Just Tell Me I Can't (22 page)

If the Seattle teams of the late '90s and early 2000s represented the last gasp of the game's era of camaraderie, then the Phillies of the late 2000s reflected something entirely new in Moyer's experience. While the team wasn't particularly close-knit in the way Seattle, or even Baltimore in the early '90s, had been—there were no group dinners out, for example—it nonetheless bonded over one common ethic: work.

Moyer had never been on a team that was more serious about its preparation. He'd get to the ballpark early to do his work and find twenty others there, doing the same. There was no Kangaroo Court, and there were hardly any clubhouse hijinks (save the comedy stylings of reliever Ryan Madson, who took it upon himself to try and keep things light). It was a deadly serious team of hard-edged competitors.

Despite what Billy Beane and some sabermetricians have held—that a player is what he is, early on—Moyer saw teammates push and prod and, yes, intimidate one another to get better. He saw players improve in all facets, and it all flowed from a group mind-set. “If you didn't work, you didn't fit in,” he recalls today.

Home run hitter Ryan Howard was a subpar first baseman who made himself into a good one through countless extra hours of fielding practice. Chase Utley was a suspect second baseman who morphed into one of the game's best, and grew to become perhaps the greatest leader by example Moyer had ever seen.
Utley
was immensely quiet, but eventually his personality took over the team. He wasn't shy so much as silent in the placid, icy way of an assassin. He'd do whatever it took to win: lean his shoulder in front of 95-mile-per-hour fastballs to get on base, break up double plays either with cleats up or going for the body.

To Moyer, the ultimate gentleman away from the game, winning teams had to have an edge. As Harvey used to say, you have to be a bit of an asshole to succeed. The Phillies were just that—in the best sense of the word.

Unlike in Seattle, it was the players who dictated the team's personality, not necessarily the manager. Charlie Manuel was a good ol' country boy in his sixties, someone who upon his arrival in Philadelphia encountered ridicule for his malapropisms and his butchering of the King's English. But he was also a hitting savant—he'd once compared notes on the science of hitting with Ted Williams—and had a keen sense about people. Behind his amiable, duncelike demeanor, there lay a type of baseball psychologist in his own right. Cholly, as he was called, knew that a manager's first job is to create a culture where every player would, as the common sports parlance went, “run through brick walls” for his manager. He created a grandfatherly persona, someone players didn't want to disappoint. It was a stark contrast to the in-your-face intensity of Piniella, but it was the right demeanor for this group. Cold-blooded types like Chase Utley didn't need anyone in their face; they needed someone to have their back.

Moyer consistently took it upon himself to mentor the young pitchers on staff. Hamels was an early pupil; Moyer recommended Dorfman's
The Mental ABC's of Pitching
to him, which Hamels would page through before starts. When Hamels followed his breakout 2008 season with a lackluster one in 2009, it sent him seeking. He had learned the importance of the mental game by watching Moyer, and he set out on his own path, picking the brain of pitching coach Tom House and ultimately hooking up with a mental coach in his hometown of San Diego, Jim Brogan, who tutored Hamels in concentration exercises and visualization.

Moyer introduced Kyle Kendrick, a young up-and-down sinkerballer, to Dorfman, recognizing in Kyle something quite familiar: the need to accept who he was. Once, he and Kendrick were seated next to one another in the dugout as the Phillies took on Atlanta. Braves pitcher Tim Hudson, who has won nearly 200 games over 14 seasons, was on the mound.

“You know, you can have the same results as Hudson,” Moyer leaned over and said.

Kendrick, at the time not a particular favorite of the hometown Philly less-than-faithful, looked dubious. “You're a sinker/slider pitcher, like him, I don't care what ballpark you pitch in,” Moyer explained. “Now look at your walk to strikeout ratio. It's about two to one. What happens if you cut out fifteen or twenty walks a year? That's something you can control.”

Kendrick thought for a moment. “Yeah, I walked two guys Friday night and both of them scored,” he said.

“A sinker/slider guy has to force contact by working the bottom of the zone, like Hudson does,” Moyer said. “Yeah, you're going to get hit, but they're going to have to hit four singles to score a run. Unless you make a mistake and get the ball up in the zone.”

