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Friday, May 19, 2006
McDowell a quiet counselor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
At first glance, the pitching situation of the Braves was in a garbled state. Early on this season, no starter had a victory. One relief pitcher had four. To fill one void on the staff, one pitcher who a year ago was working for a midwestern team named North Shore, was rescued from oblivion. To fill another, they brought in a former pharmaceutical salesman from Australia who delivers the ball sidearm. They were running a constant rehab shuttle between Turner Field and the farm club at Rome.
Last season, when the Braves had a gap to fill, John Schuerholz only had to pick up the phone and call Richmond or Pearl, Miss. Mike Hampton was down for the season. Horacio Ramirez would soon follow. John Thomson missed several starts. Dan Kolb, the $4-million closer they had acquired in a trade with Milwaukee, was having a $4 season. But those Schuerholz phone calls were making hay, with Kyle Davies, Blaine Boyer and Macay McBride in particular. A couple of longshots came through, Jorge Sosa and John Foster, who between them won 17 games.
All the while, though, nobody pointed a finger at the pitching coach. Leo Mazzone rocked on in the Braves dugout. He had been with Bobby Cox through all those 14 halcyon seasons after learning at the feet of the professorial Johnny Sain. He had a radio show. He did commercials. He had his own little empire. Leo was untouchable.
So, when he jumped ship to go to Baltimore, there was no little hand-wringing. Ye gods, what would the Braves do without the Mazzone magic? What would Bobby Cox do without his trusted Tonto at his side?
This was the scene that Roger McDowell walked into. Roger Alan McDowell, to be exact, 45 years old, out of Cincinnati, but now paying his taxes in Palm Springs, Calif. How could he ever replace the irreplaceable Mazzone, and Camp Leo, and all those trademarks Leo left behind?
Camp McDowell came off quietly, no furor. The new pitching coach maintained an even keel. Still does, though he came here with the reputation of a clubhouse jokester as a player. He has patiently subdued that side of his nature. He has gone about whatever he does quietly, apparently determined to detract attention. On this particular afternoon, he had secluded himself for about two hours, setting up his program for the day.
Frankly, I don’t know what it takes to make a good pitching coach. “Smoltz and Maddux and Glavine, good pitchers,” Mazzone would say.
Of that crew, only Smoltz remained, and an unsettled bullpen, without — perish the thought — a real hotshot closer. When the Braves got off to a staggering start, sort of a tradition here, nobody brought charges against McDowell. There was only one hinting story that, well, maybe they were missing Mazzone. Only time it happened. McDowell has gone about his duty like a trooper, and this was no fellow who had trained for such work.
“I’d been out of the game for two years, enjoying life with the family in Palm Springs,” he said. Then one day a friend from the Dodgers put him to work in the publicity department, a part-time job. That led to an offer to get back on the field, as a pitching coach, though he’d never really had that in mind.
“I was started off at Ogden, then in mid-season they needed a coach at Jacksonville,” he said. “From a low-A minor league to triple-A in the same season. I was really making progress, and I had to learn fast.”
He began a study of other pitching coaches, Dave Duncan, Mel Stottlemyre, and yes, Leo Mazzone. “I watched them all. In spring training, I’d dress after workouts and go out and watch how they did it. I’ve made the same mistakes I’ve seen them make, so I know how it is. I wasn’t sure I was going to be good at it, but I’m enjoying it now.”
This is his first coaching run in the big leagues after 12 years as a player, the highlight of which was winning a game in relief when the Mets beat the Red Sox in the 1986 World Series. Twelve years, mainly coming out of the bullpen with 159 saves, starting only twice. No more tomfoolery, the funny man stuff is for somebody else now. He is the quiet counselor, as seen in the background of a news picture the other day, in deep conversation with McBride as they walked off the field following the game in which the pitcher had been slow to cover first. A different kind of life from the man who once appeared in the television show, “America’s Funniest People.” Now among America’s most serious.
