For Tom Wilhelmsen, the road less traveled led back to the mound

Midnight was fast approaching when Tom Wilhelmsen and his girlfriend stumbled into Venice. The backpackers were tired and hungry and, truth be told, a little smelly.

This was another new city on a trip full of them. They found a cheap room in a seedy hotel, a couple of slices of pizza and a bottle of wine. Then they crashed.

“And then we woke up on the canal,” he said. “You put your head out the window and, sure enough, there are all the gondolas and the clothes drying, just like in all the pictures.”

Wilhelmsen was 22. It is almost a cliché for Americans of that age to wander the world for a summer, then start their career, but Wilhelmsen had pretty much destroyed his.

He had walked away from baseball. He tended bar at night, slept late every day, played softball for fun, traveled wherever he could.

The All-Star Game is in New York, and there are eight million stories in the naked city. If Wilhelmsen, now 29, makes it to the All-Star Game, he might have the most compelling story of all.

In 2009, when he gave himself a second chance, he was pitching on six years’ rest. The Seattle Mariners signed him in 2010, promoted him to the major leagues in 2011, made him their closer in 2012.

On Saturday, he gave up his first extra-base hit this season, to his 94th batter. He has held opponents to a .123 batting average and .372 OPS, both the best among all American League pitchers with at least 20 innings.

He has 12 saves in 15 chances. His blown save Saturday lifted his earned-run average from 0.75 to 1.85.

That is a bad day, perhaps, but there will be another day. That was not the plan eight years ago, when Wilhelmsen drove home to Arizona, with a promising minor league career in his rear-view mirror.

He had tested positive for marijuana, twice. He did not play in 2004, after the Milwaukee Brewers suspended him. In 2005, he no longer wanted to play, so he retired.

“I wanted to do what I wanted to do,” Wilhelmsen said, “which was to be young and maybe a little reckless and pretend like I know everything. Or, act like I know everything.”

He applied for a job as a bartender, filling in the line about previous work experience this way: “Milwaukee Brewers, pitcher.”

He got the job, and the free time that came with it, and the free beers from the other bartenders in town.

He was not necessarily a rebel. As a kid, he volunteered at national parks, wearing a gold name tag and helping tourists distinguish one cactus from another. He fancied himself as Indiana Jones, encountering exotic people in exotic lands.

College life would have been a good fit for him, except for the academic part. But he signed to play pro ball at 18, in an industry that demands conformity. At 21, he got out.

“I was able to grow my hair out and wear Birkenstocks and be the person I wanted to be at that time,” he said.

John Wilhelmsen was not thrilled at this development. He was Tom’s father, and his high school pitching coach. This was a waste of a 95-mph fastball.

John bit his tongue, hard.

“The role of parents is to live with your disappointment,” he said, “and hope, as your child grows and becomes more mature, that your guidance has worked and that they get through tough times and difficult years and turn out to be a good person, which I think he has.”

On Father’s Day 2009, Tom Wilhelmsen invited his dad to play catch.

“I thought it was just a Father’s Day catch in the park,” John said.

Turned out that, after six years of finding himself, Tom found himself wanting to give baseball one more shot. He was about to get married, to the girlfriend who backpacked with him through Europe, with the hope of starting a family of his own. He could try to buy a bar, but the late hours had lost their novelty. He could be a salesman for a beer distributor.

Or, as he told his father, he could play ball. The father worked the son back into pitching shape. Wilhelmsen went to an open tryout for the Tucson Toros, an independent team in his hometown. He pitched, rode his bicycle to the bar and served drinks after games.

Then he got hurt, a nerve injury that needed time to heal.

“Bicep was sagging like Grandma’s arm,” he said.

He got well, and the Mariners signed him. He had asked his wife for two or three years to see whether baseball would work out; he made the majors in one.

Not every athlete can be a role model, but Wilhelmsen ought to be. Not every kid can relate to a superstar, but many kids can relate to challenging authority, and searching for a life path.

Wilhelmsen would be happy to share his story, but only after he finishes writing it. There must be more to his pitching career than being known as the guy who used to pour pitchers.

“I’m not done,” he said. “I’m not going to talk to anybody about it when I haven’t done the things that I have wanted to do up here.

“I don’t want to just say, ‘Look at me, I made the team,’ and that’s it. That’s not enough for me.”

bill.shaikin@latimes.com

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