Former Brave of the Fortnight: Damon Berryhill

           Backup catchers come and go in this game; some develop into starters, others flame out early, but often these substandard tradesmen hark their wares from team to team, earning the trust of a pitching staff and locking in here and there for four-year spans of a one-start-a-week existence.

            No squat child catcher dreams of becoming a career backup.  Many part-time backstops realize early their talent limitations, and earn their way onto the big club with tough defense and passable offense.  Damon Berryhill started from the top and worked his way down.  A California kid (born December 3, 1963), Berryhill starred at Orange County community College after graduating from Laguna Beach High School.  He was drafted by the Chicago White Sox in the 13^th round of the 1983 amateur draft, but chose not to sign.  His gamble paid off, as the Chicago Cubs selected Berryhill with the fourth overall pick the next year.  (Though it would seem he was a bust, the first round of the 1984 draft was horrible; Berryhill would probably have gone third or fourth if it was done over.  As first round picks, only Jeff Blauser and Gil Heredia ever proved more useful to major league teams).

Berryhill signed with the Cubs and progressed through the minors, earning a late-season call-up in 1987.  Berryhill didn’t hit in his 12-game splash in the Show, but continued to garner attention in the minors.  He was called up during the 1988 season, and quickly became the everyday catcher.  As a 24-year-old rookie, the switch-hitting Berryhill hit seven homeruns and knocked in 38 runs with a .259 batting average and .295 on-base percentage; nothing special, but good enough for sixth in the Rookie of the Year voting.  Unfortunately, Berryhill’s inability to draw a walk was already an issue.  He was beset by injuries in 1989, ending the campaign with similar abbreviated numbers (.259 average, .291 on-base, 5 homers) in just 91 games.  Berryhill played just 46 games between the majors and minors in 1990, and the Cubs gave up on their investment.  He was traded to Atlanta late in a 1991 season that saw him spend more time at Triple-A and struggle greatly in the majors, with a .l89 average and .244 on-base percentage in 172 plate appearances.  Having seen enough, the Cubs made their move, and the Braves sent Yorkis Perez and Turk Wendell to Chicago for Berryhill and starting pitcher Mike Bielecki.

Greg Olson was already entrenched as the starting catcher in Atlanta, and Berryhill began his career transition to understudy in 1992.  He hit .228 with ten homers in 328 appearances, with a paltry .265 on-base percentage.  The power, slight but real, was intriguing for a backup catcher, and Berryhill’s pedigree preceded him.  He was as exciting as a low-average part-timer could be, always appearing capable despite his repeated failures at the dish.  When Greg Olson suffered a devastating knee injury at the hands of villainous Ken Caminiti, we felt comfortable with Berryhill on the interim.

Atlanta’s trust was repaid in Game 1 of the 1992 World Series.  Berryhill’s shining moment came in the sixth inning, as the Blue Jays led 1-0 behind a laboring Jack Morris.  A walk to David Justice, a single from Sid Bream, and a fielder’s choice by Ron Gant put two men on with two outs for Berryhill, who launched a homerun to deep right field and gave Tom Glavine a two run lead.  It was more than enough for Glavine, who went nine to give Atlanta the Series lead - the last bright spot of that postseason, as Toronto took the next three games and finished the Braves off in six.

It was to be the precipice for young Berryhill, as Greg Olson’s return forced him into a timeshare.  Though Berryhill still ended the 1993 season with the majority of the at-bats, his numbers were still quite modest, even by pre-steroid era standards.  Eight homers, 43 RBIs, a .245 average and a .291 on-base percentage were not enough to earn Berryhill a new contract in Atlanta.  He signed with Boston as the Braves cleaned house at catcher, giving the reigns to Javier Lopez and Charlie O’Brien.

Berryhill hit .263 (albeit with just six homers and a .312 OBP) in part-time duty for the Red Sox, but he also hit age 31 that offseason.  When his one-year deal expired he again hit free agency, joining the Cincinnati Reds.  He barely tasted the field, hitting just .183 in 97 appearances.  A bone spur in his elbow cut Berryhill’s 1995 season short, and he had to watch from afar as the Braves swept the Reds in the National League Championship Series.  He never even made it out of spring training in 1996, as doctors found ligament damage in his throwing elbow.  Berryhill reappeared briefly in 1997, earning a 73 game stint with the San Francisco Giants by raking in a minor league audition.  Though he had arguably his best career numbers in those 188 appearances (.257 average, .335 on-base), it was the end of the line for an aging catcher with a reconstructed right arm.  Berryhill was spit out of baseball by the Edmonton Trappers (an Oakland Athletics affiliate) in the 1998 minor league season. 

