Jack McDowell of the White Sox, the first American League pitcher to win five games, was talking about himself and the essence of major-league baseball:
“What we’re out here for is to compete. To win. I don’t expect to pull too many friends out of the game. Hopefully, when I leave, I will have had the reputation of a guy who was tough to beat.”
“Players on the other teams don’t like him,” shortstop Ozzie Guillen admitted. “He’s kind of cocky and he pitches inside. But when you’re on the same team, you love him.”
Outfielder Mike Huff:
“I never liked him when I was with Cleveland. He’s so intense. You knew for nine innings he was never going to let up. Even when he doesn’t have his best stuff, he still comes in on you, to push you off the plate.”
McDowell has had his best stuff in only one of his five 1993 outings; his victories were by 10-3, 6-4, 9-4, 3-2 and 5-0. In the games he has started, the Sox have scored 33 runs, an average of 6 1/2 per game.
Some fans may believe that with that kind of support, McDowell’s 5-0 is no big deal. They are terribly wrong. The primary statistical measuring stick, for a starting pitcher, is victories-not earned-run average, not strikeouts, not opponents’ batting average.
There is no question, with only three full big-league seasons behind him, McDowell has established himself as a winner: 64 victories against 39 losses, a .621 percentage. The only better veteran pitchers are Roger Clemens of the Red Sox, .680; and Dwight Gooden of the Mets, .676.
Whitey Ford, the former Yankee star, holds the all-time career winning percentage record for pitchers with 200 or more victories. Ford, a Hall-of-Famer, rests at .690. This isn’t to suggest that McDowell will eclipse Ford but merely to emphasize that he is in fancy company.
McDowell is also durable. He has led the AL in complete games in each of the last two seasons, 13 last year, 15 the year before. An even better index of his tenacity is that he usually goes into the eighth inning. For his 228 starts, his average stay is 7 1/3 innnings.
White Sox manager Gene Lamont admits that he doesn’t give McDowell a quick hook. The reason is simple. Said Lamont, “Jack has shown that he can get the big out.
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“I’ve only been here a little more than one year,” Lamont said. “But I’ve seen this happen dozens of times. They load the bases against him with one out and then Jack gets a strikeout and a popup.”
Unlike Clemens and Gooden and other pitching stars, past and present, McDowell isn’t overpowering. Occasionally, his fastball will be in the low 90-m.p.h. range, but he is generally in the high 80s. His most effective pitch is a breaking ball-the split-finger pitch, a delivery made famous by reliever Bruce Sutter, who introduced it 15 years ago when he was with the Cubs.
Phil Garner, the Milwaukee manager, says McDowell reminds him most of Catfish Hunter, who helped pitch Oakland to three World Series championships.
“Catfish had great mental toughness,” Garner said. “No matter what, he was going to beat you. Some people said he was lucky. But it wasn’t luck, because he did it all the time.”
I mentioned to Garner that what I liked most about McDowell is that he is such a ferocious competitor he doesn’t collapse; he wins when he doesn’t have his best stuff.
“It’s a rare individual who is at the top of his game every time he goes on the field,” Garner replied. “The mark of a great player is the guy who beats you when he’s not as his best.”
“Pete Rose once told me he felt great every day he went out there. I told him, `Pete, if I was as good a ballplayer as you are, I’d feel great, too.’ “
Garner laughed.
“I had too many 0 for 10s.”
As for McDowell, he tries to underplay his competitive nature.
“I’m just stubborn,” he insisted. “If something isn’t there and I don’t feel good, I’ll go right back to the same pitch that got me in trouble. I’m not going to doubt myself. Just because I hung a breaking ball doesn’t mean I’ll hang it again.”
At 6 feet 5 inches and 188 pounds, McDowell is thin as a rail. He has a short, black beard and a gaunt, menacing look. If he wore a black stove-pipe hat, he’d be a dead ringer for Abraham Lincoln.
Every time I see him I am reminded of Lincoln. But there is a difference. Honest Abe didn’t throw inside. He was a hitter, not a pitcher.
According to the newly published, “Baseball, The President’s Game,” (Farragut, $24.95), Lincoln was playing ball when a “delegation of bearded Republican elders” were on their way to tell him he had been chosen as their presidential standard-bearer in 1860.
“I am glad to hear of their coming,” Lincoln supposedly said. “But they will have to wait a few minutes while I have another turn at bat.”