Mike Burke
Cumberland Times-News
February 16, 2008 11:11 pm
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Coming up on one year, Sam Perlozzo and Leo Mazzone welcomed friends from home during spring training in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
With Erik Bedard scheduled to be the Opening Day pitcher, things were borderline giddy on the southern tip of Florida, and why not? The Baltimore Orioles had addressed one of their greatest needs by shelling out over $40 million for a new bullpen. The young starting pitchers were going to find their feet in the rotation to help anchor the team, and despite not having a clean-up hitter again, the Orioles felt they were poised to snap the club’s nine-year streak of being under .500.
The future looked bright, the present looked possible, and when you’re in Fort Lauderdale in the dead of winter to take part in the annual rite of renewal for Western Civilization — spring training — what could possibly be wrong with the world?
Nothing. During spring training ...
One year later, Sam Perlozzo is secure in the knowledge that in a little more than a month, Erik Bedard will again be his team’s Opening Day starting pitcher. But one year later, neither Sam nor Bedard, nor Leo, are in Fort Lauderdale. Leo’s home in Georgia. Sam and Bedard are in Peoria, Ariz. taking part in spring training with the Seattle Mariners — Bedard having been recently acquired from the Orioles for five young players; Perlozzo having been dismissed as manager of the Orioles in June, getting ready for his first season/second shift as third base coach of the Mariners.
It was Wednesday night, and Sam Perlozzo had just come out of a restaurant when his phone rang.
“Hey,” he said to a familiar voice from home on the other end, “I was just with Norm Charlton and Jim Riggleman at this Italian place Norm recommended.
“Not bad. Pretty good, actually ... For future references.”
Perlozzo had been in Arizona for a couple of days, getting re-acquainted with the organization he served from 1993 through 1995, as well as with the coaching staff, most of whom — manager John McLaren, bench coach Riggleman (Frostburg State University Hall of Famer), pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, bullpen coach Charlton and special assistant Lee Elia — he has worked with before, or knows very well.
“Everything’s good,” he said. “We’ve had meetings since we got here, conducted the physicals and then played a little golf. It’s been hectic, but we’ve had some good time together getting to know each other.
“Nice people here. That’s the thing.”
He also had the chance on Wednesday to catch up with Bedard, who pitched for Sam the past two-and-a-half seasons in Baltimore and is a guy the Mariners believe can get them over the top in the tough American League West.
The Orioles, on the other hand, have finally begun the long overdue reconstruction of their club and look to the future with outfielder Adam Jones, reliever George Sherrill, and highly thought of pitching prospects Chris Tillman, Tony Butler and Kam Mickolio being in the center of the enormous project.
“I don’t know all the people we gave up,” Perlozzo said in calling another organization “we” for the first time since 1995, “but it seems like a good fit for both teams. I feel they got good people, and I know we got a top-of-the-rotation starter who will fit right in up there with Felix Hernandez, Miguel Batista and Jarrod Washburn.
“We got better, I can tell you that, and this gives us a chance to be a force in our division.”
It’s always difficult to get a gauge on what Bedard’s thinking, because that’s the way he likes it. To say he’s his own person would be an understatement. To say he is a lefthander would be apt.
“I think he is really happy,” Perlozzo said. “He doesn’t know anybody yet, but with Erik that’s not going to be a problem. He’ll become a big part of the landscape just like he did in Baltimore. I talked to him for about 10, 15 minutes, and he said he just gained a lot of wins.
“He seems real happy to be with a winning team. He’s thankful, and ready to go.”
The Mariners, who finished in second place last season, six games behind the Los Angeles Angels, open the 2008 season at home against Texas. The first weekend of the season — Friday, April 4 to Monday, April 7 — the M’s take their first road trip and land in Baltimore, the place Sam Perlozzo lived and worked for the previous 13 years.
The schedule-maker’s sense of humor has not been lost on the former Orioles manager
“Ah ... well,” he said. “Look, my heart and true spirit have been in Baltimore and with the Orioles. I’m a Maryland guy, and, for 13 years, I was able to be a part of the team I grew up rooting for. But this is just what you do.
“I’m thankful for my time in Baltimore, and I’ll cherish my memories of Baltimore. But now I look at them as a team in our way.”
He thought for a moment.
“I look forward to seeing friends and a lot of people I care for,” he said. “But my focus is now on the American League West.”
And with that, the new third base coach of the Mariners, now wearing No. 22, perhaps in honor of Jim Palmer, his longtime buddy and fervent supporter when Sam was the Orioles manager, said, “Give everybody at home my love,” and was off with the boys into the warm Arizona evening.
The day after talking to Sam, the friend from home heard the Meat Loaf song “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” on the radio, and his mind immediately wandered back a year to the lazy, wonderful spring days in Fort Lauderdale, where, at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, “Paradise” is played over the sound system.
(Who knows why? Maybe it’s because Phil Rizzuto is in it.)
It’s a wild song, but hearing it brought a feeling of melancholy. Yes, the Orioles, the hometown team for so many folks here in Cumberland, are finally headed in the right direction. And it’s spring training, when, as the late A. Bartlett Giamatti wrote, “everything else begins again, and (baseball) blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings ...”
Still, some of us hear “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” on the radio and think of Leo Mazzone missing his first spring training since he was in high school, and of Sam Perlozzo, who is thankfully working for a great organization. Although not the one of our choice.
We think back to Fort Lauderdale, and when the whys and hows of Sam and Leo no longer being there as Baltimore Orioles hit home again, for the first time of our lives after pitchers and catchers have just reported, we experience a hollowness for the game we love.
On the brink of spring, we feel Bart Giamatti’s chill rains come.
When baseball stops and leaves us to face the fall alone.
Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.
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