"Zoom Zoom"
There are three things I keep on the nightstand in my apartment:
1) a lamp
2) an alarm clock
3) a baseball autographed by Joel Zumaya
Of all the things on that list, the Joel Zumaya baseball is my most important possession.
In the spring of 2006, I was a freshman at Michigan and still living in the dorms. The Tigers were coming off a mediocre 2005 season and expectations were low. How low, you ask? The Tigers couldn’t even get all their home games on television.
The Tigers were like the Blackhawks before Chicago won the Stanley Cup, back when Chi-towners acted like their team didn’t exist. This year, I’m positive I saw a few Chicago jerseys with the price tags still attached during the Finals. Alas, I digress.
Because of a spacey television schedule, and a lack of baseball for 6 months, Detroit’s opening series became appointment viewing for me. In their first game against Kansas City, the Tigers debuted a relief pitcher that had been in their farm system since 2002. This rookie was a well-built pitcher with no shortage of tattoos. When he entered the game, Tigers play-by-play man Mario Impemba ran through his stats with nothing standing out. The no-name pitcher from San Diego stepped to the mound, stared down the catcher for the signal, and threw a bullet that popped the mitt of Hall of Famer Pudge Rodriguez.
“SSSSSSSSSSSSNAAAP!”
The stadium radar gun flashed this number across its screen: 101 mph.
Joel Zumaya had arrived.
The crowd at Kauffman Stadium “oooooooh”-ed and “ahhhh”-ed. I could picture Tiger fans everywhere salivating at the chance that they had found their closer for the future. Zumaya became a cult-like figure at every Tigers home game. Every time Joel started to take warm-up pitches in Comerica Park’s left field bullpen, the people in the outfield seats would rise to their feet, just to get a glimpse of the boy with the fireball arm. And when Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child” would blare over the loud speakers, escorting Zumaya from the pen to the mound, it would always be the loudest ovation any player would get that night. The pitcher with flames tattooed around the wrist of his pitching hand had ignited the interest of a fan base that had fallen on hard times.
His star rose quickly in Detroit. Due to his limited control of both his curveball and heater, Joel was used as a set-up man in the 7th and 8th innings where he could hone his pitching arsenal. He was a blue collar pitcher in a blue collar town. When most relievers would use control to get out of jams, Zumaya would prefer to live or die with a “Grip it and Whip it” attitude. In a place where cars are king, the Motor City could appreciate “power” over “finesse.” It’s no surprise Joel has been one of my favorite player for the past four seasons.
"Faster than a speeding bullet"
In 2006, the Tigers would go on to win the American League pennant before losing to the Cardinals in the World Series. The following year, my buddy Shaak bought me a Joel Zumaya autographed baseball (probably just to get me to stop texting him every time Detroit’s Big Z took the mound). I put the ball in my bookcase, making sure it was prominently displayed. “You know it’s only worth 20 dollars, right?” Shaak would later tell me, almost feeling sorry at how much I valued that signature. For me, it didn’t matter. Joel Zumaya had been my Tiger from day one.
During the 2007 season, Joel suffered an injury to his throwing hand early in the season and only played in 28 games. After rehabbing the injury, a 2008 “return to form” looked promising. But less than a month after the 2007 season ended, he suffered another odd injury. This time, doctors would need to reconstruct the AC joint after he hurt the shoulder trying to lift boxes from his home during the San Diego wildfires. It was a surgery that could end his career. However, even through all of that, he still managed to pitch 21 games that season. He has sustained a lot of freak injuries; from playing Guitar Hero to shredding tendons in fingers in warm-ups. Each time, Joel Zumaya had somehow made it back.
Now, the kid with the fireball arm will somehow have to make it back again. On June 29, Joel Zumaya sustained a fracture in his arm after throwing a 99mph fastball. He clutched his throwing arm after he released the ball, writhing in pain as the athletic trainers tried to help him off the field. The announcers used words like “bizarre” and “unusal”…words I had become too accustomed to hearing in reference to Zumaya’s health. When I heard the news, I was saddened and left to wonder if this was finally the injury that there was no coming back from.
Everyday I wake up, and I look at that nightstand in my bedroom. I hit the “OFF” button on the alarm clock, turn-on my lamp, and sit-up in bed. My eyes then turn to the Joel Zumaya baseball. It reminds me of how quick things can change. In an instant, you can go from being on top of the world to someone who could have had it all if things had been different. Every bad break that befell Joel Zumaya the past four years was not necessarily his fault. If he had eased up on his fastball and developed more pitches, would things be different? Maybe. If he hadn’t tried to come back so quickly from all those injuries, could he have reached his potential? I don’t know. Whether it was or wasn’t his own doing, the result of his injuries remains unchanged.
I look at that baseball, sitting in its case, and I think of a man who has made the most of his own mortality. It’s a symbol of how quick life can change, but it is also a symbol for making the most of what you are given. Joel Zumaya might not have reached his pitching-savior potential due to injury, but he still managed to become a good pitcher despite everything that happened to him. Now, it looks as if he might not pitch again for a long time, if ever. Nevertheless, the one thing I can say with certainty is he will put 103 mph worth of effort into his rehab trying to make it back.
The day Shaak gave me that baseball, it was valued at $20. Today, I’m sure it is probably worth less than half that. But the reminder Joel Zumaya’s signature gives me everyday is a lesson you can’t put a price on.
The People's Pitcher