Kendrick, who had given up 80 home runs in his first five seasons, nodded. Then, as if on cue, Hudson did just that—hanging a breaking pitch to their teammate John Mayberry Jr., who hit it out of the park. Kendrick smiled. “Nice to see Hudson make the same mistake I make,” he said.

After the World Series win in 2008, the Phillies rewarded the forty-six-year-old Moyer with a two-year, $13.5 million deal. On the call-in shows, there was some scratching of heads: why wouldn't Moyer now retire and go “out on top”? To Moyer, the media call for aging athletes to hang 'em up prematurely always seemed to have more to do with the media mavens making the argument than with anything having to do with baseball. It wasn't lost on him that many of those wondering if, at age forty-six, he ought to retire a World Series champ were themselves aging columnists and talking heads who wouldn't for a moment consider giving up their livelihoods—their passion—until they were damn good and ready. But Jamie wasn't ready yet. He'd just had a stellar season. If the batters weren't telling him to pack it in, why should anyone else?

Besides, everywhere he went in Philly, men and women his own age approached to thank him for getting them to join a gym, or start going for walks, or start watching what they eat. He'd inspired many of his generation-mates, it seemed, and in truth, he felt good about that.

Meantime, the Phils had some front-office change of their own. General manager Pat Gillick, who had brought Moyer to Philly from Seattle, retired, staying on in a consultant's role. The new general manager would either be Gillick's assistant, Ruben Amaro Jr., a former Phil who was young, good-looking, and charismatic, or Mike Arbuckle, the baseball lifer who was responsible for drafting many of the players who had ultimately led the Phillies to the World Series title, including Utley, Howard, and Rollins.

It was a tough call, but the Phillies went with Amaro Jr., with whom Moyer had a long history. Moyer had roomed with Ruben's older brother, David, on the Geneva Cubs in the New York Penn League in the mid-'80s. Ruben was the skinny Stanford freshman who would visit and sleep on their floor.

Just after signing his new deal, the Moyers celebrated like only the Moyers can. Karen and Jamie gathered the brood, chartered a plane, and, instead of exchanging gifts themselves, spent a week in Guatemala. The plane was packed with presents for the kids at the orphanage where Karen had found Yeni. As a group, they went back to Yeni's old orphanage in a van stuffed with gifts for youngsters who had never experienced a real Christmas, who were living in total squalor, some of whom were stricken with AIDS. Ever aware of his own psychology now, Moyer found it the perfect cap to the year. “I was totally humbled,” he recalls. “And just felt so fortunate and proud of my kids. It was out best Christmas ever.”

Moyer, now forty-seven, got off to a terrible start in 2009. His command was shaky as was his control: balls that once were down were suddenly up in the zone. In April and May, he was 4–5 with a 6.75 ERA. But as was so often the case, he gradually started to figure it out. After six and two-thirds innings of shutout ball against the Diamondbacks in late July, he'd gone 6–2 with a 4.05 ERA in his next ten starts.

That didn't stop Amaro from signing free agent Pedro Martinez over the All-Star break. Manuel told Moyer he'd be moving to long relief. Martinez had once been a dominant starting pitcher, having won three Cy Young Awards for the Red Sox. But he was now a shadow of his former self, having been in
jured
time and again. Moyer felt it was déjà vu all over again; that he was being judged and held to standards that don't apply to pitchers who throw faster. It was as if he were still always one or two bad starts from demotion—something that didn't exactly match his track record. He said as much in the press, even seeking out a
second
face-to-face with Manuel the day after being told of the decision. In that meeting, Moyer made his case: he was just starting to get back to the form he'd shown the previous year, when he'd led the staff in wins. Manuel didn't say it, but Moyer had the impression the decision wasn't his, that it came from Ruben.

Control what you can control
. That's what Harvey would have said. So Moyer—one interview notwithstanding, in which he claimed that upon inking his new deal, Phils management had told him he wouldn't be put in the pen—decided to go to the bullpen and do his job. And do it he did: over nearly the last two months of the season, he recorded a 3.26 ERA and opponents hit just .206 against him, which included six shutout innings and the win in relief of Martinez against the Diamondbacks on August 18 and four innings to beat Atlanta ten days later, also in relief of Martinez.