Damon Berryhill was hardly reliable, offensively, at least in any way baseball fans define the word.  He was consistent, inasmuch as he spent his entire career getting on base just under 30% of the time, hitting a few homers a season, and getting a hit every four at-bats.  None of those numbers are good, but Berryhill skated by with them in Atlanta because he always seemed to be on the verge of something bigger, until his track record finally proved he wasn’t.  Berryhill was the young backup for a short spell, then the glad-we-got-him replacement and soon the didn’t-notice-he-was-gone ex-pat.  After the fact, Berryhill was a fleeting glimpse of a still-frame past.  He was remembered not for his exploits as much as for his mere existence.  Braves fans do not hold Berryhill’s blast in the same iconic reverence as Bream’s steal, Justice’s shot, Lopez’s pickoff, Otis’s catch and other hallowed memories.  Part of it is that Berryhill’s tenure was so short, and his legacy so non-vital to the game itself, but part of has to do with the inner workings of iconography.

Problem was, the Braves lost the 1992 Series.  After the bomb, Atlanta dropped three straight and hope was lost.  Berryhill suffered historical insignificance thanks to the timing of his heroics.  Special moments sometimes exist on a precipice of immortality, but it is ultimately the circumstances surrounding these moments that forge indelible memories.  Late-Series moments hold significantly more import - though mathematically each game is worth the same, it is impossible to deny the upped intensities of tomorrow-less finality.  It is human nature not just to increasingly exalt others, but to personally become more distinctly aware and nerve-wracked when watching or performing in these very moments.

           Had Atlanta won the World Series, perhaps Berryhill’s moment in the sun could have stood for something, some omen or momentum-shifting swing that signaled and propelled.  Alas, Molitor, Alomar and Olerud swung Toronto on to glory and left Atlanta to lick its wounds.  Instead of becoming an unsung hero, Berryhill became simply unsung.

We always appreciated Berryhill for his (largely overestimated) power potential and (largely overestimated) funny last name.  He was quite lithe for a catcher, at attribute that caused his youth to be overestimated as well.  Every detail about Berryhill, it seems, was generously inflated during his playing days, then summarily forgotten when he moved on.  Today he exists as more of an individual image than a fleshed out memory; a single frame in a 1992 slideshow. 

In 2007, Berryhill was named manager of the Texas Rangers’ low-A team, the Bakersfield Blaze.  Today, he guides the Ogden Raptors, the Dodgers’ rookie ball squad.  Berryhill continues to live the game as he has since his departure from the Braves; fighting for chances on baseball’s peripherals.  Wherever he ends up, Berryhill’s Braves years remain with us, his story at once over-appreciated and under-remembered.  Don’t stop the Chop.

Lowe-Balled

Derek Lowe's contract was too big and too long the moment he signed it.  He was 35 when he inked a four-year, $60 million contract with Atlanta, coming off a resurgent 3.24 ERA, 1.13 WHIP season greatly aided by the soft lineups and spacious ballparks of the NL West.  Even with the this cushion for four years with the Dodgers, it had been six seasons since Lowe had last been "elite."  His instrumental efforts in the 2004 Red Sox miraculous World Series win (and make no mistake, he was indispensable for those playoffs) had gone a long way to mask his abysmal season.

Lowe had a reputation as a workhorse; he had no significant injuries to his name since his 1997 arrival in Boston.  As both starter and reliever, Lowe took the ball whenever asked and threw sinker after sinker until he punched his time-card.  The Braves wanted consistency from Lowe, and when he lowered his asking price in the 2009 offseason (Lowe initially sought an absurd five-year, $80 million deal), Frank Wren pulled the trigger.

Braves fans never expected big things out of Lowe, and never got them.  For three years he plied his trade.  The highs came at the end of the 2010 season, when a red-hot Lowe put up some of the best numbers in baseball (a 1.17 ERA in five September starts) as the Braves eked into the playoffs.  The lows came a year later, with an 8.75 ERA in his five September starts, as the Braves collapsed out of the postseason.

Fredi Gonzalez had no business allowing Lowe to start those last two September games; Lowe had been sub-par all season and word had already leaked that Lowe would be traded during the offseason, giving no incentive for veteran respect or confidence building.  Arguments that Gonzalez was alleviating pressure or limiting the workloads on the team's young prospects were rendered moot when Fredi pitched them all in high-pressure innings anyway.  Why not start Julio Teheran with Lowe as the long-relief option?  Lowe was a given loss at that point.  Alas, Lowe took the ball and more poundings, and the Cardinals took the Wild Card.

