But he was back in business when they set him free again
The road goes on forever and the party never ends. — Robert Earl Keen, Jr.
Yermín Mercedes had a bit of a misunderstanding when it came to the time last Thursday, his first day on a regular 26-man MLB roster.
This is Mercedes’ 11th season in professional baseball in the United States across three different organizations, along with time spent in the Dominican Summer League at that Nationals complex in that country. He’d played at every level up to Triple A, and spent six winters in the Dominican League. After being released by the Nationals in the spring of 2014, he played for three independent league teams — the San Angelo Gulls of the United League, the Douglas Diablos and White Sands Pupfish of the Pecos League — and last September joined the White Sox from their alternate site for an at-bat.
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And when he finally walked in for his roster debut for the April 1 opener in Anaheim, he was late.
New White Sox manager Tony La Russa spoke to Mercedes about what the correct reporting time was, and when the Hall of Famer finished his talk, he said, “and you’ll be in there tomorrow night.” Mercedes told the media that he was so excited he “felt like crying,” and La Russa moved on. “This White Sox organization has a lot of good evaluators, good people, period,” La Russa says. “They did a good job with him. He really impressed me in spring training. I felt we probably needed a third catcher on the roster, and he won the job. He hit in the minors, the White Sox signed him as a minor league free agent (in 2019) and he hit in spring training.”
On the season’s second day, Mercedes served as the designated hitter and became the second player in history to go 5-for-5 in his first major league start (Cecil Travis did it in 1933, so it happens every 88 years). The White Sox won, and for the first time since the seventh game of the 2011 World Series, La Russa notched a win as a manager.
“Do you remember the last win?” he was asked.
“Of course. I remember them all. I remember the first,” he says. That last win, over the Rangers in that Game Seven, was won by Chris Carpenter. The first? Aug. 3, 1979, an 8-6 victory over the Blue Jays, won by Steve Trout.
LaRussa remembers his major league debut as well, May 10, 1963, pinch-running for Chuck Essegian in the Kansas City Athletics’ 2-0 loss to Minnesota and Camelo Pasqual.
No one who saw Mercedes’ major league debut will forget it anytime soon. By the next night, Mercedes was already known simply as “Yermín,” like “Ichiro” or “Junior.” He had three more hits, making it eight in two games, five of them coming with two strikes. When he flied out, La Russa put his arm around him. Tony grasped the moment; the guy was born on Valentine’s Day 1993, 43 days after Mookie Betts was born. This has been a long time coming.
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One of the things I most enjoy the first few days of each new season is to go through box scores and find the names of people who are now on Baseball-Reference for life. This season I was also privileged to watch the announcement of Trey Mancini’s name draw a standing ovation from the small opposing crowd at Fenway Park, and then witness him get hugs from three-fifths of the home team’s infield.
When the Red Sox celebrated the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park in April 2012, they invited back anyone who ever played for that franchise in that park. It seemed like hundreds. I was working for NESN, and, naturally, former players with whom I was working were a tad impatient with the ceremonies. I picked out 88-year old Harley Hisner, who on Sept. 30, 1951, pitched against the Yankees and lost 3-0, but did something his grandchildren probably revered: he struck out Mickey Mantle twice. I told one Hall of Fame colleague, “you were a great player, but when I was in high school, I’m certain I played as hard as you, I just stunk. And so the rest of my life I look at anyone who played one game in the big leagues and consider him a great athlete.”
Derek Jeter was watching that unfold in the clubhouse. The next day, he thanked me.
Look at Archibald “Moonlight” Graham. He was a very good player at the University of North Carolina, then played at Maryland while he took medical classes. He played five years in the minors in places like Lowell, Mass. and Manchester, N.H., and got in his one game for the New York Giants in 1905. That game, of course, became part of literary and cinematic history as part of the 1982 novel “Shoeless Joe” and the 1989 film “Field of Dreams,” giving Graham far more recognition than Houston Colt .45s outfielder John Paciorek received for the one game he played against the Mets in 1963, in which his knocked out three hits, walked twice, scored four times and drove in three.
Paciorek hurt his back in the offseason and never played in another major league game, while his brothers Tom and Jim had successful careers. Moonlight Graham’s brother Frank Porter Graham went on to be a United States Senator and the chancellor of the University of North Carolina.
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So, who knows. Yermín Mercedes is the first Yermín in MLB history. Earlier in that same Opening Day, Daniel Bard came out of the bullpen in Denver to face the Dodgers in the top of the ninth with an 8-5 lead. Max Muncy triple. Chris Taylor walk. Then Bard hit 100 mph, struck out Edwin Ríos, then hit Will Smith, hit 100 again, struck out Matt Beaty and got Betts on a soft liner. Save. Velocity in the 96 percentile. Spin rate in the 99th percentile.
