High Heat Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise

  Also by Tim Wendel

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Preface

  The Windup

  The Pivot

  The Stride

  The Arm Acceleration

  The Release

  The Follow-Through

  The Call

  The Top Twelve

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  Bibliography

  Index

  Copyright Page

  Praise for High Heat

  “A blazing fastball of a story—compelling, relentless, riveting.”

  —KEN BURNS

  “High Heat is a great idea brilliantly executed. Tim Wendel, one of my favorite baseball writers, delivers this fastball with a winning mix of science, biography, and mythology.”

  —DAVID MARANISS, author of Clemente and When Pride Still Mattered

  “In the wonderful High Heat, Wendel leverages that tension—the fastball as both blessing and bane—to mine a stunning amount of drama. . . . Wendel’s writing is also all fastballs. Sensitive and scrupulous, he never forgets that for every [Nolan] Ryan and Sandy Koufax, lucky to have their unearned gifts, there are flameouts like Steve Dalkowski. . . . High Heat is ‘a séance with the game’s past,’ an almost literary fantasy in which all the great pitchers throw side by side on the same diamond.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “Wendel draws you in right from the first pitch.”

  —New York Post (“Required Reading”)

  “[Wendel] explores the fastball’s history and powerful mystique, from the beginnings of baseball to the present. . . . A delight for baseball fanatics.”

  —Boston Globe

  “[A] highly entertaining exploration of the pitch that has made so many careers (and destroyed so many arms). Fascinating details emerge.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “High Heat hums when Wendel profiles the fastest of the fastball pitchers, tracing the lineage of the pitch from Amos Rusie in the 19th century to Walter Johnson in the 1920s to Sandy Koufax in the 1960s and, finally, to the Washington Nationals’ 100-mile-an-hour prospect Stephen Strasburg.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “[A] book of delightful digressions.”

  —Washington Post

  “Like its subject, High Heat emits a disarming hum . . . [It] takes a historical, statistical, and mechanical look at baseball’s most sacred skill . . . At the end you may disagree with Wendel’s choice for the fastest ever. But the pages will go by quicker than a David Price aspirin tablet.”

  —Sports Illustrated

  “A sportswriter’s search for the unknowable, and why 105-mph Steve Dalkowski, the inspiration for Bull Durham’s Nuke LaLoosh, never made the majors.”

  —USA Today

  “Entertaining.”

  —Newsday

  “In our era of moneyball and sabermetrics, it’s refreshing to read a book so vividly written that we can easily envision the old-time players and scouts spit tobacco juice to punctuate their opinions while disdaining mere radar readings. Wendel teaches us as much about the evolution of the values of our society as he does the development of the national pastime. . . . Highly recommended.”

  —Library Journal

  “[Wendel] presents a satisfying search for the ultimate fastball pitcher, with a result that’s just conclusive enough . . . while leaving plenty of room for baseball die-hards’ second-favorite sport: debating other fans.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Feel free to disagree with [Wendel’s] conclusion, but be sure to enjoy the book. Far from just a statistical inquiry, it’s packed with stories about baseball and some of its extraordinary players.... A fascinating book for a baseball fan.”

  —Associated Press

  “Engrossing.”

  —Booklist

  “Any book that sets out to name the top . . . fastball pitchers of all time is sure to provoke controversy and Tim Wendel accomplishes just that in his somewhat quirky, somewhat biased, freewheeling, and always entertaining book.... Wendel travels his own road, and he excels at bringing us along with him.”

  —Spitball

  “Endlessly interesting . . . [Wendel’s] brief profiles of each hard thrower resonate, because they explain what it’s like to meet the high expectations established when an arm can throw a baseball at an astounding velocity.”

  —Raleigh News & Observer

  “The joy of [Wendel’s] quest, and of its telling, lies in baseball’s rich lore and legend. . . . As with the game itself, the fun of the book is more in taking part than in the outcome.”

  —Roanoke Times

  “High Heat is more than just a cursory ranking of baseball’s fastest arms, it’s a fun and fact-filled flip through baseball’s record books that brings to life the players we previously only knew from our baseball card collections.”

  —ForeWord magazine

  “A journey through the past and present of our national pastime, and a vivid reminder of why we love the game.”

  —Smoke magazine

  “Tim Wendel, one of baseball’s leading contemporary chroniclers, here dissects the fastball and those who would throw it. . . . High Heat is a fascinating book written with passion and aplomb by someone who clearly loves the sport nearly as much as he loves writing about it.”

  —January magazine

  “Destined to be [a] hardball classic.”

  —Washington Times

  Also by Tim Wendel

  Nonfiction

  Going for the Gold

  The New Face of Baseball

  Far From Home

  Buffalo, Home of the Braves

  Fiction

  Castro’s Curveball

  Red Rain

  For my children, Sarah and Christopher,

  and my wife, Jacqueline.

  In memory of Bill Glavin,

  who helped show me the way.

