High Heat (10 page)

The following week, against league-leading Southington, it appeared that Dalkowski would lose despite giving up no hits. Thanks to walks and wild pitches, Southington held a 1–0 lead going into the final inning. But after a teammate singled, Dalkowski came to bat and gave the opposition a taste of its own medicine. He worked a walk and eventually came around to score the winning run. Dalkowski had now pitched back-to-back victories, and both were no-hitters. He fell just short of recording three consecutive no-hitters when he lost the next game, 1–0, allowing a lone hit.

“It was easy then,” Dalkowski remembers. “It was like just handing the catcher the ball. If I didn't strike out 18 a game, it was a bad day.”

Back in the 1950s, high school sports weren't that far removed from Bob Feller's era. Spring and summer were for baseball, winter
for basketball, and in the autumn football was the game. Athletes, no matter how much they excelled in a particular sport, rarely focused on it year-round. So, it wasn't that far-fetched when Dalkowski was named to the National High School All-America team in football, too. Still, he knew his future was in baseball. Just before his senior season, he told a local reporter that he planned to attend Seattle University, but only if he didn't sign a major-league contract.

On April 16, 1957, New Britain was scheduled to open a new season at Walnut Hill Park against East Hartford. Of course, coach Billy Huber wanted to go with his ace, Dalkowski. But in the days leading up to the game, Dalkowski was reportedly “below par,” suffering from a cold.

“He hasn't been feeling well,” Huber told the
New Britain Herald,
“but I'm fairly certain he'll be pitching this afternoon.”

For a pitcher who was under the weather, Dalkowski served notice that his senior year would be one to remember. Remarkably, he delivered a no-hitter against East Hartford, striking out 20. Along the third-base line, fans stood several rows deep. Afterward, in newspaper accounts, park officials were chided for not having enough bleachers set up to accommodate everybody.

Among those attending his games were scouts from a dozen or more major-league teams. They included some of the best in the business—Fred Maguire of the Red Sox, Bill Enos of the Athletics, and Frank “Beauty” McGowan of the Orioles.

A handsome man with silver-gray hair, McGowan was known for being a fashion plate and a fine judge of baseball talent. After playing for three teams as an outfielder in the majors, he had become a key man in the Orioles' scouting department. The ballclub was known for doing its homework and during its heyday signing such major-league stars as shortstop Mark Belanger, catcher Andy Etchebarren, infielder Davey Johnson, and pitchers Dave McNally, Darold Knowles, and Jim Palmer. Still, the Orioles weren't opposed to rolling the dice on this hard-throwing, yet unassuming prospect.

Even in pitching a no-hitter on Opening Day, Dalkowski exhibited traits that would eventually test the best professional coaches and
instructors. Even though Dalkowski had the game well in hand (there were only three putouts by Hurricanes outfielders), he did get the local crowd buzzing in the middle innings by throwing a ball 10 feet over a batter's head. “But to fans who have followed his high school career closely, the promising major league prospect showed more polish,” the
Herald
read the next morning. “For one thing he did not seem to be striving to ‘blow down' every batter.”

A week later, against Weaver High School, before another large crowd at Walnut Hill, Dalkowski recorded his second consecutive no-hitter. What he had done the previous summer in American Legion play was indeed a harbinger for the high school campaign. He had plenty of speed. Now could he only harness it?

“The whole town's talking about the Dalkowski boy, and it's easy to understand,” read the lead sports story in the
Herald
. “In pulling his Johnny Vander Meer act before the largest crowd to see a high school baseball game here in years, Steve had all kinds of control trouble and issued 11 walks, hit a batsman and uncorked a wild pitch.”

During the game,
New Britain Herald
sports columnist John Wentworth remembered talking with an old-timer behind home plate when Dalkowski “cut loose with a torrid fastball,” which eluded catcher Bob Barrows and hit up against the wire-mesh screen behind home plate.

“Looks to me,” the old-timer told Wentworth, “as though the boy needs to be tamed down just a might. He's got a live pitch though, hasn't he?”

