The summer of 1995 was all about baseball for me. I'll give you a minute to compose yourself as I'm sure you are shocked by that. Jody and I were teammates again playing on the same team we had played with the year before. A rag tag group of kids coached by beer swilling, good old fashioned red necks. I was not there to learn from them, they didn't have much to teach me. The best thing they did for me though was allow me to pitch as much as I could.
I was a fastball pitcher, not because it was so good that I didn't need anything else, I just couldn't throw anything else. I tried and tried to throw curve balls and sliders but it didn't stick. I kept working on my splitter/fork ball/knuckle ball concoction in practice and very rarely in games. On car trips I would split my pointer finger and my middle finger around the ball and just let it sit there. I had heard a television report about pitchers injury their elbows when throwing split fingered pitches because the tendon wouldn't stretch out enough. I don't have big hands so I tried to get ahead of the possible injury. I wish someone had told me about avoiding shoulder pain though (a teaser line for the next 15 years).
Maybe it was the lack of pitching at a young age or just dumb luck, but I could throw and throw and throw and never seem to get tired. It was my greatest strength and the causation of my eventual downfall. I loved to pitch. You asked me to toe the slab and I'd say okay. As a fierce competitor, pitching fed a burning desire in me that I had never had with baseball. Hitting was a one on one battle, but you were lucky to succeed 3/10 times. That's quite discouraging. Pitching puts you on the other end of that equation and have a 70+% success rate is a lot more fun. I embraced the challenge of getting the other team out. The entire focus was on you and how well you performed. Its an ego trip, I kid you not. Nobody asks the left fielder about their day in the field, its how did you pitch. There were stats to keep, stats to talk about and stats to brag about. I was smitten.
By the time my senior year started I knew I was going to compete for some innings on the mound whether I was going up against two of my longtime friends or not.
That summer also marked the return of Major League Baseball. After the strike of 1994 canceled the playoffs and World Series, the powers that be finally got their *stuff* together and struck a deal. It still cost fans the start of the 1995 season, but finally in late April baseball was back. Some fans stayed away, bitter about millionaires fighting with billionaires, losing a World Series for the first time since 1903 and refused to acknowledge that the sport even existed.
With the national pastime in dire straights the baseball world was looking to something to be proud of. That something turned out to be a someone and he was Cal Ripken Jr.. As the schedule was finalized the date September 6th, 1995 became a beacon of light for everyone to focus upon. That date would mark Cal's 2,131 consecutive game played breaking the streak of Lou Gehrig. The number 2,130 was up there with 755 and 61 as one of the most revered numbers in a sport that focused completely on numbers. Cal Ripken was also a very stand up guy, a great ambassador for the game and everything that was the exact opposite of the ugliness that had just occurred last summer.
Living in northern Virginia I watched more Orioles games than anything else. For Oakland Athletics games I was forced to a ritual of watching the ticker on Headline News, ESPN2 or calling Post Haste. Yes Post Haste, who remembers that in the DC area? It was a hotline from the Washington Post that you could call (toll free) to get updates on all subjects...or basically the Twitter of the 1990's. At 10pm I would tune to headline news and just stare at the ticker, religiously. It was so sad looking back, being glued to numbers scrolling by. I had it timed it out, if the Top of the 1st lasted longer than 5 minutes on the ticker it meant the Athletics were in trouble. Only bad things could be happening if it didn't shift to the bottom of the inning quick enough. I'd flip back and forth between Headline News and ESPN2 to make sure one wasn't behind the other. How I didn't invent Twitter boggles my mind. I needed information on a real time basis. It was a drug addiction that I wouldn't shake for a long time. I watched numbers on a screen hours at a time, day by day for the next decade. Believe me, if you think this was bad, it got a whole lot worse when I was older and could stay up longer and then combined with the Athletics actually being good. In the morning I would get up, dial up Post Haste and listen to the game recap. I knew as soon as the first word was said who had won. The recording also started with the player of the game. If I recognized the name the Athletics won, if not, I hung up in disgust. I couldn't wait for the Post to have the box score printed the following day. It was never in the paper the next morning, just listed as 'Late Game.'
Back to Baltimore. Without the ability to watch my favorite team save for the occasional late game on the Wednesday night ESPN DH, I watched the Orioles. Deep down inside I still had a soft spot for them no matter how badly they embarrassed me in 1988. My sister who was turning into a female me, caught the baseball bug as well. Mainly it was her attraction to Orioles outfielder Brady Anderson. As the Athletics plowed towards another last place finish against all my wishin' and a hopin' and a prayin' I squared my focus on Cal Ripken and his streak. Every game you held your breath...just don't get injured. To get this close and to not break the streak would be devastating. I went to a couple games that summer including 2,128. If you weren't around to watch the daily ceremonies, the Orioles used the B&O Warehouse facade as a makeshift 'count up' draping huge numbers signifying the games played as the game because official. Cal would get as standing ovation and the game would move on after a new number was displayed.
