same postseason series, joining Adam Wainwright (St. Louis, 2006) and Rawly Eastwick (Cincinnati, 1975).

With a new season set to unfold, the last glimpse many had of Price was of him celebrating on the mound, the fans at Tropicana Field ringing their cowbells after the last out against Boston. After such a marquee performance
ESPN: The Magazine
ranked Price, along with Matt Ryan in football and Ricky Rubio in basketball, as the top new faces in sports. But as spring training drew to a close in 2009, Price was having difficulty winning a spot on Tampa Bay's major-league roster.

It wasn't that he was pitching poorly. It was just that others were arguably pitching better. And there were also complications. Two of the Rays' other pitching prospects—Jeff Niemann and Jason Hammel—were out of options, meaning if they were designated to the minors another team could pick them up. Price didn't fall into that category. So despite all the success of the previous season, not to mention his meteoric rise to the majors, it appeared Price would be opening the season back with the Triple-A Durham Bulls for more seasoning.

“All I can do is throw well,” Price told
MLB.com
after his initial spring training appearance. “There's a bunch of different stuff going on with that, so [I have to] just go out there and have fun.”

Having fun can be difficult, however, when so much is on the line. Despite a maturity well beyond his 23 years, Price did let it slip how much he wanted to stick in the major leagues for good. Perhaps his patience was wearing thin after his success at the game's highest
level. Soon after arriving in camp, he told the
St. Petersburg Times,
“I want them to not be able to look me in the eyes at the end of spring training and tell me I'm going to Durham.”

Yet, as the weeks passed under the Florida sun, that's precisely where Price was headed to start the new season.

 

 

S
ometimes, late in the afternoon, the home phone will ring and I'll know it has to be Phil Pote. Parson Phil, as he's known to his friends, has been a professional scout for more than 40 years. He's the guy who discovered such big leaguers as Bobby Tolan, Willie Crawford, and Bob Watson. Pote loves to talk baseball, especially about pitchers who can throw hard.

“Where you heading next?” he asks. “Your grand tour of everything fastball?

“Looks like to Durham, North Carolina,” I reply. “David Price isn't going to make the big-league club.”

“You had to except that.”

“Why?”

“It will take him longer to pick up major-league time beginning this season at Triple-A,” Pote says. “That will help when it comes to contracts and those types of things, which I don't know anything about.”

“But he's been throwing great. You have to agree, he's the next great phenom.”

“Hey, partner, all young pitchers struggle,” Pote says. “Unless they're Fernando Valenzuela. And you and I both know those kinds of arms come along once in a blue moon.”

Pote's right. Circumstance had placed David Price at a crossroads all too familiar to fireballers dating back almost to the game's origins. No matter how great the gift, the potential that's seemingly bestowed from above, everybody seems to struggle at some point. Walter Johnson, “the Big Train” himself, had to pay his dues on local ballclubs in southern California and was met with indifference in Tacoma, Washington, before coming of age in the frontier town of Weiser, Idaho—
2,500 miles from the team that finally signed him, the Washington Senators.

The sheer ability to throw a baseball with great velocity often makes things appear easy early on, especially to those looking on from the sidelines. Perhaps this is what drives the ultratalented hurlers in our midst to such distraction. Everyone expects them too soon to win almost every outing, just because they can throw hard. But rarely does anything of genuine consequence and achievement happen without a little torment and perhaps a bit of heartache along the way. In every pitcher's journey, there are obstacles to overcome. How they respond, and what they learn about themselves and the world in front of them, is often the tale. In the big leagues, it takes much more than being able to throw hard.

As the Rays broke camp, ready to defend the American League pennant, the 6-foot-6 Price, easily their most promising and arguably their best-known pitcher, was already 592 miles away, as the crow flies, in Durham, North Carolina. The Rays' management had decided the phenom needed more seasoning.

“When we came into camp, we came in with an open mind, knowing full well that there were certain developmental issues that we wanted him to focus on and also the workload,” Andrew Friedman, the Rays' executive vice president of baseball operations, told the Associated Press. “We had a lot of conversations about ways to get creative. And we went through it for the last two or three weeks at length and ultimately decided that—all things considered—this was the right move for David and in turn the organization.”

Price had gone 2–0 with a 1.08 ERA in three appearances in spring training. Even though he kept his composure when meeting with the media after the decision, there was little doubt he felt he belonged with the big-league ballclub. “You come in here because you can play,” Price says. “And this team likes you, and they want to get more looks at you. You get sent down, that's disappointing.”