Atlanta will now pay Lowe $10 million not to pitch for them, receiving Chris Jones in exchange.  Jones, a 22-year-old lefty, is a middling prospect; a 15th-round pick with 15th-round pick results so far.  Drafted as a starter, he's been converted to the bullpen where he's flashed good strikeout numbers and walked a few too many batters.  In four minor league seasons he has not yet made out of high-A ball, and has not shown much improvement.  His ceiling might be as a LOOGY, but really, anything the pro club gets out of Jones would be icing, the key here for Wren was getting Lowe off the team to free up what money he could and open up a spot in a crowded rotation.  Entering next season, Hudson, Hanson, Jurrjens and Beachy appear to be locks, while top prospects Mike Minor, Julio Teheran, Arodys Vizcaino and Randall Delgado battle out for the final spot and injury fill-ins.  The smart money is on the more experienced Minor, allowing the younger three to return to to the minors for more conditioning.  Tommy John returnee Kris Medlen is a wild card; Medlen looked as strong in his late-season bullpen work as he had in his starts before the injury in 2010. 

Regardless of the replacement, the team couldn't afford to pay $15 million for a guy who didn't fit the plan, and didn't want to risk the chemistry dissolution were Lowe relegated to bullpen work.  And so they sent Lowe shipping, eating the sunk cost, getting back a bit of money and taking a flier on a young arm.  The move has a sense of inevitability to it; it's been in the making since the moment the team willingly overpaid for an aging arm with a strong past pedigree but deceptive recent returns.  With the exception of a brief September '10 hot streak, nothing over the past three years has done anything but strengthen the inevitably of Lowe becoming an albatross in 2012.  It's hard to fault Lowe, who took the money and did what he could to earn it; it wasn't his fault the team overpaid, and it wasn't his fault that Fredi didn't bench him.  We can wish him well and be glad he's gone at the same time.  Consider it a $10 million lesson in sabermetrics, and a suddenly free cash-flow for a decent position player.  If the Braves spend wisely, and luck into one of the bargain bats that are seemingly always out there, the trade could reap much deeper dividends. 

Former Brave of the Fortnight: John Rocker

           Looking back on a career fraught with lunacy and the inspiration for one of the least sympathetic protagonists on television, it can be a trial to remember the good times with John Rocker.  Often, it seems impossible that there were ever any good times at all.

            Born in Statesboro, Georgia (where else?), Rocker excelled at First Presbyterian Day School in Macon.  Rocker was impressive enough that the hometown Braves selected him in the 18^th round as an 18-year-old starter in the 1993 amateur draft.  Rocker was a starter for much of his minor league career but, despite high strikeout rates, found little success.  Eventually, coaches realized Rocker was more effective in short bursts, and Rocker became a reliever.  He debuted in the majors in 1998, throwing 38 high-caliber innings (he finished that year with a 2.13 ERA, 1.16 WHIP and 42 strikeouts).  Incumbent closer Kerry Ligtenberg blew out his arm before the 1999 season, setting the stage for Rocker to take over the closer role.

            The intensity with which Rocker approached baseball and life was evident from his first appearances.  Sprinting madly from the bullpen to the mound, Rocker uncoiled movie-scene fastballs with bundled rage.  Physically, he took to the closer role seamlessly, marrying the intimidation and velocity of the ideal closer.  Performance-wise, Rocker was very good, with a 2.49 ERA and 1.16 WHIP, to go with 104 strikeouts in 72.1 innings.  However, he blew seven saves, and his 4.6 walks per nine innings were disconcertingly high. 

Nevertheless, Rocker saved 38 games and was a presence in the ninth, his mad dash to the mound, scored by Twisted Sister, quickly becoming a spectacle in and of itself.  As a closer, Rocker became a rock star.  A course toward larger-than-life bullpen superstardom appeared inevitable.  The harnessed madman was testosterone in baseball form, charging, surging and annihilating in three-minute bursts.

            More Ted Nugent than Dee Snider, Rocker went off the rails with his notorious Sports Illustrated interview in the winter of 2000.  Racing down state route 400 (late for a speaking engagement) Rocker matter-of-factly spewed political incorrectness, racism and homophobia as sports journalist Jeff Pearlman assuredly struggled to hide his mix of personal disdain and professional excitement. 