The night of the streak tying game, Cal hit a home run. It was a great story. My sister was happy that Brady hit two home runs. He was slowly becoming a power hitter, it was odd to see hit transform from a slap hitter to a power hitter, but oh well, nice story as well.
The next night, ESPN aired the game nationally. People at school were abuzz about that night. Who was going? Oh you're so lucky to go. It was a big deal. President Bill Clinton attended and Chris Berman called the game which signified the importance as he never left the studios at ESPN. All eyes were focused squarely on Cal as he was being dubbed the man that saved baseball. I am sure this streak would have been big without the strike and the fan backlash, but because of it the country swarmed to it. It was pure baseball. Forget the contract, the bumps and bruises and show up to work. A blue collar millionaire. It was the perfect distraction to bitching about labor issues and who would get more money from playing the game we played as children.
What did Cal do for an encore during the famous 2,131? He homered again. Of course he did. With all the reason in the world to lose focus, he was a steel trap. You don't play every day for 13+ years without the ability to put aside distractions. After the top of the 5th concluded, the announcement about the game becoming official started...he had done it! He took a curtain call and tried to get the game started again. He just wanted to play. His teammates and the great fans of Baltimore wanted more Cal. Bobby Bonilla shoved him out to shake hands with the fans and Cal took a lap. At first he was going quickly, but you could tell the moment got to him. He slowed down, shook more hands and thanked as many fans as he could. It was a tear jerking moment. It might have been the only time Chris Berman didn't speak for 20 minutes in his life.
The streak continued for three more seasons before Cal sat on the final home game of the season and I was shocked to see it happen. It is up there with the most unbreakable records in sports history. 2,632 games. In a row. Unbreakable.
The 1995 season also marked the onset of the Wild Card. Because of the strike we didn't get to see how expansion of the playoffs would affect the purity of baseball, but after the initial American League Wild Card series between the Yankees and Mariners everyone knew it was here to stay. Seattle forced the series to a deciding game 5 in the Kingdome. To make a long story short, the city of Seattle almost lost the Mariners. They needed a new stadium and the eventual win in game 5 practically saved the franchise. When Edgar Martinez doubled home Ken Griffey Jr. it was as if the ribbon cutting ceremony for a new stadium took place. My friends and I were at home watching a movie, but we stopped it to watch extra innings and thought for sure the Yankees were going to win after scoring in the top of the 11. We all hated the Yankees, save for Jody, and we cheered right along with Seattle. Jody remained silent.
As the calendar turn to fall, we picked up our rollerblades and starting playing hockey again. 3-4 nights a week we were at a tennis court. We thought we were getting good. The next step was to find a league to play in and that's just what we did. We got snazzy jersey's and the Rink Rats were born. It turned out that outside Isaac, we weren't that good. It was fun to play against somebody new on a real rink with officiating, but we weren't structured enough to really compete. Back to the tennis courts with you amateurs.
The Washington Redskins were looking to rebound from a 3-13 record and hopefully Heath Shuler would show signs of life in year 2. This did not happen. In fact he regressed as the city was split between being on his side and those wanting Gus Frerotte to play more. Bumper stickers shouting 'In Gus we Trust' were all around the area and I was on board. Heath Shulers' tenure in Washington was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. He played one more season in Washington, never starting and appearing in just a single game in 1996.
Unfortunately for Washington, that even though Frerotte was better than Shuler he was still not good enough to bring home a winning season. By week three I was already done with this team and they were only 1-1. We were playing roller hockey and listening to Sonny, Sam and Frank do the game on radio when John Elway threw a 43 yards Hail Mary to Rod Smith to win the game on the final play of the 4th quarter. The season only got worse from there on. The team bottomed out at 3-9 before saving face and costing them a better draft pick by winning 3 of the final 4 games. Of course one of those wins came against the rival Dallas Cowboys in Dallas. This was a small consolation prize when later that season the Cowboys won their 3rd Super Bowl in the last 4 years. It couldn't get any worse could it?
At least the Detroit Pistons started heading in the right direction. They were basically a two man team with Grant Hill and Allan Houston each averaging about 20 PPG. They made the playoffs as the #7 seed and were promptly swept away by the Orlando Magic. I still found it hard to root for a team that was led by somebody who went to Duke, but winning was better than losing.