Due to wild pitches and walks, the game, which started at 3:30 p.m., didn't end until 6:45. Still, observers said that Dalkowski didn't appear fatigued and was throwing just as hard to the final batter as he did to the first.

Any chance of a third consecutive no-hitter soon ended in the next game against New London. In the third inning, after walking a man, Dalkowski gave up a home run to deep left-center field. In the return match against New London, though, he gained a measure of revenge. Before 800 fans and scouts now representing every major-league team, he struck out a state-record 24 batters in a 5–0 shutout
victory. In giving up four hits, Dalkowski threw 123 pitches. Of course, today, in the age of pitch counts, no major-league prospect would be allowed to throw anywhere close to that many pitches.

In his senior year, the Hurricanes finished with a 9–5 record, good for second place in the Capital District Conference. Dalkowski's high school career included two no-hitters, four one-hitters, and six two-hitters. In three seasons, he struck out 311 and walked 181.

“The walk figure is clearly indicative of Dalkowski's need to better his control,” wrote Ken Saunders, another local columnist, “but this may come as he gets more experience in fast company.”

For good or ill, fast company was certainly on the horizon for Dalkowski. The night of his high school graduation, when he became officially eligible to sign a big-league contract, every ballclub except the Cleveland Indians had a scout visit his home. Dalkowski decided to go with McGowan and the Orioles, due in large part to the amount of money the team offered him under the table. Back in 1957, major-league teams were prohibited from officially offering a prospect more than $4,000. Of course, the Orioles offered that, plus a new Pontiac car and at least $12,000 more under the table. Years later, Dalkowski claimed that amount was $40,000.

“When I signed Steve in 1957, he was a shy, introverted kid with absolutely no confidence,” McGowan later told pitcher-turned-writer Pat Jordan. “Even in high school he walked everybody. But we gave him a $4,000 bonus, the limit at the time, because [Orioles pitching coach] Harry Brecheen said he had the best arm he ever saw. Everyone knew it was a gamble, but we all thought it was worth it.”

 

 

O
f course, the Rays have far more invested in David Price these days. About $8 million. With so much on the line, plenty of folks were keeping an eye on him at the start of the 2009 season, and few were as knowledgeable or as experienced as pitching coordinator Dick Bosman. An 11-year journeyman in the majors, Bosman once threw a no-hitter against Oakland and posted the American League's best ERA in 1969. But he never threw anything that came close to Price's stuff.

“When guys have good arms,” he says, “you generally sit up and take notice because of the way the ball comes out their hand. By that I mean that it has life. The ball sizzles a little bit. It's not only fast, but it moves. David's ball has all those things.”

By spring 2009, Bosman had seen the promising left-hander pitch as much as anybody in the Rays' organization. During the season, Bosman travels between the Rays' four full-season minor-league teams and three short-season ballclubs. He first witnessed Price in action almost two years before—back when the phenom arrived in the Rays' minor-league system. His immediate reaction? “He was mature beyond his years.”

Unlike most pitching prospects, Price could already throw a two-seam and a four-seam fastball. The two-seamer will tail or run away from right-handed hitters, while the four-seamer will bear in upon a batter's hands. Not only had Price mastered both variations of the fastball; he had a good idea of when to throw them, too.

But what really got Bosman's attention was Price's delivery. In baseball terms, it was “clean,” meaning it had few cricks or contortions as he threw the ball to the plate. Bosman, who often watches the Golf Channel in his hotel room after another long day at the diamond, compares the motion with Tiger Woods's golf swing. Both are efficient and able to be easily fine-tuned because they're “relatively simple in nature.”

That said, Price had plenty of obstacles to overcome. Not only was there plenty of competition to make the Rays' staff coming out of spring training, but there was concern about how many innings Price could realistically pitch this season at the big-league level. The previous two years he had thrown about 120 innings. A regular spot in Tampa Bay's starting rotation would see that workload approach 200 innings. “That increase for anybody,” Bosman says, pausing for the right words, “is something you'd rather not do.”