Rocker railed against anyone and everyone.  He honked and screamed at other drivers, shouting “I guarantee you she’s a Japanese woman.  How bad are Asian women at driving?” at a passing car (driven by a white woman, Pearlman notes).  On New York, Rocker offered his most infamous opine, stating “Imagine having to take the [Number] 7 train to the ballpark, looking like you're [riding through] Beirut next to some kid with purple hair next to some queer with AIDS right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing.”  Rocker stopped beating around the bush when discussing Times Square, acknowledging “The biggest thing I don't like about New York are the foreigners. I'm not a very big fan of foreigners.” Rocker’s uninhibited rage towards New York and multiculturalism was immediately a national story, drawing the first amendment, the lines of racism and the scales and limits of sports rivalries into public discourse. 

            Rocker had already become a villain in the Big Apple; in the previous year’s playoffs, he clashed with Mets fans in the bullpen..  Middle fingers, swears and a baseball hurled at protective netting were the highlights of the already volatile Rocker’s exchanges with Mets faithful.  The Sports Illustrated comments reified what Mets fans already felt about the impetuous young gunner, and turned the rest of America against him.

            What made Rocker’s vitriol so reviled wasn’t just the rhetoric itself, but the insinuated truth behind it.  From his own mouth, Rocker released the most infuriating ignorant crutch:  “’I'm not a racist or prejudiced person,’ he says with apparent conviction. ‘But certain people bother me[1].’"  Rocker represented an outsized but very real population, and a nation still purportedly striving for unabashed equality had no choice but to soundly condemn a man espousing such a dangerous line of self-deception represented by a defiantly ignorant minority.

            The Braves are the most truly “Southern” baseball team.  With no Major League Baseball presence in Alabama, Mississippi, the Carolinas or Louisiana, the Braves’ reach extends far beyond the I-285 perimeter.  Cursive ‘A’ caps adorn the bald or shaggy heads of many a good old boy throughout the Deep South; the region itself home to some of the last unabashed pockets of pure bigotry.  Of course, ‘southern’ bigotry is an overrated epidemic - racism, sexism and homophobia are by no means close to dead in even the bluest regions of California – but the “tell it like it is” hate speech in Rocker’s tone is the last of pre-Civil War “honesty” so wholly believed by too many Deep South lifers.

            The fear was not just that Rocker would go un-reprimanded; it was that Rocker’s statements could encourage others – indeed, Rocker quickly emerged as hate-speech’s “It Gets Better” poster child.  Supporters blindly rallied behind the first amendment and seemed legitimately bewildered that a private company such as Major League Baseball could punish an employee for openly attacking other races and orientations.  A concerned nation had to show it did not stand for prejudice, and while the Constitution rightly protected Rocker from the judicial system, Bud Selig could brandish the stick demanded in the court of public opinion. Rocker was suspended for spring training and the first 28 games of the 2000 season (later reduced to the first 14 games of ’00).  Upon his return, Rocker was met with a chorus of Mets-esque boos in every away city. 

When not lambasted, he was lampooned.  John Rocker was memorably portrayed as a character on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update.  Rocker was played by Will Ferrell, whose physical size and hit-or-miss hammery played perfectly as the hot-tempered closer.  Ferrell’s character was met with giddy play-along boos as he proved incapable of delivering a “wish for the New Year” without peppering in a desire to “hunt down the black baby the Jews and the Pope had together” and scorning New Yorkers for watching the “queer Mets go down on the homosexual Yankees.”  The segment ended with a borderline violent Ferrell/Rocker decrying various non-WASP groups while championing his “daddy” and blue-collar willful ignorance, a brilliant, hilarious and depressingly realism-rooted send-off of the pitcher and all loudmouthed Rocker prototypes. 

Rocker’s fragile psyche was already beginning to show, and the nonstop public flogging quite possibly broke him.  He managed a steady 2.89 ERA (despite an ugly 1.70 WHIP) after his return in the 2000 season, but the distraction proved too much.  Rocker had a 3.09 ERA and 1.28 WHIP after 32 innings, but by late June the Braves had been worn down by the circus and Rocker was shipped to the Cleveland Indians for two bullpen Steves; Karsay and Reed. 

            Rocker struggled in Cleveland, with a 5.45 ERA and 1.67 WHIP in 34.2 innings as the walks finally caught up to him.  He was traded to the Texas Rangers in the offseason, where a fitting 6.66 ERA in 24.1 innings marked the unceremonious end of his big league career.  Though he still had washouts in the Texas and Tampa Bay minor league systems ahead of him, Rocker had thrown his last major league pitch at age 27.  A 2005 comeback with, of all teams, the Long Island Ducks, ended after 18 innings and Rocker was finally finished with baseball, long after baseball was finished with him.