Speaking of college basketball, UNC lost both Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace to the NBA but welcomed two more potential superstars in Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison. Sometimes when I am sad, I dream about a team with all four of them playing together and it makes me smile. At point guard Jeff McInnis, who was pretty good in his own right, would have had Carter and Stackhouse at each wing and Wallace and Jamison at the post. I don't see that team losing ever. Instead it was a freshmen led team that was highly talented but not tested. Then they decided to mess with my mind and come out of the gate 9-1 and eventually 16-4 (7-1 in ACC play) with 2 losses coming out of conference to Villanova in a weird scheduling oddity. This included a one point victory over Duke so by February I was thinking championship yet again.
Then the wheels came off with 5 losses over the next 8 games, then a win in the finale against Duke and a 1st round loss to Clemson in the ACC tournament. Something wasn't right, you don't lose to Clemson and think you can win a National Championship. Given a #6 seed UNC cruised in the first round, but were thumped by Texas Tech in the 2nd round and the result was forever immortalized on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
It was an ugly end to an up and down season. Continuing the trend of my arch rivals winning championships, the University of Kentucky wound up beating an over matched Syracuse squad and my friend Erin let me have it. After starting my high school years with a UNC championship, I had to watch both UCLA and Kentucky match them. At least Arkansas beat Duke in the other year and we were all thankful for that.
On the ice the Washington Capitals had another slightly above average season. Good enough to make the playoffs behind the emergence of young goaltender Jim Carey. He won the Vezina Trophy that season for the best goalie in the NHL a year after coming in second. He was the goalie of the future and to know he'd be there for another decade was thrilling. Peter Bondra continued to be the best offensive weapon on the team scoring 52 goals. Even with standouts like this, the team still struggled to make the playoffs finishing 7th in the conference only 3 points away from missing the playoffs all together.
To nobody's surprise they were paired up with the Pittsburgh Penguins once again who were the #2 seed. I was really getting tired of this. My friend Zack and I decided we needed a strategy to get the Capitals over the top this time. We decided to hit up Popeye's and get some chicken and biscuits for the pregame meal and see if that would bring us any luck.
Game 1 up in Pittsburgh didn't go exactly as planned, but it went the Capitals way. Jim Carey was chased midway through the game after surrendering 4 goals and the Penguins held a 4-3 advantage with only a period left to play. The Capitals turned to Olaf Kolzig, a relative unknown to steady the ship. The move worked because the Capitals turned it on, tallying 3 times in the 3rd to win. Game 2 was more of the same for Zack and I, Popeye's for the pregame because that mattered, it really did. Kolzig got the start again and behind another great effort down the stretch of the game including 2 more 3rd period goals, the Capitals won again. They had walked into Pittsburgh and taken both games. Maybe this was their year after all.
Back in Washington, Zack and I settled in to our third Popeye's meal ready to see the Capitals take a stranglehold on the series. We were both a bit surprised to see Jim Carey back in goal for game 3 after Kolzig had won the first two games, but he was the best goalie in the NHL in the regular season and being at home would help him get back on track. Yeah, about that. He was riddled for four goals again as the Capitals fell flat losing 4-1.
The pressure was back on Washington in Game 4 and Zack and I still got Popeye's, but switched to my parents house for this game. The Capitals also switched back to Kolzig in goal. Holding a 2-1 lead in the 3rd things were looking good, and Pittsburgh evened it up...ugh. The game headed to OT and nobody scored. A second OT and the best chance was a penalty shot for the Capitals by star forward Joe Juneau...he missed. Onto a 3rd OT, no scoring. The 4th OT began and my father awoke hearing noises from downstairs. 'What the hell are you still doing up??' he bellowed. 'The game isn't over it's in the 4th OT!!' I pleaded. He went back to bed, I went back to the game, but Zack was shaken. He said he had to leave because he didn't want to get me in trouble. I told him forget about it...he couldn't. As he was getting up to leave I told him the Capitals were going to lose now that he was leaving and about 5 minutes after driving away the Capitals were called for a penalty. Less than 10 seconds left in it and less than a minute until the 5th OT, Petr 'bleeping' Nedved scored. The series was tied at 2 games apiece and I refused to speak to Zack the rest of the series.
As you can guess Pittsburgh won the next two games including a heated game five when the coaches went toe to toe in addition to on ice fights. Another year wasted, more animosity towards Pittsburgh growing.
