Dodd Is the Same, but Different : Arizona State Was a Detour on His Road to Success

The assignment is to compare and contrast.

Compare Bill Dodd’s physical presence now to his appearance one year ago. Note any differences, however subtle they may be, and any changes in the physique that looked as though it was carved from stone to sit in a hall of fame somewhere.

It’s an easy task. Bill Dodd is the same, maybe slightly more developed at 6-feet 4-inches and 210 pounds, but still a stereotype of athletic purity. Still tanned and blond and strong and muscular.

Part 2: Contrast the apparent effortlessness with which Dodd went through a remarkable baseball career at Capistrano Valley High School with the current status of his baseball career. Now the assignment becomes a difficult chore, one that requires far more research and several rough drafts before it is ready to be handed in.

A year ago, it was as though Dodd could enjoy the best of times without even trying. Today, he looks forward to overcoming some of the most trying times he has ever been forced to experience. As a senior at Capistrano Valley, he was 10-0 with a 1.72 earned-run average and 108 strikeouts and was chosen as The Times’ Orange County Player of the Year for the second consecutive year. As a freshman at Arizona State, he was 2-3 with a 7.36 ERA, allowed 57 hits in 40 innings and permitted opponents to hit .339 against him.

But statistics are only the very beginning. Dodd’s smooth-flowing path to professional success suddenly and unexpectedly became a jagged road blocked by obstacles. This compare-and-contrast assignment may require additional tutoring, and it is perhaps best to allow Dodd himself to appear in relief.

Bill Dodd in June 1984: “I always wanted to go to Arizona State because of the reputation of the program. I picked the school because I liked the coaches, the prestige of the conference, and the facilities there are the best.”

Bill Dodd in June 1985: “I thought I picked the right school, but everything fell apart. I never expected anything to happen like that. You peak in high school and then you go to college, and it’s like a 100-foot drop.”

His analysis earns him an A-plus. “Concisely and accurately presented,” a teacher’s comments might read.

It is one of the few good grades Bill Dodd has received in the past year.

It was more than another instance of an athlete dominating on the high school level and finding the going far more difficult in a major college program. If that had been the case with Dodd, his story would hardly be unique. But he was forced to endure much more than watching his fastball, which used to baffle hitters in Mission Viejo, fly out of the park in Tempe.

His pitching was not the problem. Dodd and his coaches at ASU weren’t overjoyed with his freshman season, but they were, for the most part, satisfied.

The trouble began when Dodd injured his elbow midway through the season. He contended that the injury, which was not considered serious, continued to bother him for more than a month. Others contended that he was making excuses and that he did not want to pitch. And when he finally felt ready to return at the very end of the season, he said, he was not allowed to because his pitching coach was intent on punishing him.

“I really didn’t like the guy,” Dodd said with bitterness, searching for a more accurate description of his feelings for Tim Kelly. “I couldn’t stand him. But I had to put up with him ‘cause he was my pitching coach.”

No longer does Dodd have to put up with him. Kelly is the primary reason Bill Dodd is no longer a Sun Devil. Next season, he will be pitching for Fresno State.

“I thought it would be good going there for three years,” he said. “I thought things would carry on from high school. But I learned from it. I know how to handle things a lot better now.”

What Dodd could not tolerate was the way he was being handled at ASU. He began the season as a starting pitcher but was moved to the bullpen after just two games. Performing in relief was fine with Dodd, but he soon found himself pitching constantly, a role for which he felt unprepared.

In a little more than half a season, he appeared in relief 16 times. It seemed as though when he wasn’t throwing in a game, he was warming up in the bullpen, which proved almost as exhausting. He complained he was being overused, he said, but was ignored.

“They were throwing me to death,” he said. “My arm was dying. I told them that, and they didn’t believe me.”

Eventually, Dodd said, he wore his arm out, suffering what he believed to be ligament damage in his right elbow. ASU trainer Terry Cummings examined him and did not find anything seriously the matter. Frustrated, Dodd went to Los Angeles to see orthopedic specialist Dr. Frank Jobe.

“That created a big uproar,” Dodd remembered, explaining that he went to Jobe before going to the doctors at ASU. “They (the coaches) were mad at me for that.”

But, he said, Jobe did not discover a serious problem either, prescribing only rest. ASU Coach Jim Brock was informed by Jobe that Dodd could pitch whenever he was ready, that if his arm felt fine in a few weeks it was OK to pitch. And that if he needed more time to rest it, that was OK, too.