  Preface

  On an autumn night, a few years ago, I got to talking baseball with Frank Howard. Even at the age of 72, Howard looked like he just strolled down from Mount Olympus. What the gods had in mind for a major-league slugger. Although the passing years have forced him to hunch a bit, at 6-foot-7, with his square jaw and broad shoulders, Howard still towered over the rest of us mere mortals that evening at the Presidents Club bar in the Nationals Park in Washington, D.C.

  The occasion was a reception for major-league ballplayers who also served in World War II. Their ranks ranged from longtime New York Yankee Jerry Coleman to the hard-throwing Hall of Famer Bob Feller. There had been a momentary hitch as the bartenders couldn’t locate any vermouth, thus ruling out such mixed drinks as manhattans and martinis. But after a bit of grumbling, the old ballplayers, who had been joined by 50 or so wounded warriors from Walter Reed Medical Hospital, shifted to beer or wine.

  It was a night when legend and fable mingled, with the telling of one tall tale after another. Perhaps it was because Feller was in attendance, but I couldn’t resist asking Howard who he thought was the fastest pitcher ever.

  Of course, some consider that a loaded, even unfair question. Instead of trying to give a straight answer, some baseball experts and aficionados run and spin, emphasizing how difficult it is to compare players from different eras. How even in this era when every pitch is graded by scouts and clocked on radar guns, a comprehensive, reliable testing of high heat remains so problematic. And, indeed, most of those complaints are valid. But, to his credit, or perhaps because of the open bar, on this evening Howard was game.

  “Now that’s a story that takes a bit of telling, doesn’t it?” he said, with a smile.

  “But you must have an opinion on the subject, r
ight?” I replied.

  After all, Howard had once made his living launching a baseball as far as he could toward the distant horizon. He had come up in 1958 with the Dodgers and played 16 years in the majors, leading the American League in home runs in 1968 and 1970 with the Washington Senators. Here was a hitter who was nicknamed “Hondo” and “the Capitol Punisher” for his exploits.

  “I was a fastball hitter. I loved hitting fastballs,” he said in a voice that reverberated above the din of the bar conversation. “That’s what I prided myself on doing. That’s how I made my living. But if you add in that element of pure speed, I may still love the fastball, but maybe I’m not going to see it. That’s what a great fastball can do—reduce you to nothing.”

  With that, he reluctantly took a sip of his white wine. With a moniker like Hondo, I half expected to be doing shots with him. But Howard was one of those disappointed by the lack of vermouth at the Nats’ watering hole.

  “There’s a lot to be said for finesse pitchers,” he continued. “There sure have been a lot of them down through the years. Guys like Jimmy Key and, lately, Jamie Moyer come to mind. I mean they’re winners and they do the job. But so much of this game really comes down to a quality fastball and the ability to spot it. You got that, well, it’s worth more than gold in this game.

  “What did old Ted Williams say? That you have two-fifths of a second to make up your mind if the pitch is either a fastball or something softer? You have to decide that quick—be that certain. When a pitcher has a great fastball combined with maybe a quality breaking ball, your reaction time is about down to nil. Like I said, it humbles you. Before you know it, if you’re a hitter, everything becomes a nightmare.”

  “So who’d you think was the fastest then, of all time?” I repeated.

  The big man shrugged and took another sip of his drink.

  “There’s no pat answer to that kind of question,” Howard replied. “It’s one of those deep ones. One for the ages. Like you flip over one rock and it leads you to something else and then something else. Tonight, off the top of my head, I’d have to say one of the fellas we’re honoring here this evening, Bobby Feller. I’d have to include my former teammate Sandy Koufax and, of course, Nolan Ryan. Tonight I’d put them in that order.”

  I nodded, contemplating what the old slugger had said.

  “But then, in the next breath, other guys come to mind,” Howard added. “There’s Satchel Paige and Walter Johnson, the ‘Big Train’ himself. And sure as you and I are sitting here tonight, there’s a bunch of modern-day guys you have to mention.”

  “Billy Wagner, Tim Lincecum, Joba Chamberlain, Jonathan Papelbon,” I offered.

  “And that kid down at Tampa Bay. The one who did so well in the playoffs.”

  “David Price?”

  “That’s right, Price. He looks plenty fast to me.”

  As Howard and I talked, I realized that baseball was different from other sports and acts of athletic prowess. In the national pastime, there is no direct correlation between physical size and the velocity of a quality fastball. For example, onetime Baltimore Orioles phenom Steve Dalkowski stood 5-foot-11, weighed maybe 170 pounds. In comparison, Feller was 6-foot, 185 pounds. Johnson, the “Big Train,” was slightly taller and heavier, but Koufax was actually even taller in stature and Paige bigger than most. Yet, in the end, such dimensions hardly mattered. It was as if the Great Maker in the sky stood all the hopefuls who ever wanted to pitch in the major leagues shoulder to shoulder and only a rare few were bestowed with the ultimate blessing of pure, undeniable speed. Fewer still were able to wrestle this angel toward earth, to harness and truly embrace the gift from above. For many more the ability to throw hard, despite all their best efforts, remained nothing more than an untamed curse.

