Just Tell Me I Can't (14 page)

Karen has made sure the kids share her enthusiasm for this latest project of their dad's, referring to it often in grandiose, historic terms. She sees her husband's quest as a lesson
for
them, an eloquent example for them to follow. But Moyer knows it means their father won't be around, that he'll be away playing a child's game.

“Believe me, there have been times I've asked myself, ‘Am I putting myself before my family?'” he says now, cruising down State Route 56, otherwise known, appropriately enough, as the Ted Williams Freeway, named for San Diego's favorite baseball son. “Or have I my whole career? Maybe I have. Maybe it's wrong.”

There's a pause. “But, you know, this is what I know, this is what I do, and this is what I'm good at,” he says. Moyer looks into his rearview mirror and then, double-taking, looks again. “Did you see that?” he asks, perking up. “Did you see that granny back there?”

He slows down. Coming up on our right is a beat-up pickup, windows down, with a woman who has to be in her late seventies, blaring the song “Holiday” by Madonna. Her left arm is flapping out the window to the beat as she sings along full throttle, almost drowning out her truck's belches as well as Madonna's lyrics:

If we took a holiday / Took some time to celebrate

Moyer waits until she's alongside him in the right-hand lane, and then his passenger window is down and he's laughing and honking and screaming:

“Yeah!!! Sing it, sister!”

She gives a thumbs-up and then they're singing together, the SUV and pickup side by side at low speed on the Ted Williams Freeway, Moyer at the top of his lungs: “
Holiday!
”

After the song, the elderly woman shouts, “I always do this! People should be more joyous! You only live once!” before she peels off onto an exit ramp and is gone.

“What a great spirit,” he says. His mood has brightened considerably; the doubts about putting himself ahead of his family have been tabled. It's a beautiful February day in Southern California. He's heading back to spring training, he's just spent ninety minutes talking about the nuances of pitching with Dom and his kids, and he's just received an impromptu object lesson in how to embrace aging with a never-dying sense of passion—the same example his wife is convinced he is providing for his kids. As Jamie Moyer often says, “It's all good.”

O
n June 15, 1997, Jamie Moyer stood on the mound of the Seattle Kingdome and told himself to summon a voice. Only this time it wasn't the raspy sound of Harvey Dorfman he was yearning to hear. It was the next best thing: the gruff growl of skipper Lou Piniella.

It was Moyer's first full season with the Mariners, having been traded by the Red Sox to Seattle the previous July. He'd been 7–1 in Boston, and finished the 1996 season 6–2 for Seattle. That made him 13–3, the best winning percentage in the majors, with a 3.98 ERA.

This season, however, had been another story; he was 5–2 with a 4.53 ERA. But something wasn't right. In the month of May, he'd given up seven home runs, including two in consecutive losses to the Royals and Rangers. That's what led him into his manager's office just days before. Piniella wasn't all that popular among his pitchers—he'd been a hitter himself and didn't have a lot of patience for them. His reputation was well known: his intolerance for what he thought of as mental mistakes on the mound—particularly walks—chipped away at pitchers' confidence. But Moyer had felt a developing bond with his manager, whose palpable will to win matched Moyer's own.

“I'm not feeling comfortable, Skip,” Moyer said. “Are you seeing anything?”

Piniella, head buried in scouting reports on his desk, looked up. “You're not throwing your change enough,” he said. And then he looked back down.

There was a pause. Moyer was tempted to argue. Not throwing the change enough?
The change was what got me to the big leagues in the first place
.

“Really?” he said.

“You're not throwing enough of them,” Piniella said. “And the ones you are throwing, you're not
committed
to. Don't just show it. The changeup is who you are, for Chrissakes.”

Moyer was stunned. The conversation lasted all of a couple of minutes; back at his locker, Moyer realized the exchange had prompted a familiar feeling. Moyer's two great mentors—Jim Moyer and Harvey Dorfman—were both, like Piniella, straight shooters. They wouldn't seek to comfort him; they'd challenge him. No matter how critical they were, he always knew they just wanted him to push himself and get better.

Moyer had grown accustomed to his big league managers conveying all types of no-confidence votes in him. When he was struggling, they'd avoid eye contact in the clubhouse or get someone up in the bullpen at the earliest hint of trouble during a game. Yet ever since he arrived in Seattle, he'd sensed that Piniella was different: he could be critical and demanding and in-your-face, but it all came with a sense of belief, as though he were saying,
I don't think you're a piece of crap, so why do you?

On the question of the changeup, moreover, Piniella took a page from Harvey and made their brief interaction about something bigger than that one pitch: he suggested it was really about Moyer's self-
identity
. It's like he was saying what Harvey always said:
You're different. Don't be afraid to be who you are.

