Even a grizzled old baseball writer needs a hero, so I’ll come clean. I have a great admiration for Jamie Moyer, a left-handed pitcher who broke in with the Cubs 15 years ago. He is now with the Seattle Mariners and among the most effective pitchers in the major leagues.
In the beginning of his professional career he was on the small side, not much more than 5 feet 8 inches and about 145 pounds, a slender slab in a land of hairy-chested bruisers. He never had the blazing 90 m.p.h. fastball believed necessary for success.
Inevitably, his coaches told him, “Forget it, kid, you’ll never make it.” Or words to that effect.
He was cut adrift six times, traded three times and released three times, once by a minor-league team within the Cubs’ organization. Disheartened, he would return home, sit for a few days, then get up and try again.
“The biggest thing is I always felt I could play,” Moyer said at the Mariners’ spring training camp. “I know everyone says that when they’re sent down. But I believed it.”
He faltered once, after the ’92 season. He was 30 and had failed in opportunities with five big-league clubs or their farm teams.
Moyer’s wife, Karen, is the daughter of Digger Phelps, the former Notre Dame basketball coach who is currently a college basketball analyst with ESPN. They met in Chicago when he was with the Cubs. Karen was working for WGN-AM, the club’s broadcast outlet, and announcer Steve Stone played Cupid.
“I told her maybe it’s time I gave it up,” Moyer said, recalling his 1992 heartbreak. “She disagreed. She stuck with me. She knew it was my boyhood dream.”
And the next season he had his first significant success, going 12-9 with a 3.43 earned-run average for the Baltimore Orioles. On May 30 of that year he lost his 57th big-league game and his career record fell 23 games worse than .500. Four years later he had as many victories as losses.
To say he has turned it around is an understatement. Going into the 1999 season he has the best winning percentage (.726) of any major-league pitcher over the last three seasons. He has gone 45-17 with the Mariners: 13-3 in 1996, 17-5 in ’97 and 15-9 last year.
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How’s that for an inspirational story?
Two potential book titles: “Don’t Give Up” or “Winning Without A Fastball.”
Moyer often speaks at Little League affairs. He looks for the smaller kids who don’t throw hard, the so-called soft-tossers without strikeout power.
“You can’t teach a fastball,” Moyer explained. “That’s a God-given ability. But you can teach all the other pitches. And you can teach control. You can learn how to throw strikes. I tell them how hard you throw is never as important as being able to consistently throw strikes. The important thing is to hit a target.”
He cites the importance of repetition, which means practice.
And, of course, the pitcher without an overpowering fastball is at a disadvantage. The most difficult situation, it would seem, is when a left-hander is confronted with a right-handed power hitter.
Not so, Moyer insists.
“They can’t wait to pick up their bat and get into the on-deck circle,” he said. “I say, `Fine. Dig in. And do what you want to do, because I’m going to get you out.’ “
And he does. Hitting is timing. The best pitchers upset this timing, not with fastballs but with a basket of breaking pitches offered at a variety of speeds–change-ups, curves, sliders. He has three change-ups, slow, slower and slowest. He also has two curves. To keep the hitters guessing, he throws a sinking and a cut fastball, both in the 84 m.p.h. range.
The change-up is his best pitch. His game is getting the batter to hit the ball on the ground. His best ally?
“My defense,” Moyer said. “Seven guys behind me who can catch the ball.”