Just Tell Me I Can't (21 page)

When Moyer came to Philadelphia from Seattle in August of 2006, Carlos Ruiz was recalled from the minor leagues just two weeks later. They'd been teammates and batterymates ever since. Ruiz arrived in the major leagues speaking broken English and lacking confidence, and has since matured into a .300 hitter and one of the best catchers in the game. Moyer played no small role in the catcher's development, sharing insights and anecdotes with the impressionable Latino in hotel lobbies, dugouts, and luncheonettes for years. Early on in their relationship, he talked to Ruiz about taking charge behind the plate, sharing with him an interaction he'd had with one of his first catchers, Jim Sundberg.

One afternoon in 1986, long before he'd found his zonelike comfort level in his pregame rituals, rookie Jamie Moyer was nervous as hell. He'd be facing Houston's Nolan Ryan on NBC's Game of the Week in a matter of hours. In the trainer's room, Moyer was on the table while a trainer stretched his arm every which way. Sundberg, a veteran, ambled in and, without a word, placed his hand firmly on the young pitcher's chest. “Hey, kid,” he said. “You just pitch today. I'll call the game.”

Instantly, Moyer felt a wave of relief. Suddenly, his gruff catcher had made him feel not so alone. All he had to do was throw the ball—something he'd been doing his whole life. Sharing this with Ruiz was as if to say,
You have no idea the impact you can have.

Once, during an intra-squad spring training game, Moyer found himself facing Sundberg. In the middle of the count, Moyer's catcher called a fastball in. Sundberg saw his usual batterymate shake his head yes, and then no. When the pitch came, Sundberg timed it flawlessly, as if he knew what was coming, and parked it deep in the outfield bleachers.

As he ran around the bases Sundberg laughed at his friend. After the game, he caught up to Moyer. “Look, I knew what was coming,” he said.

How? Moyer wanted to know. When Sundberg saw the young pitcher shake his head yes and then no, he knew Moyer was saying yes to the type of pitch, followed by no to its location. He also knew that usually a pitcher doesn't shake off a breaking ball's location. So it was simple deduction: a fastball was on its way. Since he was so familiar with Moyer's fastball—he knew it would be around 84 miles per hour, and that it would probably be low in the zone—he sat back, awaiting his big fat gift.

Leaving the ballpark that day, Moyer realized:
Catchers know all
. The game always takes place in front of them and they don't have the luxury of relaxing and being mentally out of a single play.

So it was that seeking out Ruiz's take on the opposing team's lineup had become a critical part of Moyer's game-day prep. By now in his career, he had become much more in control on the mound. He decided what pitches to throw and when, but he was always mining his catcher for information.

Now, going over the Rays' lineup, Moyer told Ruiz how he'd want to approach certain guys, while peppering his teammate with questions: Has so-and-so changed anything at the plate? Does he shorten up with two strikes?

Rookie power hitter Evan Longoria posed a challenge. “He's one of those guys who can do a lot of damage if I elevate the ball,” Moyer told Ruiz, affectionately nicknamed “Chooch” by his teammates and the entire city of Philadelphia, almost all of whom were unaware that the moniker referred to a woman's private parts. “Longoria gets those arms extended and he's tough. But if you make a mistake on the inner part of the plate, he can hurt you, too.”

They spent a lot of time discussing outfielder Carl Crawford. Moyer had long said that if he were a general manager, he'd build a team around Crawford because of his versatility. He could change the game in so many ways. “Carl's a down and away guy,” Moyer said. “If I don't get it away, he'll pull it. If it's away and not down, he'll hit it to leftfield. And if it's outer third and slightly elevated, he'll kill it.”

“You gotta get in on him,” Ruiz said.

“Either that or challenge him by making a
good
pitch down and away,” Moyer said, meaning make a pitch that led Crawford to
think
he was getting his pitch—only to find out after it was too late that the pitch was just slightly
too
down or just slightly
too
away.

Before they moved on to the next hitter, Moyer added an afterthought. “At some point, Carl may try to bunt,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because he's got great speed and he thinks he can beat me down the first base line,” Moyer explained. “And he's lefthanded. He can drag a bunt down the line and get it past me into that no-man's-land. Let's be sure to watch for that.”