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Glads, Force less obscure
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
This being playoff time, the coach told his players to put it all on the line -- except he didn't say "all" -- which is why there's a line of cable strung across the hockey team's locker room, with various hanging objects, from a pair of beer cans, to a pair of golf balls, to the intimate pairing of a gun and a scotch bottle.
“We have fun,” coach Jeff Pyle said. “We’re more like a college team.”
Embrace them. They’re about all you’ve got.
The Gwinnett Gladiators are in the ECHL finals.
The Georgia Force is in the Arena Football League playoffs.
If this keeps up, they might lose their residency.
We have no NBA playoff team. It’s debatable whether we even have a regular-season one. We have no NHL playoff team. Haven’t since 1980. From mid-April to October, Philips Arena, home of the Hawks and Thrashers, is available for weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and pre-draft-lottery ritualistic sacrifices.
The Falcons missed the playoffs. The last time we saw a post-season, it was October and the Braves lost again. The next time we see a post-season, it will be October. Maybe.
This is Atlanta. When it comes to the playoffs, we’re not New York or Detroit or Philly or Denver or even Tampa.
We wish we were Cleveland.
But we do have the Gladiators and the Force.
One is in a sport’s minor league. The other is in the minor league of sports.
Double-A hockey. Double-amphetamine football.
Climb aboard. There’s plenty of room on the bandwagons.
“Oh sure — I think we’ve got about 5,000 open seats,” said Pyle, whose team probably will face Alaska — yes, that one — in the ECHL’s Kelly Cup finals next week.
Cam Ward, the Gladiators’ captain and a 16-year, 10-team, five-league veteran, said: “We know our 5,000 die-hards who’ve been here with us for years won’t take offense if they have to share the bathrooms and concession lines.”
One team is a transplant. The other is fledgling. The Gladiators moved to Gwinnett three years ago from Mobile, where the attentions of most were turned to Tuscaloosa and Auburn. Gwinnett reached the conference finals two years ago and the conference semis last season.
The Force was born in 2002 in Gwinnett (relatively, the local arena of champions). It was purchased by Arthur Blank and moved to Philips last year, reached the championship game (Arena Bowl), but fell back to 8-8 this year. The playoff opener is Sunday at New York.
Like most Arena League players, Georgia’s Derek Lee plays 63 positions, tapes ankles and delivers food to people in the club seats (both of them). He understands the Force doesn’t rank high on the sports radar in the city, but said: “A lot of people are just now getting hip to arena football. It’s better than last year. Pretty much by now, most people have heard of us. Even if they haven’t seen us, they’ve heard of us.”
Plus, the Arena League’s name makes sense. Not so with the ECHL. It’s an acronym for East Coast Hockey League, but the league tried to re-brand itself after absorbing West Coast teams (like Alaska). They didn’t want all of those ECHL hats and T-shirts to go to waste. So the “E” stands for nothing.
Otherwise, marketing isn’t an issue. The Gladiators had a “Runaway Bride” Bobblehead Night. (Shirley Lasseter, the Duluth mayor, even did the ceremonial puck drop with a blanket draped over her head.)
That was a close second to the Las Vegas Wranglers’ “Dick Cheney Hunting Vest Night.” The first 1,000 fans received orange vests that carried the words, “Don’t Shoot, I’m Human.”
The Gladiators are into this playoff-bonding thing. Instead of growing beards, the players got mohawks. Pyle excluded himself because of a receding hairline. “I’d have to do a nohawk,” he said.
Gwinnett-Alaska doesn’t ring of tradition, and it would destroy the team’s travel budget. The commercial flights could amount to $30,000, which exceeds the cost of a regular-season’s worth of bus rides.
But that’s not the players’ concern. A title is a title, no matter the league or level. Cam Brown won a championship with H.C. Olomouc in the Czech Republic — and you thought the Glads were obscure — but he has never won a title in North America.
“That covers almost 1,000 games,” he said. “I’ve been on some pretty bad teams.”
Now he’s on a good team that has been lost in the crowd. But this being the playoffs, the crowd has thinned.
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