Look, as a human being I reserve the right to like or care for people, and as someone who saw his father Paul catch for Tufts (Tommy Lasorda claimed he was the best throwing catcher he ever saw) I remember well when Daniel came up with the Red Sox in 2009 and for 2 1/2 years was one of the best setup relievers in the sport — with a 9.8 K/9 mark back when the league average was around 7, a 2.46 earned run average and oohs and ahs from his 98-102 mph readings on the scoreboard.
Then came September 2011, and the beginning of The Thing, then years of minor league options, releases, tryouts, minor league trials as he tried to regain his control (in one of those trials he faced 18 batters and hit seven over four appearances) until he became the Diamondbacks’ minor league mental skills coach for 2018-19. Then it all just came back in the 2019 Instructional League, and he soon felt 15 years old again, and became the Comeback Player of the Year with the Rockies last summer.
“I just felt free and easy,” Bard says. “I simply felt, ‘I’m playing a game, a game I love to play.’ There is no fear of something happening again.
I’ve already experienced almost everything someone could experience, so I’m on the mound enjoying something, yes, the way I did when I was 15. When you listen to (performance trainer) Eric Cressey’s podcasts, there are so many lessons we can all take from them, and one is to enjoy every moment.”
One of the aspects of Bard’s career that most impresses his college teammate Andrew Miller is that Bard so loves playing baseball that he was willing to risk embarrassment in those comebacks with the Rangers, Cardinals and Mets. “I could never have done that,” Miller once said. If most of us had been terminated from jobs four years in a row, we’d have changed professions. Daniel Bard went from April 27, 2013, until July 25, 2020, without throwing a pitch in the major leagues.
Bard is uniquely aware of those who hit some sort of wall. He hopes to meet and spend time with Rick Ankiel, and all should know that he is extraordinarily generous in helping others. I told him Mark Appel called to tell me he just got to Clearwater to begin spring training on April 1 at the Phillies minor league complex. Appel was the first pick in the 2013 draft, and when he got into professional baseball, he had problems with his fastball command. Some veteran baseball people criticized him for lack of fortitude, citing the money and the alleged entitlement, and when he stopped playing after two innings in the Gulf Coast League in 2017, he was supposedly just a smart wealthy kid who supposedly didn’t care enough about the baseball grind.
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When I tracked Appel down in 2019, he was throwing and hoping. He realized he had suffered minor shoulder problems pitching for Stanford, then never rehabbed after appendix surgery and lost strength in his core and lower body. Appel tried numerous possibilities outside baseball, from business school to startup businesses, but after two years out of the game, admitted, “I still really miss going out there to a pitching mound and putting it on the line. I don’t know if I knew I would miss it this much, but I’ve had surgery, I’ve done work (at Driveline), I’m hoping I can pitch again.”
Appel understood the underlying industry doubts. Danny Hultzen knew them, too. He was the second pick in the 2011 draft, sandwiched between Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer, but by 2013 his shoulder was shot. He pitched 7 games in the minors in 2013, sat out 2014 after an operation, appeared in five over 2015 and 2016 and that was it. The lunchroom scouts looked him over, saw the St. Albans School and University of Virginia pedigree, and made their character assessments.
They were, of course, wrong. Hultzen is a passionate baseball lover, and competitor, and fought back to make it to the Cubs in September 2019 and pitch in six games. He was at the Cubs alternate site last summer and was called to Chicago in September, but the shoulder has never completely been healed. He retired to the Cubs front office to remain in baseball, and after nine years of pain and hard work has a career line that proves he pitched 3 1/3 innings of scoreless baseball. Moonlight Graham couldn’t have done that.
Appel will turn 30 July 15. He could be in the Florida State League, he could be in Reading, Pa., he could be back home in Houston, but says “it’s all worth it.” Four years of surgery, rehab and constant throwing sessions, knowing if he were working in venture capital he likely would earn more money than he would if he pitched until he was 36. “What I want is to pitch in the major leagues,” says Appel. To pitch 3 1/3 scoreless innings, like Hultzen did, would be worth every difficult moment to this point.
Jed Lowrie is quite familiar with the anonymous voices who denigrate or minimize some players’ careers, like those of Appel or Hultzen. Lowrie, who will be 37 on April 17, is in his 14th season, but he has played more than 100 games only four times because of injuries. He can play all four infield positions, and he is a switch-hitter who has a rare understanding of the visual and physical differences that come with batting from each side of the plate. The Astros have acquired him twice, and this is his third stint with the Athletics, but when he was in the Opening Day lineup at second base and had two hits in the season’s second game, it represented a remarkable return.