Many of the top fireballers who have preceded Price have gone through similar ordeals. The best not only survived; they rose to the
occasion and often became icons of the game. As for the rest? They never came close.

 

 

A
t first it can seem so easy. Just throw the ball to the catcher's mitt and the sheer velocity, often coupled with great movement, makes the whole world sit up and take notice. But soon enough something more is asked of a fireballer. He's urged to develop other pitches to complement his high heat. As Hall of Fame slugger Eddie Mathews once said, a good hitter “can time a jet coming through that strike zone if you see it often enough.” And for many in the game, that's as good as gospel.

To compound matters, coaches and managers often tell a hard-throwing prospect to take something off the fastball. How it's better to gain an ounce of precious control. But what if you believed, deep in your soul, that you can win without such measures? That all this talk of compromise and strategy didn't add up in some basic way? That it might take away from your talent—what got you here in the first place? At such a crossroads, a serious question is asked of anybody trying to bring a gift, something radical of purpose, into the world: Which voice do you choose to believe in? The experts' or your own? Perhaps that's how many become so lost so soon. A fear builds up inside that's often at odds with the lessons being taught. Perhaps that's how it was with one of the most enigmatic of fastball pitchers, Steve Dalkowski.

At first glance, the left-hander from New Britain, Connecticut, didn't look like much of an athlete. He stood 5-foot-11 and weighed maybe 170 pounds. But once he strode onto an athletic field, Dalkowski soon became the only show in town. On the football field, he was the quarterback of the New Britain Hurricanes' 1956 state champions, breaking the school's passing records and twice earning an honorable mention on the state's all-star teams. Still, it was on the diamond that the legend of Steve Dalkowski grew to unprecedented proportions.

New Britain's nickname is the “Hardware City.” Stanley Works, Corbin Locks, and North & Judd all called it home. Dalkowski's father worked in the town's electric-tool plant and played shortstop in an industrial league. He trained his son to play the outfield, but once Steve Jr. got a chance to pitch there was no looking back.

For old man Dalkowski, the stations of life flowed between the plant, home, and the local tavern. He, like many of his working-class buddies, drank hard on the weekends and by the time Steve Jr. reached high school he was already following in his father's footsteps. Word had it that Steve Jr. liked his beer and regularly hung out with older guys who could get it for him. Still, in high school, Dalkowski kept his nose clean. He never missed practice and was in good shape. It wasn't until well after his high school graduation that reports trickled out, from Pat Jordan and others, that he had been pulled over at least once during his schoolboy days for drunk driving.

All of that was on the far periphery during those glory days in New Britain. Despite his slender stature, Dalkowski had big hands, gangly limbs, and a nasty whipping motion to his delivery. Even though he didn't receive much instruction from his Little League coaches, the buzz around town was the kid could throw. By eighth grade, his father didn't dare play catch with him anymore. Junior's fastball was too hot to handle. In fact, it was fast and getting faster, and the general consensus soon became to leave well enough alone. The kid had the gift and soon nobody could remember a pitcher from their part of the world throwing as hard as Dalkowski.

The left-hander made his first high school start in the spring of 1955, his sophomore year. He gave up seven hits against Bristol, a respectable showing. Those seven hits would be the most Dalkowski would give up until the final game of his high school career against Hartford Bulkeley—when he made his second appearance on the mound in three days.

Early in his junior year, in a game the local newspaper billed as “the great battle of southpaws,” Dalkowski lost a 1–0 decision to Hartford Public's Pete Sala. Sala was impressive, striking out 17. But
Dalkowski, in a losing effort, fanned 20. After he struck out 20 more in his next start, New Britain had itself a new local hero.

Crowds of 700 or more began to look on at Walnut Hill Park, the ballclub's home field. The crowds continued to swell after Dalkowski fanned 20 batters for the third consecutive game, this time against Hillhouse of New Haven. But Hurricanes fans also suffered from “nervous indigestion,” according to local newspaper accounts, as Dalkowski also walked 13 that day. Soon his pitching line read like a misprint. Hits were inconsequential to nonexistent. Strikeouts and walks were sky-high—two stats that for Dalkowski would become forever linked.

After Dalkowski finished his junior year by fanning “only 13,” he headed directly to the American Legion season. It was there that the issue of control became a major concern. In his first game that summer, Dalkowski allowed only one hit. But he walked eight and had five wild pitches. When he could put the ball over the plate, though, nobody could lay a bat on it.

In his second start for the Eddy Glover Post team, Dalkowski struck out 26. In the 8–0 victory, he gave up only one hit. Four days later, he was even better—pitching a no-hitter against Bristol. He struck out 21 and walked only five.