On the essays shelf (yes, there are still more books to excerpt in my vast library. I can’t seem to stop this excerpts-from-my-library project. I started it in 2006!)
NEXT BOOK: Once More Around the Park: A Baseball Reader, by Roger Angell.
Roger Angell’s obsession with pitching and pitchers is one of the more obvious themes of his baseball essays. He returns to the topic again and again and again. Angell obsesses on it from all angles. How do they do what they do?
In “In the Fire,” he describes realizing, almost as an afterthought, that catchers are also amazing, and almost even more so, since they are hidden behind the plate, and what they do and how they do it is extremely mysterious (as opposed to the pitcher, who is out there, alone, on the mound, for all the world to see). Catchers obviously need to catch the damn ball. They also have to be able to hit. But what does the catcher position entail? What happens when a catcher calls “Time” and goes out to murmur with the pitcher on the mound? The catcher has to calm down the wild stallion of the pitcher, has to murmur encouragement, or suggestions, and pitchers (of course) are often fiery individualists who want to do what THEY want to do. How does a catcher manage that relationship? The catcher is in close contact with the umpires (often physical contact), and how does that relationship go? The more Roger Angell thought about the position, the more fascinated he got.
That fascination intensified as he set out to interview a bunch of catchers about their job and how they see their role. Turns out, nobody really asked the catchers about the ins and outs of their job. Reporters can be very pitcher-focused. So what Angell discovered was a bunch of men hungry to discuss their work, talk about how hard it is, how challenging, and try to get across the philosophical nature of what being a catcher is about. This isn’t news, but it is fascinating to hear catchers talk about it in their own words. Not only do you have to catch 95-mph fastballs, and knuckleballs, and curve balls, but you have to know what pitch should come next, you have to call the game, based on your knowledge of the pitcher as well as every batter that comes up to the plate. Does this batter always swing on the first pitch? What are his weaknesses? What are his strengths? How do we force him to swing at the pitch WE want him to swing at, how do we put him into a tiny box and completely de-fang him?
I could listen to catchers talk all damn day. The essay is huge, and made up mostly of quotes from the various catchers Angell grilled. Carlton Fisk is voluminous in his replies, but in the following excerpt, it is switch-hitting brilliant catcher Ted Simmons who takes the floor.
Excerpt from Once More Around the Park: A Baseball Reader, ‘In the Fire’, by Roger Angell
Bob Boone and Milt May have also had experience in both leagues, but they both gave a slight edge to National League pitching. May said that the N.L.’s preference for the slider – the faster breaking ball – as against the American League’s prejudice for the curve, might make the crucial difference. Boone said, “I think the real difference between the leagues is about six National League pitchers. Soto, Seaver, Carlton, Rogers, maybe Reuss, and any one of three or four others. Put ’em over in the American League, and they’re even.” (Tom Seaver, who came to the Chicago White Sox over this winter, has already made the switch.) “I would guess there are deeper counts in the A.L., but I wouldn’t know for sure. I know there’s more confidence in control in the A.L. In either league, it’s hard as hell to get a base hit, most days.”
Simmons wanted to be sure that I understood the extent of the catcher’s involvement with other aspects of the game – with his manager, for instance, and with the deployment of the defense on the field. “With some managers,” he said, “you can come to them in the dugout in the middle of the game and say, ‘This pitcher has had it. I assume you know that. But I want you to know I’m having to struggle with every pitch in every inning. I can’t set up a program with this man, because he’s faltering. Now I want some notion about your objectives. Do you intent to pitch him one more inning, or three more?’ Then if the manager says, ‘Wow, let’s get somebody up out there,’ I can say, ‘Well, O.K., I can get him through one more inning,’ and you work that inning like it’s the ninth, with nothing held back. But there are some managers who can’t respond to that assertive approach, because of their personalities – I can think of a half dozen of them that I’ve been involved with – and with those, well, you have to find some other way to get the message across.”
My people. Well, once upon a time when I was a high school pitching coach, I had this righthander with great control. He was later Stanford’s closer. Anyway, I called the pitches every game, relaying them through the catcher. Lots of bogus ear nose chin stuff while the real signs were the positions of my feet. We were in sync, this young hurler and I. It was quite a good feeling when I could turn to the bench and say, ‘Strike three swinging coming up on a neck high fastball.’ Then here comes the neck high hard one and there goes the swing and miss.
Steve – Wow. I love this! And so you told him what to pitch based on your knowledge of him, as well as the batters he was facing? I’m fascinated by that process.
// We were in sync, this young hurler and I. //
Amazing!
Exactly. I had a lot of success with young pitchers, but this kid was the tops. He had 3 quality pitches and could put ’em right where you wanted.