It Took Him Tirade After Tirade to Obtain a Trade : Candelaria: Silent Unless Provoked

What’s that line about life? The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.

Not so with John Candelaria, the California Angel pitcher, formerly of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who has managed to make it this far without tail and fur.

Oh, he’s had his moments. There was the time he called then-Pirate General Manager Harding Peterson a “bozo,” later amended to include “idiot.” Candelaria also is the same guy who, after Peterson added his son to the Pirate coaching staff, said: “It’s the biggest joke in baseball.”

Other memorable Candelaria tirades include:

--”Horses travel better than we do.” (That one in response to the Pirates’ practice of traveling by commercial airline rather than charter service. No small coincidence that Pirate President Dan Galbreath also owned thoroughbred race horses.)

--”I’ll probably get in trouble for this, but the fans here are (bleep).” (Said after a Pirate game for which the announced Three River Stadium attendance was 5,207.)

--”I’ve busted my butt. If they want to boo, (bleep) ‘em.” (Same game. The Pirates, who managed three hits, lost, 2-1, Candelaria’s third one-run defeat of the 1983 season.)

All Candelaria wants out of baseball is a place in the starting rotation, a left arm that stays hinged, a fair wage and a team without a death wish. He’ll do the rest. If there were a time clock in the Angel dugout, Candelaria would be the first to punch in. Give him a game that matters and Candelaria most likely will deliver.

And so what if Candelaria wears his mind on his jersey sleeve? There are worse things in life to endure. Candelaria knows, since he’s endured them.

Just last November, Candelaria attended the funeral of his 2 1/2-year-old son, John Robert Jr. On Christmas Day a year earlier, John Jr. had fallen into the family swimming pool at the Candelaria’s winter home in Sarasota, Fla., and nearly drowned. He had been in a coma since the accident.

“My son’s fine,” Candelaria says now. “He doesn’t have to worry about anything anymore. I guess you can say he’s a real angel, huh?”

As if it mattered, Candelaria also had the misfortune to play for the Pirates, a team that finished the 1985 season with the worst record in baseball, 57-104, and 43 1/2 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals, winners of the National League Eastern Division.

That was also the year the Pirates decided to turn Candelaria, a starter with a 122-80 record and 2.90 earned-run average, into a reliever.

In a season’s time, Candelaria went from 28 starts, 12 victories, a 2.72 ERA and 185 innings pitched, to 0 starts, 2 victories in relief, a 3.64 ERA and just 54 innings of work.

“They were too cheap to pay the price for a relief pitcher,” said Maria Candelaria, her younger brother’s agent and attorney. “They gave him five days’ notice of the switch.”

Each day Candelaria would arrive at the ballpark, not so secretly hoping for a trade that would rid him of the Pirates. He had given up trying to talk his way out of Pittsburgh. After all, there are only so many times you can call someone a bozo before it loses its bite. Anyway, Candelaria’s priorities had shifted from baseball to his son.

“You keep on going,” Candelaria says. “If I had the choice, I would have been home every day, but I didn’t have that choice.

Said Maria Candelaria: “This past year he had his personal difficulties. His child was in a coma and he was in the limelight. He had to go out there and pitch, and every day his mind was on his boy.”

One night in early August, Candelaria arrived at Three Rivers Stadium for a game against the Montreal Expos. By then, about the only suspense left in the dreadful season was whether the Pirates would finish in fifth or sixth place. Even Manager Chuck Tanner, the original Mr. Happy, was hard-pressed to find something nice to say.

As the Pirates finished their pregame batting practice, General Manager Joe Brown, who had since replaced Peterson, approached Candelaria and whispered in his ear: “I may have good news for you by the end of the day.”

Candelaria didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He returned to the bullpen and waited.

Late in the game, the phone rang. Close score, so Candelaria figured to be Tanner’s choice. Candelaria began to reach for his glove. But wait, Tanner didn’t want Candelaria.

“That’s when I knew I was gone right then and there,” Candelaria says.

How interesting it must have been to look down at the Pirate bullpen in time to see the 6-foot 6-inch, 225-pound Candelaria jumping up and down, screaming: “Out of here! Out of here!”

“It was wonderful” Candelaria says. “The bullpen coach was just laughing at me.”

What do you know, a victory in the rat race.

“I didn’t save anything,” he said. “I took my gloves and my stuff and left everything there. I was just heading west.”

Candelaria, along with reliever Al Holland and outfielder George Hendrick, arrived in Anaheim, presumably to ensure the Angels an American League Western Division title. The Angels had traded away bits and pieces of the team’s future for the three veterans, but what the heck, it was the pennant race. Anyway, who could have predicted that Hendrick would hit .122 with 6 RBIs and that Holland would leave at the conclusion of the season?

Candelaria, though, may have been worth the trouble. He became a starter with the Angels and promptly went 7-3. But these were not ordinary victories. They were achieved during tense and difficult times, a period when his young son lay in a coma fighting to stay alive. And less important, a period when no more than 3 1/2 games separated the Angels and the eventual Western Division winners, the Kansas City Royals.

Six years earlier, Candelaria had helped the Pirates win the World Series. That was the “We Are Family” team of Dave Parker, Bill Madlock, Kent Tekulve, Willie Stargell and Co. But soon the Pirates had all the togetherness of the warring Khans.

