ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 8, 1996 TAG: 9608080026
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR. STAFF WRITER
FOR DAVID NIED, the long road back to the major leagues runs through the Carolina League.
David Nied knows how far the fall from the Mile High City really is.
The distance from Denver to Salem, Va., is about 2,000 miles, two time zones and three baseball classifications. There's no question which measurement is the toughest to cover.
After all, you can fly to Denver in a matter of a few hours and you can reset your watch from Eastern time to Mountain time.
But you can't spell ``Major Leagues'' with a single A. Not coincidentally, ``Salem'' can be, and that's where David Nied finds himself.
In Single-A.
In four years, Nied has gone from a building block of the Colorado Rockies' franchise to a guy trying to rebuild his career. A ligament tear in his right elbow knocked him off the Rockies' mountaintop and sent him plummeting. Now, after stops in Colorado Springs and New Haven, Conn., merely slowed his descent, he has landed in Salem, pitching for the Carolina's League's Avalanche.
Nied ``didn't know what to think'' when he was assigned to Salem.
``I didn't know whether this was a calling card telling me my time had come and gone,'' he said, ``or whether it was a wake-up call to get me back on track.''
He's been through a lot in two years, beginning June 4, 1994, when his wife Malissa gave birth to a son four months prematurely. Two years after doctors told the couple their firstborn would not live, Tanner David Nied - who weighed 1 pound, 6 ounces at birth - is normal, toddling 26-pound 2-year-old.
``Not that I ever needed to know this,'' Nied said, ``but his struggles just to live puts everything in perspective.''
Now, it is the father who is struggling to hang on - not to life, but to his livelihood.
Even though he is pitching without pain, he simply could not get hitters out at Triple-A Colorado Springs in the Pacific Coast League. Nied was giving up more runs than even his former teammates in the Coors Field launching pad. He was 3-8 with a 12.27 ERA and getting lit up by opposing hitters who were batting an amazing .401 off him.
``I've just got to get my stuff together,'' said Nied, who rehabilitated his elbow through weightlifting rather than undergoing surgery. ``I've been dropping my arm since the injury, pushing the ball, babying my arm. There was no excuse for that. I'm healthy, I know how to pitch. Hopefully, I'll get my mechanics worked out.''
Nied - who was the first expansion pick, who tossed the first complete game and who hurled the first shutout in the history of the Colorado Rockies - doesn't want to be the first bust in team history.
``If I think about it, it hurts,'' Nied said of his professional path. ``I know my career has fallen a long way. I've had setbacks. Major setbacks. Hopefully, two to three years from now, I'll look back at Salem as something I had to go through as a good move for my career.
As recently as one year ago, Nied, a 27-year-old native of Dallas, was pitching in the big leagues for the Rockies. He was struggling, finally yielding to the pain in his right elbow that beckoned him to stop throwing.
He had tried to get ready too quickly following the end of the baseball strike in the spring of 1995. He had pain in his elbow previosly when he suffered a slight tear in his ulnar collateral ligament while pitching in an exhibition game for the Rockies against their Triple-A Colorado Springs affiliate in 1993, an injury that shelved him for two months.
In parts of four seasons with the Braves and Rockies, Nied has a 17-16 record and a 4.87 ERA. His best year with the Rockies was the strike-shortened 1994 season, when was 9-7 with a 4.80 ERA and a shutout.
He finished 5-9 in '93, a season that began with him pitching the first game in Rockies history when he faced Dwight Gooden and the New York Mets on April 5 in Shea Stadium. He lost that game 3-0, but won his next three decisions and tossed his first complete game on April 15 by avenging the Opening Day loss to Gooden with a 5-3 win. He pitched the first complete-game shutout in club history on June 21, 1994, in an 8-0 win over Houston.
Since then, he has made only two big-league appearances and has made more stops in the Rockies' farm system than a roving instructor.
Does he have a chance of ever pitching again in the rarified thin air of Coors Field?
``We certainly think he does,'' said Rockies general manager Bob Gebhard. ``We've told him that. We pointed out to him the positives and negatives of going to Salem. The positives are that he's healthy and he'll have a chance to have some success. He needs innings pitched. Going to the bullpen in Colorado Springs wasn't the answer. He needs a place where he can pitch in a regular rotation.
``I certainly think David will make it back to the major leagues.''
The Rockies have always liked Nied, even when they didn't have him. He was so good in 1992, the Braves brought him up for six games in the middle of pennant race, and he went 3-0 with a 1.17 ERA. He was not one of the 15 players that the National League championship edition of the Braves protected from the expansion draft.
The Colorado Rockies selected the 6-foot-2, 185-pounder with the very first pick of that historic draft, setting off the first of many firsts for Nied. One analyst called him the consensus ``slam-dunk'' of the expansion draft, a can't-miss pick.
That's what happens when you go 3-0 with a 1.17 earned run average while holding opponents to a .130 batting average during the Braves' run to the National League West crown. The Rockies snapped him up that winter.
It took him four years to make the majors and four years to go back down the ladder.
When he needs strength, he thinks about Tanner. Malissa was only 231/2 weeks into her pregnancy when she went into labor while accompanying her husband on a road trip to New York. Doctors were so certain the child would not live, they didn't even put an incubator in the delivery room. Then, they heard a cry from the 22-ounce baby boy and rushed him upstairs.
For two months, Nied flew to New York between starts to be with Malissa and Tanner, who was too weak to be moved. Doctors remained pessimistic, especially when one of the child's lungs collapsed.
Finally, on Aug.5, 1994, Tanner was flown to Denver's Rose Medical Center aboard the private plane of Rockies owner Jerry McMorris. It was one week before the strike and some owners were miffed that McMorris would go to such lengths to help a player who was about to go on strike.
Nied would like to say thanks to the Rockies by making it back to the bigs.
He's gone from playing with the ``Blake Street Bombers'' to pitching to Blake Barthol, Salem's catcher, from the Rocky Mountains to a park below the Blue Ridge Mountains and Twelve O'Clock Knob. It's High Noon for Nied's career. He's had two good starts with the Avalanche, going seven innings and allowing two earned runs in each start.
``I know I've done some good things in my career,'' Nied said. ``I'm glad to have been a part of some good things. I'm a part of something that's history.
``I just don't want to be history. I don't want to start looking at memories just yet.''
LENGTH: Long : 131 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN SPEARMAN/Staff. Only a year after pitching for theby CNBColorado Rockies, David Nied finds himself languishing in Class A
with Salem. Nied has been impressive for the Avalanche, allowing
four earned runs in 14 innings in two starts. color. Graphic: Chart
by Andrew Svec: Follow the bouncing ball.