Still, Piniella was a hitter—what did he know about pitch selection? Moyer left Piniella's office with some lingering doubts about his manager's prescription. But then he caught himself:
Are you really going to ask him a question and then dismiss the answer?
That led Moyer to check the pitching charts. So far this season, he'd thrown the changeup roughly 15 percent of the time. And maybe only half of those were being thrown for strikes or near-strikes.
What do you know?
he thought. Maybe Skipper Lou was on to something.

Now here he was on the mound, L.A. slugger Mike Piazza approaching the plate, conjuring Lou's voice: be
committed
to the change. He knew what that word meant: you've got to be committed to the location, committed to the pitch. Hitters sense doubt. Harvey used to quote pitcher Frank Viola. “When you doubt your pitch selection, you don't have anything,” Viola said. “You end up throwing the ‘other' pitch, and you don't give your all because you're not really committed to it.”

It was time to recommit to the changeup. Pitching is about deception, and the changeup is the ultimate trick pitch. It requires that you sell it with the same arm speed and arm path with which you present the fastball. If you just throw it for show—simply to let the hitter know you have it—you're actually eliminating it as a weapon.

In their pregame meeting, Moyer told catcher Dan Wilson he was going to be more aggressive with the change. With one down in the first, Todd Zeile grounded out weakly on an away change, after fouling off the exact same pitch. Now, with two outs, here was Piazza, hitting .367, coming off a 4-for-4 day that included his 12th home run. Moyer started him with three high and tight fastballs—two at 84 miles per hour, one actually hitting 86. Piazza fouled the first two off and looked at the third for a ball.

Mouse meet cat
. Moyer had busted Piazza inside three straight times. Now he followed with a 76-mile-per-hour changeup away, on the outside corner. Piazza lunged forward and barely nubbed it foul.
An uncomfortable swing
. What next? Another change, also at 76, only this time it was over the middle of the plate—but dipping below the zone. With two strikes, Piazza was looking to protect the outside part of the plate, so this pitch—even though it was white on white—had the effect of jamming him. Again, Piazza barely made contact.
Another uncomfortable swing
.

He'll be looking inside and hard
, Moyer thought to himself. In other words: Piazza would assume the two straight changeups were simply meant to set up something similar to the pitches that started the at-bat. But Moyer was actually doing the precise opposite. He considered the first three pitches as the setup to this series of arrhythmic changes in speed. He dropped a 75-mile-per-hour changeup an inch or two off the outside corner, too close for Piazza to take; the hitter lurched forward off his front foot and whiffed wildly to end the inning. The last two batters: two outs on five changeups.

In the second inning, second baseman Wilton Guerrero came up. Guerrero had made some dubious news just two weeks before: in a game against the Cardinals, he had grounded out, shattering his bat. Rather than run out the play, he'd frantically scrambled to pick up the scattered pieces, raising the umpires' suspicions. Indeed, Guerrero had been corking his bat, ultimately leading to a suspension and fine.

Now Moyer started the young utility infielder with a 75-mile-per-hour changeup, low and away. Off his front foot, Guerrero flailed at the ball, swinging well in front of it. And then came the inexperienced hitter's big mistake. He broke into a wide grin and shook his head.

That's what I like to see
, Moyer thought to himself. In the never-ending poker game between hitter and pitcher, every reaction from a batter offers some piece of information to his opponent. When a hitter complains to the ump about a call, for example, he's inadvertently providing the pitcher with data about his state of mind, pinpointing which location makes him most uncomfortable. Now Guerrero's awkward, off-balance swing and his sheepish reaction said to Moyer,
I can't hit that pitch
.

Moyer expected Guerrero to make an adjustment, to look to protect against something soft and low again. Moyer toyed with going even farther out—trying to entice a chase—but decided instead to come back with another changeup, this one at 74 miles per hour, over the plate but well below the hitting zone. It turned out that Guerrero was guessing changeup, but the deviation in location still kept the fat part of the bat off the ball. Guerrero topped it routinely to third base for an out.

And so it went. Moyer faced Piazza twice more, and got him both times on changeups. When rightfielder Raul Mondesi came up in the fourth, Moyer toyed with the dead-fastball power hitter. The first pitch: a changeup outside for a ball. Then Mondesi, expecting fastball, swung well in front of a 75-mile-per-hour changeup. Moyer then went to his slowest pitch—a 70-mile-per-hour curveball on the outside corner: 1–2. Now a high and tight fastball that was fouled off, followed by a high and tight cutter for a ball: 2–2. A 74-mile-per-hour changeup was low for a full count.

Moyer peered in and shook off Wilson's sign for a fastball.
Hell if he's getting a fastball for a strike
. This was what Moyer would become known for over the ensuing ten years in Seattle: his utter unwillingness to give in. It's what Piniella would mean when, a couple of years later, he'd say that the best way to hit against Moyer was to “think backwards.” Roughly three-quarters of the time throughout the major leagues, pitchers will throw fastballs on 3–0, 3–1, and 3–2 counts.