  For those who can master the lessons of throwing high heat, history awaits. Not only do they become part of baseball lore, but their stories often extend into our national story, echoing through our collective consciousness. They become the icons kids throwing out on the Little League field want to be. Perhaps that’s the ultimate allure and mystique of the fastball: The ones who can really bring it will always somehow speak to us.

  “No, the question you’re asking doesn’t have a pat answer,” Howard said. “To my mind, it’s one of those riddles where the chase becomes what’s important, if you catch my drift. You’re going to have to hit the road some to really tease this out.”

  With that the slugger drained what was left in his glass and got to his feet. “It may not be easy to figure out,” he said, “but it sure would be a talker, wouldn’t it? Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  “Good night,” I said. “And thanks.”

  Across the room, a set of glass doors opened up onto the ballpark. For games, this was the portal for the affluent and well connected to stroll between their seats behind home plate and the bar and buffet here in the Presidents Club. Realizing that I might never have this opportunity again, I decided to check out the plushest seats in town.

  Outside, the evening air held a hint of winter, and out beyond the outfield fence, the echoes of the nation’s capital rose into the darkening sky. Howard was right: To determine the fastest pitcher ever, I was going to need to talk with the game’s greats, try to chase down as many ghosts as I could find. The journey wouldn’t be a straight line to the plate, but it promised to be a lot of fun.

  The Windup

  Walter Johnson

  Photo courtesy of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Cooperstown, NY

  You can’t hit what you can’t see.

  —FRANK “PING” BODIE

  Slowness has never been an American characteristic.

  —FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT

  Bob Feller agreed to the stunt because he was as curious as everybody else. How fast could he really throw a baseball? Where did he possibly rank among baseball’s fastest of the fast?

  That’s what led him to the middle of a closed-off street running through Chicago’s Lincoln Park that sunny morning in the summer of 1940. Standing there with a baseball in his right hand, waiting and then momentarily flinching as the Harley Davidson motorcycle with a city policeman roared closer to him.

  Feller did as he had been instructed. As the Harley bore down at him, now going better than 80 miles per hour, Feller went into his windup. It wasn’t a carbon copy of the distinctive high-leg-kick delivery that he exhibited on the mound. What he would normally perform in a big-league ballpark with a batter standing at the plate. How could it be? After all, Feller was in street clothes instead of a ballplayer’s uniform. In wingtips instead of spikes and toe plate. Fresh from the Del Prado Hotel at 53rd and Hyde Park Avenue. Still, the Cleveland Indians’ phenom was able to put plenty of zip on the ball. Just as importantly, the 21-year-old also threw the baseball accurately toward one of the two bull’s-eye targets Major League Baseball’s Office of the Commissioner had erected for the bizarre test.

  “I was there because we all want to know, deep down,” Feller says, “who was the fastest of all time.”

  That’s what led me to fly nearly 70 years later to Cleveland, where the longtime Indians pitcher still makes his home. On the phone, a few days before, I’d offered to meet Feller wherever he wanted. But coffee and chitchat over the family kitchen table or at the Starbucks around the corner isn’t exactly Rapid Robert’s style. “At the ballpark—nine sharp,” he said in a loud, brassy voice. As soon as I replied, “OK,” he hung up. Feller sure left the impression that he doesn’t tolerate any tardiness.

  I enjoy going to Cleveland because it reminds me an awful lot of home. I grew up outside of Buffalo, New York, a three hours’ drive away. Both cities hug Lake Erie and were once capitals of commerce, with the accent on shipping and heavy industry. Of course, such enterprises hit the skids long ago and the goal became how a city could reinvent itself. Playing off its link with the beginnings of rock and roll (local disc jockey Alan Freed coined the term “rock and roll”), Cleveland edged out Memphis
as the permanent home to a museum and hall of fame. Cleveland’s civic leaders pledged $65 million in public money to fund the construction. That financial package put the project over the top. As Cleveland Plain Dealer music critic Michael Norman later said, “It wasn’t Alan Freed. It was $65 million. Cleveland wanted it here and put up the money.”A pyramid-style shrine was erected to honor the Beatles, Chuck Berry, Bruce Springsteen, and other rockers along the harbor front, not far from where old Municipal Stadium once stood, the ballpark where Feller was a star. The Indians’ new digs are also located downtown and, along with the Rock and Roll Museum, have fostered a renaissance in these parts.

  In a way, the Rock and Roll Museum can be seen as a nod to our continued infatuation with speed. The average pop song is three to four minutes long. The MTV videos, which run in looped presentations at the museum in Cleveland, are minimovies created around a song. Of course, Feller has no interest in checking out the computerized “jukebox,” containing virtually every song of every performer inductee, at the Rock and Roll museum. He’s more of an easy-listening fan and always liked the Big Band sound. Still, Feller says he’s happy that such civic landmarks bring visitors. “You need the out-of-towners,” he says. “Without them, everything can get desperate in a hurry.”