Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 15, 1994 TAG: 9405150021
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ray Cox
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Those not blessed with such genes almost can't help it. They take one look at the battleship-sized defensive tackle or the Empire State Building-framed center and reach an immediate conclusion:
"You can't hurt that boy."
Of course these athletic behemoths are constructed of the same gristle, fat and bone as everybody else, although the fat comes in smaller quantities than the average clock-puncher or keyboard jockey.
Big boys and girls break down and fall apart just like those with lesser physical gifts.
As any schoolboy knows, the bigger they are, the more dust raised when they crash.
John Ericks, the Salem Buccaneers' on-the-mend pitcher, is a classic study. The most valuable tool in this 6-foot-7, 240-pound workman's chest - his arm - blew up like a racing engine with a hole in its oil pan. Ericks' reconstruction and rehabilitation landed him back in Class A ball, where he's slowly putting his sporting life back together.
Ericks was a teen-age steamroller from a small Christian school in Chicago when the scouts started showing up 10 at a time to watch him buzz 95-mph fastballs past cowering and totally aghast high school hitters.
The scouts freaked.
"Sign here, son," they said.
"Not now," said young Ericks, then 6-6 and 170 pounds. "I need to polish my game. I'm going to college."
Ericks' reasoning: He was too raw to make it as a pro.
The coaching he'd received at Chicago Christian basically amounted to something like this:
"Here's the ball. Throw it across that plate yonder. By the way, try not to kill anybody, especially the umpire or our catcher."
On to the University of Illinois he went. Hum that potato right and the same scouts Ericks had seen before would be coming around again, this time with first-round bonus money.
By then, Ericks had bulked up to 220-plus pounds and grown another inch or so. His fastball was approaching triple digits on the radar gun.
Nothing (except maybe a three-run homer) accelerated the heartbeats of the Illinois coaches more than trotting the big boy out to that mound. Loved it so much, did they, that he occasionally would start both ends of a doubleheader.
"That OK with you?" they'd ask, not forgetting their manners (or possible exposure to litigation).
"Yes, sir," Ericks said, too young and too much of a competitor to know better.
In such cases (there are more than anybody in high school or college baseball would like to admit), there's subtle pressure at work. No coach would confess to making a youngster throw more innings than he should. So they shirk responsibility by leaving the decision to the youngster, who then has to answer to his teammates, not to mention himself.
The drive to win being what it is, how is a youngster to say no?
In any event, Ericks went to the St. Louis Cardinals with their first choice of the 1988 draft. The Cards sent him straight to their Appalachian League outpost in Johnson City, Tenn. Ericks went 3-2 with a 3.23 ERA, but as tired as he was (remember, he'd pitched during the college season before his arrival), he managed but 41 innings, averaging a strikeout per.
Commendable for a guy with no guidance.
"We didn't have a pitching coach at Johnson City," he said. "You've got a No. 1 draft choice and no pitching coach? How do you figure?"
The Cards figured pitching coaches were too expensive, so they sent roving instructors to their teams in the lower minors in those days. They don't do it that way anymore, but that doesn't do Ericks any good.
The next season at Savannah, Ga., of the South Atlantic League, Ericks went 11-10 with a 2.04 ERA. The kick in the pants was he pitched 167 innings, fanning 211. He also had 101 walks. Must have thrown 2 zillion pitches.
"I'd hope the ball over, wish it over," he said. "I had no clue."
Soon he was in the Class AA Texas League with better coaching. Big shots in the St. Louis farm system were telling him he was part of the Cards' future. Parts of three seasons he toiled there, finally learning some mechanics.
"By 1992, I was right there," he said. "Everything was coming together for me. I was on my way to Triple-A."
Not so fast there, big guy.
The Cardinals started stocking their Class AAA team with retreads, big-league insurance guys. There was no room for prospects such as Ericks.
"I'd had a great spring," he said. "I walked only one guy. And I had no chance at the Triple-A team."
Ericks' view of his future with St. Louis was dim, but he persevered. In 1991 with the Arkansas Travelers, he hurled 139 innings, then tossed 20 or so more in the fall instructional league and worked 50 in Puerto Rican winter ball. Then came 20 in spring training.
At this point, you get the sensation of watching one of those old black-and-white horror movies. "No, you fool!" you want to scream. "Don't do that!"
Ericks couldn't hear the warnings, of course. So back to Arkansas he went, pitching 75 more innings before his season ended.
"I was throwing a curveball and it felt like my shoulder just exploded inside," he said. "It didn't really hurt, but it felt like it had just fallen apart. I tried one more pitch. It had nothing on it. Then I came out."
That was July 5. Not until July 30 did Ericks see the team doctor, who sent him straight to Dr. Frank Jobe, the famed sports surgeon. Reconstructive surgery followed - the same procedure Los Angeles pitcher Orel Hershiser had - on Aug. 25.
On Sept. 9, the Cards released Ericks.
"I was kind of happy," Ericks said. "I knew somebody would pick me up."
Pittsburgh did. Ted Simmons, then the Pirates' general manager, knew Ericks from the years when Simmons was St. Louis' farm boss. More than a year of rehab followed.
Now, at age 26, Ericks is in Salem starting over. A career starter, he now pitches middle relief.
"We see improvement every time out," said Dave Rajsich, the Buccaneers' pitching coach.
Ericks isn't particular about his role.
"Whatever gets me to the big leagues, I don't care," he said. "Whenever they tell me my rehabilitation is over, I'll go on."
by CNB