What was OK with Jobe and what was OK with Dodd was not necessarily OK with Kelly or with the other pitchers, Dodd said.

“They felt like I didn’t want to pitch, like I was wimpin’ out or something,” he said. “Coach Brock believed me, but Coach Kelly just thought I was being a baby. And the pitching staff was doubting me. They said, ‘You can pitch,’ and I said, ‘I can’t pitch. I’m sorry. You can say what you want.’ ”

When Brock told Dodd to take a few weeks off, to just run to stay in shape but to watch the games from the stands, Dodd said he listened to his coach. It was at that point when his relationship with Kelly boiled over.

“After two weeks, he called me into his office and said, ‘Where have you been for two weeks?’ ” Dodd recalled. “I didn’t tell him what Coach Brock had told me to do. Then he started talking about my work habits. He thought I was lazy.”

It went back and forth. Nothing was resolved.

Dodd: “He didn’t treat me like a human being. He treated me like a piece of meat.”

Kelly: “We told him what we expected of him. Sometimes he did it, sometimes he didn’t.”

Dodd: “He would tell the other pitchers to run five miles, and he would tell me to run 10. He talked to the rest of the pitchers like human beings, and he would talk to me like a dog.”

Kelly: “I leave a lot of it up to the individual. I tell them what I expect out of them and I leave it up to them. At times he didn’t work as hard as he could have.”

Then, Dodd said, when he asked to return to the lineup for the final six games of the season, his request was denied.

“They said, ‘You don’t want to pitch, so you’re not going to pitch.’ ” he said. “Coach Kelly was getting back at me.”

And he felt alone, with no one to turn to. The drinking age in Arizona is 19. Dodd is 18. While his teammates were in the Tempe bars, Dodd found himself at home, watching TV. Not that he would have joined them even if he could have.

“I don’t drink, and people on the baseball team drink like it’s water,” he said. “They had different values than I did.”

His closest friend, Capistrano Valley teammate Burt Call, was hundreds of miles away at Brigham Young. Weekly phone calls helped, but only somewhat.

“I didn’t have any close friends,” he said. “The only close friends I had were my parents.”

And they, too, were hundreds of miles away, in Mission Viejo.

“There wasn’t anybody I could really open up to there.”

Bill Dodd’s traumatic season was merely a microcosm of the season the Arizona State baseball team was having.

In December, the team was placed on two years’ probation by the Pacific 10 Conference for violations in the school’s work-study program. The Sun Devils forfeited their 1984 Pac-10 title and were banned from postseason play this year. Not that it mattered. They suffered their first losing season in 14 years.

“He was over at my house watching TV when we heard about it,” Call said, remembering Dodd’s reaction to the news of the probation. “His mouth just dropped.”

Then in March, an even larger controversy was ignited when it was revealed that several ASU players had been given Nardil, a mood-altering and potentially dangerous drug. Dodd was one of them.

He never took the drug, he said, but he knew players who did.

“The thing they told me was, when you’re on the mound and something (bad) happens, you don’t get mad that quickly,” Dodd said. “It was a drug, and I knew nothing about it.”

He still has a whole bottle of Nardil at his home in Mission Viejo.

“A souvenir to keep in the scrapbook,” he said.

As if he’s ever going to look back on his bizarre career at ASU with the slightest bit of nostalgia.

Soon after he returned home at the conclusion of the school year, Dodd phoned Brock and asked to be released from his scholarship. Brock agreed and as a result, Dodd will not be forced to sit out a year. Fresno State was one of the schools he considered last year, and he chose it the second time around because he believes it will give him the opportunity to improve his pitching mechanics.

Fresno State Coach Bob Bennett apparently had no reservations about Dodd. He had heard the stories but decided to give Dodd the benefit of the doubt.

“My gut feeling was that we weren’t buying a problem,” Bennett said. “I might be wrong, but I think he’s a pretty high-caliber kid.”

So does Bob Zamora, Dodd’s high school coach. But he also knows Bill Dodd better than Bob Bennett does.

“Billy’s kind of a free spirit,” Zamora said. “He likes to do it Billy’s way. He tends to be lazy, but he’ll work if he has to. He’s not the type who will do it on his own. A wild horse has to be trained. He’s going to have to get very, very serious about pitching to get to the top.”