            Between comeback attempts, Rocker found time to star in The Greenskeeper, a 2002 horror/comedy in which he played a psychotic golf club groundskeeper.  Channeling his rage-fueled mound face, Rocker dove headlong into the surreal project.  When not on the field or behind the movie camera, Rocker still found time to stir up controversy, making insulting remarks to patrons at a LGBT-friendly Texas brunch restaurant he must have accidentally stumbled into.  In addition, he consistently displayed blasé contrition for his previous comments, and was eventually linked to steroid usage, surprising no one.  After his playing career ended, Rocker tried to remake himself as a conservative Republican talking head, launching a “Speak English” campaign and T-shirt line, joining hands with the woefully misguided legions of Americans too blinded to any notion of global politics to recognize the already world-wide proliferation of English as in any way contradictory to their obsession with forcing all American citizens to promptly master the English tongue.

            Rocker long ago relinquished his rights to be remembered for his on-field exploits.  He is less a baseball player than an idea at this point.  But, briefly, Rocker was a damn fine ballplayer.  At one time, a future of a Ligtenberg/Rocker bullpen gave Atlantans still reeling from Mark Wohler’s implosion faith in the bullpens of the future.  His PR disaster was initially seen as forgivable; a blip in his career that a year of heckling and sensitivity training would rectify.  It wasn’t until Rocker’s return to Shea Stadium that the scale of the situation truly hit.  Rocker’s appearance was met with 700 security officers, up from the usual 60.  Special fences were erected around the bullpen, alcohol sales were limited, and Rocker left the stadium 30 minutes after his teammates, with a black van with a security convoy.  Though no attempts were made on Rocker’s life, the spectacle proved the immensity of the distraction Rocker had created.

Once his trade was imminent, Braves fans still struggled to reconcile the issue in their own moral codes.  Rocker was a nutjob, but he was a nutjob in the most earnest possible way.  This at once made him both more and less dangerous than your typical head case.  His xenophobia made a future with Atlanta impossible while simultaneously making him the most emblematic Brave of all time.  But his anger, initially endearing when it was just a sports spat with the hated Mets, swelled larger and larger in the post-SI era.  Calling Randall Simon a “fat monkey[2]” and hating New York because of some “queer with AIDS” on the train were the rare off-color statements that became less and less forgivable as time went on.  He had seemed salvageable; the small-town Baptist who went to college and had his eyes opened.  Time proved otherwise, Rocker was moronic, not misguided. 

Although he has readily lamented his own lack of intelligence, Rocker’s steadfast refusal to accept his intellectual limitations as an obstacle is troubling.  His inability to differentiate his “political” beliefs from a traditional white pride persecution complex has thus far destroyed any chance he’s had at redemption.  Rocker has embraced his position as the face of the ignorant south.  Hiding behind Freedom of Speech and conservative politics, Rocker remains a despicable icon and a “celebrity” spokes-piece for divisive racial politics, planting himself firmly alongside Anglo-centric lobbyists with strong enough cognitive dissonance to convince themselves they are anything but the evolutionary form of the Ku Klux Klan

An issue that remains seldom discussed, at least in revisionist sports-talk, is the early demise of Rocker’s playing career.  Attributed largely to arm injuries that sapped his command and velocity, Rocker’s flameout might have been a bigger deal for a less notorious character[3].  But pitching is a mental endeavor, and Rocker became his own worst enemy by turning the world against him.  Had Rocker possessed the common sense to self-censor (or, better yet, the self-awareness to overcome his prejudices) would the remainder of his baseball career have unfolded any differently?  Was his arm doomed to deteriorate regardless of his mental make-up, or was his high-strung approach vitally fueled by his pent-up aggression?  Or, was Rocker simply lucky to manage his suspect control in consecutive seasons, his shortcomings masked by the small sample size of bullpen duty?  In a pure baseball sense, we’ll never know the truth behind Rocker’s rise and fall; thanks to Rocker’s personal life, we’ll never care.  With a menacing playground-bully aesthetic and un-channeled aggression that dominated his on- and off-field persona, Rocker was nothing if not one-of-a-kind - at least, we can only hope so.  Don’t stop the Chop.

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[1] Only dumb people think the phrase “I’m not racist, but…” means anything other than “I’m about to say something racist.”

[2] Rocker later stated that it was a joke between the teammates.  This was news to Randall Simon.

[3] Well, maybe not.  Fare thee well, Tim Spooneybarger.