Sunday, February 28, 1999
Graves is closer of future
But can he rival Dibble, Myers?
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Danny Graves
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SARASOTA, Fla. — Remember when Rob Dibble threw the ball into the center field seats? He hit a school teacher named Meg.
Anyone else, anyone at all, does not celebrate saving a game by winging a fastball into the crowd. Dibble didn't plug a truck driver named Zeke or a bouncer named Rock. No. Dibble hit Meg the school teacher.
“He wasn't happy the way he pitched,” Hal Morris recalled. “I saw that and my jaw dropped.”
Randy Myers once zapped former Reds manager Lou Piniella with a stun gun. “Five hundred volts,” Morris recalled. “Right to Lou's butt. Lou jumped three feet.”
When he pitched, Myers had a knife in one pocket and a two-foot length of chain in the other. Truly. “In case somebody charged the mound,” Morris explained. Myers made Dibble look like a school teacher named Meg.
Myers armed his locker with grenades, nun-chuks and camouflage clothing. He had a little, battery-operated soldier who crawled along the floor. The grunt's gun glowed red and made machine-gun noises. At spring training once, I accidentally stepped on the little guy. Myers threatened to rip my head off for that. I believed him.
I never knew what Myers did in the offseason. He said he coached girls basketball. I say he worked for the CIA in Colombia.
Pitchers who save games — “closers” in baseball parlance — are lunatics.
Closers are wacky. Closers are a shrink's life's work. Stephen King could write about closers, and keep himself awake at night.
Danny Graves is the Reds closer-in-waiting. Graves went 8-for-8 in save situations in the second half of last season. To get his first save, he threw a sinker low and inside that Mark McGwire grounded to third for a double play.
If the Reds want to chase the Astros all summer, Graves will need about 30 encores of that show. As it is now, he may be paired with Gabe White and others. Closer by committee. But Graves is the guy the Reds want to succeed.
Graves is young (25) and confident. Graves closed games for two years in college and two more in the minors. What he isn't, is nuts.
“There's no part of me that's going to intimidate anybody,” Graves said. “I could have a goatee, if I painted one on.” He has a tattoo, which would be promising if tattoos weren't as common now as fingernails. Besides, the tattoo on Graves' left shoulder is of a baby, smoking a cigar.
See my tattoo. It's a rugged baby.
“I got it because people said I have a baby face,” Graves explained. Oh, great.
Graves has three tattoos and is planning on another. This doesn't quite qualify him for Rodman status.
Graves says he has the closer's mentality, though. Basically, that amounts to learning to forget. “Your whole mental approach has to be different. It's do or die. You have to be mentally prepared to deal with that,” Graves said.
Closing is the ultimate what-have-you-done-for-me-lately gig. There is no other job in sport with the same risk-reward ratio, unless you think stunt-driving is a sport.
With Denny Neagle, a resurgent, relaxed Pete Harnisch and a maturing Brett Tomko, the Reds have put themselves in better position to be in close games. Now they need to win some. Closers can invigorate young teams on the cusp. Or they can wreck them.
No wonder Dibble and Myers straddled the abyss.
“They were a special breed,” said Graves, a high school kid when the Nasty Boys ruled. “I'm not like that. But I don't think I'm as normal as a normal person. I like to act like an idiot sometimes. It keeps it loose. If you're totally serious, you're going to turn it into a job. You have to relax.”
Once, Dibble fielded a squeeze bunt by the Cubs' Doug Dascenzo and threw it at him. “On the run,” Morris marveled, “like a run-and-shoot quarterback.”
You don't have to be different to be a closer. But it helps.
Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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