Not Moyer. Against Mondesi, he pulled the string on a changeup, causing Mondesi to get out in front of it and pull it foul. Certainly a fastball would be next, right? Nope. The same pitch that got Guerrero, a 75-mile-per-hour changeup below the strike zone, induced a weak pop-up to third.

Piniella took Moyer out after six innings. He gave up two runs for his sixth win. How aggressive was he? Of his 103 pitches, 36 were changeups. But more important than the raw number was the type of pitches he made. Of the 18 outs he recorded, an astonishing 11 came on the changeup.

After the game, Piniella approached him in the clubhouse. There was no gloating, no reference to their conversation just days before. Just, “Way to go,” with the hint of a smile. At his locker Moyer smiled.
That son of a gun knows this game
, he thought.

On July 30, 1996, when Moyer was traded by the Boston Red Sox to Seattle for light-hitting outfielder Darren Bragg, he was not optimistic. He was going to play for a manager who was not known to be pitcher-friendly, and nor was the Seattle Kingdome known as a pitcher's ballpark. It was hard to see how this was going to be a good fit.

In three years in Baltimore, Jamie had established himself as a legit major league pitcher, going a combined 25–22 with a 4.41 ERA. But he could never nail down a consistent spot in the starting rotation. In 1995 he was in his option year as an Oriole, earning $1.1 million. He started the season in the bullpen, clawing his way back to starter by midseason, and ended up starting 18 games and relieving in nine others.

He signed with the Red Sox as a free agent that off-season, a one-year deal for $825,000 with a $225,000 signing bonus. Yet it was more of the same. Moyer started five games in April—going 2–1 with a 6.10 ERA—before manager Kevin Kennedy relegated him to the bullpen. In July, he got a chance to prove himself again, going 3–0 in four consecutive starts. After pitching seven innings to beat the Royals, Moyer's record stood at 7–1, with a 4.50 ERA. Good numbers, but Moyer was still the sixth man in a five-man rotation.

Hadn't he proven his worth as a starter? The pattern kept repeating: he'd get the odd start, but never felt secure. He was always looking over his shoulder to see if someone was up in the pen, always anticipating the manager's hook. All he wanted was a job description. Instead, he got media reports that he was about to be traded to Texas.

Karen pointed out that maybe a trade wouldn't be the worst thing. They knew Texas and liked the Rangers as an organization. Moreover, Moyer didn't like the ethos of the Red Sox clubhouse. The team was led by some big, famously undisciplined personalities, including Jose Canseco and Roger Clemens. They were great talents, but chaos seemed to reign around them. Cell phones and pagers were just finding their way into major league clubhouses, and phones were ringing—and being answered!—during team meetings.

Weeks earlier, Moyer had decided to make his case. He made an appointment to meet with general manager Dan Duquette.
You brought me here to contribute
, he planned on saying,
and I've done my share, winning seven of eight decisions. I've earned a regular starting job
. Only he never got the chance. Duquette was a no-show. Then, after Moyer's win over the Royals, he got word: he'd been traded. But not to Texas. To Seattle.

Karen was shocked.
Seattle
? That was clear across the country. Moyer quickly caught a flight to meet up with his new team in Milwaukee. Though he was happy to escape the lax clubhouse atmosphere of the Red Sox, yet another move made him feel like a perennial journeyman, a player who might never truly find a home.

And then he met Lou. When Moyer entered the Mariners clubhouse in Milwaukee, Piniella came waddling over, hand outstretched. “We brought you here to pitch,” the manager said. “We need pitching. We think you can help us. We didn't bring you here to fail.”

Piniella's clipped words washed over him, bathing him in comfort, not unlike when he'd hear Harvey. But it wasn't just the voice. Like Harvey, Piniella instantly made Moyer feel like someone was in his corner. For the first time, he felt like his manager was truly an ally, not an antagonist.

“You're in the rotation and starting the day after tomorrow,” Piniella said, walking away. On Thursday, August 1, 1996, Moyer went seven innings against the Brewers, giving up one earned run on four hits, raising his record to 8–1. Maybe he'd found a home after all.

Lou Piniella was one of baseball's old souls, a fiery leader who had little compunction when it came to getting in umpires' or players' faces. Regarding the former, he'd lumber out onto the field, face burning red, veins bulging from his neck, and…
communicate
. He may have been hot-tempered, but he was never misunderstood.

For all his showmanship, though, his antics always had a purpose. When you saw him charge an umpire from the dugout, reversing his cap en route so he could literally get nose to nose with his combatant, there was a method behind the histrionics. Even when, in 2002, he yanked a base from the ground and tossed it into rightfield—only to chase it down and, apparently unhappy with his first effort, toss it
farther
—there was a calculation, an intention to fire up his guys. Once, he purposely threw his cap down on his way to the umpire, planning to pick it up after his tantrum and throw it to the crowd; when he was tossed from the game, however, the bat boy dutifully picked up his cap and delivered it to him as he started back to the dugout. “Gimme my damn prop!” he barked to the startled kid.