Back at school we had survived the Blizzard of 1996
and I for one was really looking forward to finally getting a chance to play regularly on the baseball team. I knew I had an outfield spot locked up, but I wanted to pitch and that would be tough as the 3rd or 4th option on the team. As practice was about to begin our top two returning pitchers announced they weren't playing which made me angry and happy all in one. I knew we couldn't be a good team without them, but selfish me was happy I'd get a better shot at pitching. Even after I pleaded with them to play, they refused and I moved on.
Of course this also opened up some spots for my friends to play. Jody and I were already fixtures, Isaac was pretty decent, but Zack and Justin also played and they had...um....a learning curve. We had a really good catcher and a stud center fielder/pitcher who ended up getting drafted 4 years later. Our 2nd baseman was a talented freshman, but that was about it. If I could pitch, we'd at least have a shot a competing, if not, it was going to be a long season.
Coach Horn worked with me knowing he had no other options and I must have responded. He tabbed me as the opening day starter in a two day tournament. I don't think I had ever been so nervous and so thrilled at the same time. It was what I was waiting for ever since leaving 2nd base at 13 years old.
I struck the first batter out on 3 straight pitches, all fastballs and I settled right in. We won that game and I was named all Tournament (4 teams, not a big deal). The entire season consisted of me pitching one game and Eddie pitching the next one. No bullpen, we didn't have one. There were a couple of memorable moments for me from that season and I'd like to share them with you.
-I remember losing to Central High School and getting into it with Coach Horn. Bases loaded, nobody out in the bottom of the 7th, he called for our catcher to throw behind the runner at third to try and get an out but our catcher threw the ball into left field. Looking back it was a good call, but the egoist that I am wanted to strike out the side.
-I remember pitching 7 innings on a Tuesday, but because of a rain out the week before we played Wednesday as well and then again on Friday. I woke up Friday morning in pain, my arm was very sore. I told my mom and she said to tell Coach that I could only throw a couple innings, but not the full game. We went out to Page County over 2 hours away to play. The boys out there were the size of the cows that were in the pastures across the street. They were huge. I gave up a 3 run homer in the 1st inning and we were down 8-0 after 3 innings. That is when my pitching career changed once and for all. My catcher told me to throw my splitter. I did...over and over and over. For the most part it was effective. He didn't know where it was going, I didn't know where it was going, but most importantly the batter had no clue what it was. I heard the chatter in the dugout. 'He's got a curve...no its a knuckle...no its a change up.' We rallied back to tie the game and after 8 innings the game was called due to darkness. The bench told me I through 157 pitches. I'll never forget that number. At home I told mom 'Good news, I didn't pitch 7 innings' and she was so happy...'I pitched 8.' Hahahahaha.
-I remember going to Brentsville High School to face the best player in our District who was aptly also named Jason. My coach advised me that he was being scouted by a few colleges that night so it was up to me to get them to take notice of me. I think I did a good job of it. I pitched a complete game victory and hit a 'home run' off of the other Jason. The home run is in quotes because they didn't have a fence so I hit the ball and ran...but it counts and I'm sticking to it. It was a party on the way home from that one.
-I remember getting to start the 2nd Annual Falls Church News Press Day at the Ball Park where our local paper would advertise the game by giving away free hot dogs and sodas. Instead of 15 fans we had 100 or so. One of the fans was our old coach who walked by while I was warming up and joked with me that I must have gotten my fastball over 50 mph in the last 2 years. Thanks, dick. It was a rematch of my earlier loss to Central and 'Smiling' Joe Kane. He would stand on the rubber and grin at you while pitching. It infuriated us to know end. By game's end he wasn't smiling. We won and outside of me pitching the only thing I remember is Isaac laying down a bunt that turned into a 3 run home run* (*there may have been an error or 6, but who is really keeping track??).
-Finally I remember ending on a sour note which was the story of my playing career. Last game was a make up game played on the morning of prom and we needed a win to qualify for the district tournament, but it was Eddie's turn to pitch. I was in center field and in the 1st inning a guy rocketed a ball over my head. As I picked it up to throw it back in I wrenched my back. Mid inning I limped back to the dugout and told Coach 'I did something to my back' and he gave me a look...the look and dryly asked 'So you want out of the game?' Nah coach I'm fine I thought and ran away with my tail between my legs. We lost and my career at George Mason ended as quickly as it started.
I grew leaps and bounds during that season. I took on a leadership role, I realized I was pretty good on the mound and I started throwing my splitter for strikes by seasons' end. Coach told me I was going to get to play American Legion baseball that summer with the best of the bigger schools in our area along with Eddie and Jody.
That was going to be an exciting litmus test.
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