Although Bosman says Price “went through the [Rays'] minor league like Sherman through Atlanta,” a list of things to work on awaited the young phenom as the new season began. They ranged from gaining better control of his slider to knowing the correct situation
to throw his changeup. Despite Price having one of the best fastballs to come along in some time, Bosman wasn't interested in working on an increase in Price's velocity. In fact, the more he saw the young phenom pitch, the more he became convinced that Price's stuff moved best in the mid-90s, not when he approached 100 miles per hour on the radar gun.

“There's something to learn and something to accomplish at every level, especially spring training,” Bosman says. “David did a great job in the big leagues last year, but we all know that the pitcher has the advantage the first time around. When you're honking it up there at 96, 97 miles per hour and doing it from the left side, that's a pretty good advantage the first time around.

“But if you're going to go out there and face a lineup three or four times a game, you're going to need more than a fastball to do that. I don't care how hard you throw. Hitters can tune it up a little bit and they're going to get to you. You need other weapons. You need to know exactly what you're doing out there. That's something that hasn't changed since forever in this game.”

 

 

O
ne of the things I love about baseball is that so many great players come from such mythical-sounding small towns straight out of Americana. Bob Feller was from Van Meter, Iowa; Lefty Grove from Lonaconing, Maryland; and Walter Johnson from Humboldt, Kansas. It reminds me of the scene from
The Natural
where the train stops in the middle of nowhere and a young buck, somehow played by Robert Redford, steps out of the shadows and shuts down the big-time slugger. It seems as if the next great arm is out there amid the rows of corn, as elusive as the ghosts in
Field of Dreams,
ready to stride to the mound, if only we can find him . . . and sign him to a long-term deal.

Nolan Ryan was another fireballer who seemingly came out of nowhere. He was born in Refugio, Texas, and his family moved to nearby Alvin, Texas, when he was six weeks old. Located almost midway between Houston and Galveston, Alvin has become more
suburban outpost than small town since Ryan's upbringing in the years after World War II. Even Ryan, its most famous favorite son, admits that the weather in Alvin can often be lousy and the place can be thick with mosquitoes and humidity during the summer. Rain and hurricanes can plague it during the winter months. But for Ryan no place was better suited for his development as a person as well as a big-league pitcher.

“I never found a place where I wanted to live more than Alvin,” Ryan wrote in his autobiography,
Throwing Heat
. “I guess if I were a member of the Chamber of Commerce, I'd have trouble selling the place.... [But] for me it's where my roots are, where I've always been. It's home.”

Alvin had a population of about 5,000 when Ryan was growing up there. The town would close up tight by 10:00 p.m., and Ryan later compared it to the backdrop of
The Last Picture Show
—the kind of place where it's early to bed, early to rise, and everybody knows everybody else's business.

Ryan's father, Lynn Nolan Ryan, worked in the oil industry. Other dads grew rice or raised cattle, and pretty much all the moms stayed at home. The Ryan homestead was a four-bedroom on Dezo Drive, where Ryan was the youngest of six children. When it was time for his two older sisters to head off to college, the family was in need of extra cash, so Ryan's father got a second job delivering the morning paper, the
Houston Post
. Much more is made now of how to raise a bona fide sports superstar. Of course, Woods was swinging a golf club right out of diapers. Up in Canada, kids begin to skate as soon as they can walk, with their parents daydreaming about their offspring being the next Bobby Orr or Wayne Gretzky. But Ryan's father never pushed sports. Sure, he and the other dads in town helped lay out the first ball fields in Alvin, one of which now sports Nolan's name. But things had a more serious purpose back then. When that second job, folding and delivering the
Houston Post
papers at 2:00 a.m., needed to be done, it was decided that young Nolan should tag along. At an abandoned Sinclair service station in town, Ryan folded papers from two to three in the morning and then headed back home to grab a few more hours of sleep before school.

“I got quite an education,” he said in his autobiography. “Oh, there'd be an occasional drunk staggering by from out of the pool hall down the street. . . . And I'd see skunks crawl out of the drainage system to eat the popcorn that people dropped coming out of the movie.”