“I'll tell Ryan,” Ruiz said, referring to first baseman Ryan Howard.

Finally, after numerous rain delays, it was time to get in full uniform and make his way onto the rain-soaked field. Fans were starting to enter the ballpark and the night was already alive and buzzing. Walking to the outfield, Moyer kept his head down, watching puddles of water splash over his cleats with every step. As he had all season, he placed his glove on the warning track and ran sprints in the outfield. In the bullpen, he threw well. The Imodium had quelled his stomach, but the more he threw, the more he broke into a cold sweat, and the more he told himself to ignore it.
This is just another game, just another game, just another game
, he repeated to himself over and over.

By now the fans were in full force, bellowing, waving white rally towels. They'd reached a crescendo when country music star Tim McGraw approached the mound. McGraw, son of the late Phillie legend Tug, who was on the mound when the Phils last won a World Series twenty-eight years earlier, secretly took out a small box and sprinkled his father's ashes precisely where Moyer would be pitching. Though baseball is full of gruff, chaw-​c
hewing
men, sentiment abounds. To Moyer, McGraw's moving act was another in a series of emotional connections—his own presence at the 1980 parade, his lifelong fixation on Carlton—that made tonight feel like a night of destiny, diarrhea be damned.

In an uncharacteristic nod to the emotion of the evening, Moyer made a conscious decision to look up on his walk in from the bullpen. It would be the one singular break in his routine. He wanted to take it all in. The stadium he'd pitched in for more than the last two years seemed brighter than it ever had. The noise was deafening. But now, approaching the dugout, as the fans behind first base stood and cheered the old warrior, Moyer looked down, not wanting to risk being taken out of his zone. This game was too important.

As Moyer predicted, Crawford was proving to be Moyer's biggest challenge. In the second inning, the outfielder doubled and stole third, scoring on a groundout. The Phils led 2–1 until sluggers Ryan Howard and Chase Utley gave Moyer a cushion with back-to-back home runs in the sixth.

Actually, pitching in the World Series turned out to be easy; sitting in the dugout, with a burbling stomach and the chills, was the real challenge. On the mound, Moyer was so focused that he forgot his stomach woes, and that he hadn't eaten all day. He didn't hear the fans, so intent was he on the mesmerizing sounds of the game—the hiss of the ball off the bat, the
thwack
of it into a glove—and on his own thoughts, an amalgam of self-pep-talk and strategic thinking. In a career that stood as a testament to the proposition that mind really can overcome matter, Moyer's valiant performance may have qualified as exhibit A.

Leading off the seventh with the Phils up 4–1, Crawford came to bat and made even more of a prophet out of Moyer. Just as the pitcher had predicted in his pregame meeting with Ruiz, Crawford dragged a bunt down the first base line, thinking he could beat the old man to the bag. But Moyer got a good jump off the mound and dove through the air for the ball as it nearly dribbled past him, fielding it and tossing it from his glove in one motion, ending up prone on the wet grass. First baseman Ryan Howard fielded it cleanly, and to all eyes both watching live
and
seeing the replays, Crawford was indisputably out by a fraction of a step. The crowd erupted with a roar, but first base umpire Tom Hallion was shielded by Howard's big body and didn't see the first baseman barehand the toss. He called Crawford safe. Even after the blown call, the fans wouldn't quiet, standing and applauding Moyer's all-out effort.

After giving up a double, Moyer got Gabe Gross to ground out, scoring Crawford. That was it for Moyer, who received a standing ovation on his way to the dugout. Relievers Chad Durbin and Ryan Madson, however, couldn't protect the lead, and by inning's end the game was tied at 4.

It would have been nice to have been the winning pitcher of record, and had it not been for Hallion's blown call, chances are that would have been the case. (To his credit, Hallion said after the game, “We're human beings and sometimes we get them wrong.”) But Moyer was uttering his favorite phrase throughout the clubhouse after the game—“It's all good”—because Ruiz delivered the game winner in the ninth and Moyer had done what had seemed vastly improbable earlier in the day: he'd produced a quality start, especially after having been smoked in the National League Championship Series by the Dodgers. As had happened so many other times throughout his career, Moyer had proven something to his doubters. From all those talking heads who'd been clamoring for a change in the pitching rotation after the Dodgers had clobbered him, to even his own wife, who'd earlier thought he should be in a hospital room instead of on a pitching mound, he'd again embodied the sheer power of belief.