“When you’re questioned on social media or by people behind your back, I consider it to be nothing more significant than gossip,” he says. “I’ve had some injuries, but this last situation with the Mets was really frustrating.”
Before the 2019 season, Lowrie signed a two-year, $20 million contract. The Mets GM was Brodie Van Wagenen, Lowrie’s former agent. But in the spring Lowrie’s knee gave him considerable pain. He was examined, then asked for a second opinion, which concluded that he had a knee fat pad impingement. The knee fat pad protects the patella tendon, and when it is damaged in any way, it is extremely painful.
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Lowrie got eight plate appearances in 2019, none last season. The Mets declined to allow him to get the knee operation, he says. They threatened him with a grievance. As he sat out the 60-game season, things were unpleasant, and as soon as the Mets were eliminated, Lowrie was free to get the knee procedure, which occurred in October, right around the time Fred and Jeff Wilpon were on their way out as team owners, and Van Wagenen with them. Lowrie had the surgery and he was assured he would be ready to work regularly by the middle of March. “I missed playing so much, it was very difficult,” Lowrie says. “I would love to play two more years, then perhaps work in the business. It’s been my life for a long time, from Stanford to 14 seasons in the major leagues.”
Just as one day in the big leagues was so important to Yermín Mercedes that it reduced him to tears, someone like Lowrie appreciates what it means to last past 10 seasons. The same goes for Steve Cishek. He is a guy who wasn’t even all-Barnstable County in high school, but is now less than 30 days from 10 years of service time and has a career 2.81 ERA. Since being traded to the Cardinals at the July 30 deadline in 2015, he’s striking out more than a batter per inning and has a strikeout-to-walk ratio around 2.5. His first bad “season” was 2020, but with so many relievers on the free-agent market, he had to sign a one-year contract with the Astros for $1 million. Then Framber Valdez got hurt, Houston signed Jake Odorizzi, and needed to get under the luxury tax threshold. So Cishek was designated for assignment.
The Angels then acquired him. “It’s been great, playing with Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani and Albert Pujols,” says Cishek. “This is a very good team. Trout is unbelievable, especially because he’s so modest, yet so competitive. I couldn’t believe watching him watching the Final Four. He was jumping up, yelling.”
Someone as humble as Cishek never really thought about what a decade in the majors means, but when a player has 10 years of service, he gets onto the Hall of Fame ballot. He knows he won’t get to Cooperstown, but to see his name on the ballot has meaning. “I never had thought about it until it was mentioned to me, but playing 10 years in the majors is really tough. If I get there, it will be something to be proud of doing. When I was growing up in Falmouth (Mass.) no one ever dreamed of me pitching in the majors for 10 years.” And being available almost every day of those 10 years.
Rich Hill gets it. He’s 41, been through numerous surgeries, and when he started for the Rays on April 3, it marked his 10th different team. After being released by the Nationals and their Syracuse farm club in June 2015, Hill’s passion for the game took him to his former American Legion field in Milton, Mass. With help from a Red Sox scouting director, Hill got away from sidearming and returned to his overhand delivery. He worked on a plan to pitch in independent ball for a start, go to Triple-A Pawtucket, then join the Red Sox.
Hill got to Boston, pitched to a 1.55 earned run average in four starts, and that winter the Athletics signed him for more money than he’d made in his previous ten seasons. Beginning with those four starts, Hill has started 95 games with a 43-22 record, a 2.92 ERA and 10.9 strikeouts per nine innings. He conditions hard each winter. Constantly works year-round on his feel and shape of his curveball. “Craig Breslow used to say only one percent of pitchers make the big leagues,” Hill says. “That’s something to think about. Then there’s the thrill of going out and competing. I know some people kid me about being so competitive, but that makes going out to the mound a challenge that I long for.”
Hill’s debut came with the Cubs on June 15, 2005, against the then-Florida Marlins. Greg Maddux gave up seven runs — including Miguel Cabrera’s 11th career homer — and Hill came in to pitch the sixth inning in a 15-5 loss. He got the first batter he faced, Luis Castillo, but gave up doubles to Cabrera and Mike Lowell. Cabrera had hit 477 more homers since the one off Maddux when Hill started last weekend for the Rays, back again in Miami, where it all began 16 years before. “Every game,” Hill says, “matters.”
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On that same June 15, 2005 day, Yadier Molina caught a 4-0 Matt Morris shutout with the Cardinals. This spring training, of all the catchers in the major leagues, Molina caught more innings than all but one catcher, then on April 1 caught his 17th opening day.
The road goes on forever, and the party never ends.
(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
