Life in the Minors
Brendan Sagara
Broken clavicle offers
Superman a new challengeThrow ... catch ... crunch.
It happened that fast. That's the amount of time it took to bring a screeching halt to the season of our all-star catcher and team captain, Dennis Pelfrey.
With two out in the fifth inning of our 3-2 victory over the Mid-Missouri Mavericks last night, Dennis saw his dream season fall to pieces.
A double to the left-center field gap sprung the Mid-Missouri runner from first base. As he rounded second, the runner picked up his third base coach, and set his sights on home. Sending the runner in itself was a bad decision. The Mavericks, cellar dwellers in the Frontier League's West Division, were definitely looking for any ray of hope in a disappointing season. Maybe a bad throw, or perhaps a bobble by the catcher at home. The Mavericks were wishing and hoping a whole lot on this play.
Before the baserunner even made the turn at third base, our shortstop, David Munoz, had already turned toward the infield out in short left field with his relay throw.
Blessed with a strong arm, Munoz, a Cal State Fullerton product, easily beat the runner to the plate with his throw. All that was needed to complete the play was the tag. With collisions at home plate as routine as the 6-4-3 double play in professional baseball, the impending collision did not suprise any of us in the Kenosha Mammoths dugout. With the runner seeing that he was dead out, he knew the only hope he had of scoring, was to run over Dennis and jar the ball loose.
Crash. With 270 feet of full speed sprinting momentum, the Mavericks' runner came down the third base line with a full head of steam. The collision at the plate was not only violent, but strange as well.
Over the past three seasons, Dennis had become a favorite of mine. In my first season as the pitching coach with the Dubois County Dragons in 2001, Dennis was actually one of the infielders that we cut, much to my dismay of course. Getting to know Dennis over the two-week, twice-a-day workout schedule that is spring training in the Frontier League, I saw a spark in Dennis that, even as a rookie coach, I knew was rare. Besides his veteran-style approach to playing the game, he worked as if each day was his last on earth.
When I went to the local gym between or after workouts, there he was, hitting the weights. On days that I arrived at League Stadium early for one of our workouts, there was Dennis, unstrapping himself from the racing bicycle that he rode 15 miles to the ballpark every day.
When our manager Greg Tagert saw it fit to cut Dennis on the final day of that spring training, I nearly threw a fit. Okay, so being a first-year coach, I really didn't throw a fit, but I did make my feelings known to the skipper.
Whether he remembers it or not, Dennis was my guy. The guy that I talked Tag into bringing back to the club after our opnening day starter at second proved that he was not capable of competing at this level. So Dennis came back. And then he came on, emerging as one of the vital components of our 2001 West Division champions. He hit nearly .300 and also hit six or seven homers while playing stellar defense. He saw his preseason snub as motivation.
The next season, he returned to us in Dubois County, with the starting third baseman's job his to lose. He never lost it. He was picked to the Frontier League All-Star Game and finished the season second in the league with almost 40 stolen bases as we again all teamed to win the West Division. Dennis said he was always a base stealer, I think he just needed a new challenge.
This offseason, Dennis asked Tag if he could have a try at catcher. Now having never caught in his life, we all thought he was nuts. But when I sat back and thought about it again, I figured he was just seeking out another challenge.
Over the first 41 games of our season, Dennis had performed so well that two days ago he was voted to his second straight Frontier League All-Star Game. He was thrilled. When I arrived in Kenosha about a month ago, the first person to greet me outside the clubhouse at our stadium was Dennis. When I asked him how he felt about catching, he said he wished that he had been a catcher all along. He loved it. The catcher's gear, the involvement, even the collisions.
Over the years Dennis had worn a number of hats with our ballclubs. Team comedian ... team exhibitionist ... and most importantly, team captain.
But on this play Dennis took the entire brunt of the impact as he does everything else in his life, head on. Instead of sweep tagging, or rolling off of the contact, he stood in and got rolled over, but he hung on. The final out of the inning was recorded, Mammoths leading 2-0.
As he ran toward the dugout, he was biting his lip. He was unable to return to the field for the sixth inning. The final prognosis was a fractured clavicle. Out four to six weeks.
Having to see Dennis in an arm sling this afternoon was tough for eveyone. To a lot of the guys, he was Superman. Four to six weeks from now, we will be very near the end of our season. The doctors say Dennis may be lost for the year.
But knowing Dennis, I will not write him off just yet. He has always risen to every challenge as long as I have known him, and I don't see him stopping now.
So when the coaching staff began to discuss replacing Dennis behind the plate, I suggested that we just find a fill-in.
Superman will fly again.
Brendan Sagara, a former University of Hawaii-Hilo
pitcher, is in his second year as pitching coach for
the Dubois County (Ind.) Dragons.