Two nights later, Jamie Moyer was a world champion. After reliever Brad Lidge struck out Eric Hinske to end the 2008 baseball season, after the champagne corks popped, after Moyer's dad and his two eldest boys—Dillon and Hutton, both in the clubhouse and in uniform for the game—came charging into the postgame celebration, Moyer embraced the man who had given him the dual gift of baseball and work ethic.

Seventy-seven-year-old Jim Moyer ambled into the clubhouse and his son's embrace. “This makes all those pepper games in our yard worthwhile,” Jamie told his dad. Under his arm, Jim clutched the game program—like every other one he'd ever attended, he'd scored the game in real time.

While his teammates donned goggles and giddily doused each other with champagne, Moyer stood in the corner, surveying the scene. He joined in the celebration—shooting some champagne, taking some incoming—but as he watched his teammates, he saw a bunch of young kids celebrating without stopping to wonder just how fleeting this exhilaration would be.

That was as it should be. They were young and invincible, and to them this moment of triumph would now become the norm—for a time, at least. Moyer knew, however, that as moments go, it would need to be documented. Baseball is a game that has alternately broken his heart and sustained his spirits—sometimes at almost the exact same time—and he's learned that he needs tangible proof in front of him to accurately revisit its old emotions.

So, wading through a pack of jumping, screaming, soaked teammates, Moyer gathered his whole family and led them out to the Citizens Bank Park field, where they posed for photos near first base. The ballpark was still packed, the crowd still frenzied, when Moyer, eyeing the mound, got an idea. He grabbed a member of the grounds crew.

“Can I get a shovel or a pick to get the rubber?” he asked, motioning toward the pitching rubber.

“Let me ask my boss.” Moments later, the worker returned, shaking his head.

“Major League Baseball wants it,” he said.

“Awww, c'mon. Forget that,” Moyer said. “
I
want it. I've got your back with the league. Please?”

The worker smiled. “Ah, what the hell,” he said, before jogging off. He came back with a pick and shovel and started digging. “That's okay, let me do it,” Moyer said, taking over. Now the crowd noticed—and the cheers started to pick up, gradually sweeping the stadium, as more and more fans noticed the spectacle in front of them. Moyer, grunting, head down, just went about his excavation. He started to run out of gas, and the grounds crew stepped in to help. When they'd dug enough and Moyer could wrangle the pitching rubber free, he flung it over his shoulder—it was nearly thirty pounds, owing to the cement-filled interior—and the crowd erupted as he jogged back into the clubhouse to chants of
Jamie! Jamie!
ringing through the air. He'd gotten the ultimate keepsake—something he'd place on the mantel in his bedroom in Bradenton, and in San Diego, after the Moyers would move there in 2011. Upon rising every morning, the first thing he'd look at would be his World Series pitching rubber.

The next day, Philadelphia came to a standstill as some two million fans came out to honor the world champions. The whole Moyer clan was on the float that slowly made its way down Broad Street, the city streets a sea of red Phillies jerseys and caps. On the floor of the flatbed truck, Yeni, just two years old, laid on her back, covered in confetti. Among the throng, one youngster held aloft a sign: “Jamie Moyer, I Skipped School To See YOUR Parade!”

Of the players who spoke to the crowd at Citizens Bank Park, second baseman Chase Utley would make headlines by exclaiming, “
World F'ing Champions!
” But it was Moyer's thoughtful comments that struck the most moving chord. He spoke at the end of the parade, referencing his own local childhood and the day twenty-eight years prior when
he'd
skipped school to attend the last Phillies World Series parade. “Twenty-eight years ago, I sat where you're sitting,” he said to thunderous applause. “I was you. And I feel so fortunate to share this with you, my hometown.”

As he spoke, and as the crowd cheered—here was one of their own, a fan, with a fan's work ethic—he looked at the man who had given him the game. He couldn't be sure, but it looked like Jim Moyer was tearing up, as were his own sons, Dillon and Hutton. Like so many men in America, sports had long been an emotional proxy for the Moyer men, who rarely told each other “I love you.” They never had to: baseball, which they shared so lovingly through the years, had said it all for them.