He still preferred starting, for the security of knowing when he'd be pitching. But Jamie had fun in the bullpen, shooting the breeze with the other guys and the fans. He found that he laughed much more than in the ever-serious dugout.

On September 29, in relief of starter J. A. Happ, Moyer faced four batters and retired them all. The last one flew out to centerfield as Moyer fell off the mound. He had to be helped off the field. He'd torn muscles in his groin and lower abdomen. He was done for the season, and—count 'em—three off-season surgeries awaited.

Moyer watched the Phillies lose to the Yankees in the World Series. Before game four, he caught the ceremonial first pitch from his idol Steve Carlton, who showed Moyer the grip on his slider. Moyer knew that if you're not moving forward, you're standing still, and had already been asking himself,
What can I do this off-season to reinvent myself? What can I do that will set me apart?

Like Karen, Moyer believes things happen for a reason. He doesn't do Godspeak, like so many athletes who would have you believe that God was pulling for them when they hit that home run or struck out that batter. But Moyer, thanks to Karen's influence, believed in the mysticism of faith, and there had to be some reason why he and Steve Carlton, moments before that ceremonial first pitch, were limbering up by playing catch and Carlton's ball was breaking all over the place. “Could you show me that?” Moyer asked. What a kick it would be if he were to come back next year reinvented as Lefty.

But first came the three surgeries over the next three months. They treated, respectively: the groin, a postoperative infection, and a torn meniscus in his left knee. Come January, Karen watched as he started throwing his new cutter and began training to get prepared for 2010. “Oh my,” she said to herself. “I'm living with freakin' Superman.” She made a commitment to herself, even though she was raising eight kids and running a foundation and spin studio:
If he makes it back next season, I'm flying in for all his starts
.

It's the worst feeling in the world. It's like knowing you're dreaming when you're having a bad dream—you're powerless to stop it, which makes it even worse. You want to snap out of it, but you can't get out of your own way. You're embarrassed, ashamed to look your teammates in the eyes. You've let them down.

By 2010, Moyer had built a career on rescuing triumph from seeming failure. But sometimes failure would still happen, and it never got easier. To be shelled as a major league pitcher, to be unable to record a single out, to throw pitch after pitch and see them tagged to all corners of a ballpark, is to feel like you're racing downhill with no stop in sight.

June 11, 2010, at Fenway Park didn't start out ominously. In fact, Moyer's 2010 was off to a good start. The experiment with Martinez ended the previous season, and Cliff Lee had been (inexplicably) traded to Texas when Amaro signed ace free agent Roy Halladay. That meant the fifth starter job was there for Moyer's taking, and his spring training performance cemented its capture.

Moyer entered the game against the Red Sox with a 6–5 record and a 3.98 ERA. He was coming off a complete-game victory at San Diego and opponents were hitting just .234 against him. The pitcher whose changeup had defined him for so many years was now throwing far less of them; instead, he was using his newfangled cutter to keep hitters off balance.

Before the game, Red Sox manager Terry Francona, who had played for the Cubs in Moyer's 1986 debut, couldn't believe his former teammate was still at it. “The thing that sets him apart is he just never gives in,” Francona said.

While Moyer had been impressive in the season's early going, his team hadn't. Ever since Jimmy Rollins went down with a strained calf muscle, the Phillies had played listlessly, winning only five of 17 games and hitting an anemic .216. For the first time since his 2006 arrival in Philly, Moyer sensed a lack of passion in the clubhouse.

On this night, he felt strong in the bullpen. The Red Sox leadoff hitter, Marco Scutaro, had owned Moyer in the past. Rereading his old notes on Scutaro, he decided to ignore them—because nothing had ever worked. Scutaro set the tone for what was to come, never taking the bat from his shoulder. After six pitches—at least two of which appeared to be strikes but were called balls—Scutaro worked a walk.

Dustin Pedroia looked at an 82-mile-per-hour two-seamer on the outside corner for a strike.
They're not swinging
. Next came a 76-mile-per-hour cutter, a jammer. Pedroia pulled it sharply on the ground to Polanco at third, who threw to second for the force but not quickly enough to turn a double play.