Stargell retired and other hitters such as Parker, Mike Easler and Lee Lacy were traded. The Pirates, once known for their powerful lineup, became a team of singles hitters and pitchers. In 1984, the Pirates became the first team in 73 years to both lead the league in ERA and finish last in the league. That’s tough to do.

Candelaria watched the transformation just long enough to know he didn’t like it. Thus began a series of public outbursts that would endear him to no one, most certainly not the Pirate management and fans.

“It was just a time where I wanted to get out of Pittsburgh,” he says. “Any way I could, I would try it. I only bad-mouthed when something was fired at me. I wasn’t just going to sit down and take it nonchalantly without voicing my opinion on the subject.”

Candelaria has one of those faces usually reserved for combat sergeants in World War II movies--tough-looking, but full of expression and feeling. As the Pirate offense continued to decline, Candelaria became more frustrated.

“(Peterson) didn’t make some trades,” he says. “He had a pitching staff that was very good. He just didn’t have any offensive punch in the lineup. He got rid of Parker, Easler and Lacy. And you could see we were going to have a hard time winning games. They just had to realize that.

“The first couple months of the season we kept losing games, 2-1, 1-0. We’d have to get five hits to score two runs. It was obvious we needed a hitter, but he wouldn’t go out and get it.

“But that’s the past.”

Candelaria disdains losing. Can’t stand it. “John is a very competitive person,” his sister says. “He has a reputation as a teddy bear, flaky, unpredictable. But there’s one thing about him and that’s that he’s very, very competitive. That part of him always comes out. I don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t do (to win). I think sometimes he’s been a little bit misunderstood.”

When Candelaria was 5, Maria said, she remembers her father telling the family: “This kid really has it.”

“We laughed, but John was always just much better than anyone else.”

By his 14th birthday, Candelaria was almost 6-5 and pitching against players six years his senior. “And he was blowing the ball past them,” Maria said.

Candelaria, who was born in Brooklyn, attended LaSalle Academy in lower Manhattan. He didn’t play baseball his junior and senior seasons because the high school was without facilities. So he became an All-American basketball player and received about 200 scholarship offers. But baseball remained his first love.

During the summer, Candelaria would play one game in the morning, another in the afternoon and another at night. Scouts, who had first heard of Candelaria as far back as grammar school, beat a path to the American Legion fields of New York. He didn’t disappoint them, what with his physique, an impressive fastball and curveball.

The Pirates signed Candelaria to a contract in 1973 and sent him to the minor leagues. By 1975, he was in Pittsburgh in time for a pennant race. Against the Chicago Cubs in June, he struck out 13. In October against the Cincinnati Reds in the National League playoffs, Candelaria struck out 14. He finished his rookie season with an 8-6 record and a 2.75 ERA.

In 1976, he won 16 games and in 1977 he became the first 20-game winner for the Pirates since Vernon Law finished 20-9 in 1960. And not since 1924, had a left-hander won 20 games or more.

Injuries arrived soon thereafter. Lower back pain . . . an injured left forearm . . . elbow and knee problems . . . a torn biceps muscle that forced him to miss almost all of the 1981 season. When he was booed in that 1983 game against the Reds, the one in which he criticized Pittsburgh fans, Candelaria was pitching with a pulled groin muscle. And team physicians have long suggested that Candelaria consider a back operation. Candelaria refuses.

“I just like to pitch,” he said. “Sometimes you have to distinguish what is pain. I always had the feeling that if I can’t walk to the mound, then I can’t pitch. But if I can get out there, I’m going to try it.”

That is the reputation that accompanied Candelaria from Pittsburgh. Present him with the ball and then walk away.

“I come here, get dressed and all I want to do is pitch,” he said. “I just want to enjoy it and be left alone. I don’t have to worry about any of the hassles any more.”

Asked why he prefers such a singular existence, Candelaria paused. “It’s not my style,” he said. “I am a loner. That’s the way I like it. It’s what I choose.”

Candelaria gave his World Series ring to his father several years ago. And on occasion, he talks to his former teammates, but nothing that would warrant a Pacific Bell commercial.

“I was one of the cast of characters that participated in the fun,” Candelaria said of his time with the Pirates. “It is a long time ago. I hardly ever think about it anymore. Do I get into it? I had the memory.”

More important to Candelaria is the memory of his son. It remains a difficult subject for Candelaria to discuss, one he’d prefer to keep private.

“People forget that professional athletes have problems in their lives, too,” Candelaria said. “Not everything is hunky-dory every day, Shangri-La. It all comes down to one thing--what your beliefs are. If I didn’t have the Lord, if I didn’t have my family, I wouldn’t have made it through.

“And it’s still hard dealing with it. Some days just . . . Listen, I’m not asking Him to explain to me why. Who the hell am I to question the Lord? I always did believe. Before it all happened, I always would thank Him everyday for just giving me the ability.”

To do what? Pitch? Persevere?

Said Maria Candelaria: “He’s been through his share of tragedies this past year. It’s kind of taken its toll on him. But he’s a survivor.”

On his own terms, of course. Candelaria wouldn’t know diplomacy if Henry Kissinger explained it to him. But he knows honesty and old-time values: family, a hard day’s work. That must be worth something.