Still Laughing : Slaton Survives Jokes, Injuries and Inactivity

Angel center fielder Gary Pettis was admiring a refurbished spring training facility this March when he noticed that the outfield fences had been freshly painted.

“Good thing Slaton’s not pitching today,” he said.

Jim Slaton, maybe the best-humored man in baseball, would be the first to laugh at such a remark. But Terry Forster, who knows a pitcher risks humiliation every time he is handed the ball, doesn’t appreciate Pettis’ form of humor.

He likes his own better.

“Jim Slaton is the best pitcher in the league,” Forster says, straight-faced. “. . . When you go out there with the stuff he’s got and get people out, you gotta be the best pitcher in the league.”

As you can see, Slaton has earned the respect and admiration of his teammates. But he’s not always the brunt of clubhouse humor. He’s been known to hurl a few zingers of his own.

The Angels were asked to fill out a preseason questionnaire that included “Player You Most Admired When Growing Up.”

Slaton’s answer?

“Don Sutton.”

“It’s true,” Sutton said. “I was his idol when he was in grade school. Of course, he was taking the fourth grade over again, trying to get a student deferment and stay out of Vietnam.”

The trouble is, Slaton’s fastball hasn’t had as much zip as his one-liners in recent years. It’s been a long time since he was considered for an All-Star appearance. He made the American League squad in 1977, but only after injured teammate Don Money couldn’t play.

But just when you start to think the Angels are keeping him around for laughs, he becomes the most successful pitcher in their starting rotation.

Slaton is 4-1 with a 3.50 earned-run average so far this season, and the Angels are 6-1 in the games he has started. He’s not reminding anyone of Dwight Gooden (Slaton has yielded 45 hits in 43 innings), but he’s winning just the same.

Last year, Slaton staggered to a 6-10 mark with a 4.37 ERA. So has he learned a new pitch? Did Sutton lend him a razor blade and some sandpaper? What extras have been added to the 1986 model Slaton?

“He’s pitching on days when we score enough runs,” catcher Bob Boone said smiling, unable to bring himself to pay Slaton a compliment right off.

“Actually, his curveball is much better this year than last. We had games last year when we threw nothing but fastballs. The thing Slate does so well, though, is make a pitch when he has to. That’s what it’s all about. The winners make them and the losers don’t.”

Slaton’s last start, a 5-1 victory over Milwaukee, was a prime example to support Boone’s theory. The veteran right-hander gave up a double and a single for a run in the second but got out of the inning when he induced Jim Gantner to ground into a double play. The Brewers got two more hits in the third, but Slaton came up with a pitch that got Earnest Riles to hit into another inning-ending double play. Milwaukee got a pair of hits in both the fifth and sixth but didn’t score again.

“Jim Slaton is as competitive as you could ask any pitcher to be,” Manager Gene Mauch said. “Twice this year, I’ve gone out to the mound and said, ‘Jim, I’m gonna put Donnie (Moore) in’ or ‘Jim, I’m gonna put Doug (Corbett) in.’ He doesn’t say anything, but the look on his face . . . it’s like you reached inside his chest and ripped his heart out.

“He really doesn’t want to come out. And I love it. When you take the mound away from him, you’re taking away his best friend. When’s he’s out there, he’s the happiest guy alive.”

Jim Slaton didn’t get to spend much time with his best friend last season and he wasn’t so happy, either. He got off to a 3-0 start, won his fourth game on May 19 and then lost seven in a row before registering No. 5 on Aug. 12.

“Last year’s problem was a combination of things,” Slaton said. “It got to the point where I wasn’t throwing well and then when I did--and I did have a couple of excellent games in the middle of that slump--I still got the loss. I was struggling, sure, but a win or two in there would have kept it from looking quite so bad.”

Slaton, more than most, is equipped with the perspective to deal with the bad times, though. It was perspective gained the painful way, in the freezing wind of Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium on opening day, 1980.

“They postponed opening day one day because of cold weather,” Slaton recalled. “It was even colder the next day, but they had to play then. It was 17 degrees and the wind-chill factor was less than zero. The wind really made it cold.

“It was the second inning. I threw a breaking ball and felt something pull in my shoulder . . . it felt like a toothache in my shoulder. I had an arthrogram the next day and it showed leakage, which means there was a tear (in the rotator cuff).”

Slaton said he considered surgery a last resort and began a lengthy and time-consuming rehabilitation program--a regimen with no guarantee of success.

“When I got hurt, the first thing I thought of was that I’d never pitch again,” Slaton said. “You look at all the guys who’ve had the injury and couldn’t come back and the ones who tried and couldn’t come back.

“You go into rehab with only one guarantee: that you’ll never regain the same stuff you once had. I just approached it with the attitude to work as hard as I could and make the necessary adjustments.”

This is Slaton’s 16th year in the big leagues. When the Angels got him from Milwaukee in 1983 for outfielder Bobby Clark, he left the Brewers as their all-time pitching leader in games, innings pitched, starts, victories, strikeouts and shutouts.

Most of that, however, was accomplished with the help of a mid-90-m.p.h. fastball, a pitch no longer a part of his repertoire.

“When he was younger, before the injury, you’d have to classify him as a strictly a power pitcher,” Mauch said. “Now, Jim’s got a program and when he’s on that program, half the time he’s getting hitters out and half the time the hitters are getting themselves out. He works the bottom part of the strike zone and works both sides of it, in and out.”

Slaton says it’s the classic story of a thrower becoming a pitcher.

“I don’t throw as hard as I used to and I’ve learned how to pitch,” he said. “There’s not much choice. You have to learn because you can’t get away with just good stuff anymore.”

Slaton recovered enough and learned enough to win 5 games in 1981, 10 in ’82 and 14 in ’83. The Angels acquired him before the ’84 season, a deal he calls “a dream come true.”

It wasn’t that he disliked Milwaukee, but he has been divorced for six years and three years before the Brewers traded him, his ex-wife and two children had moved back to Lancaster, where both Slaton and his former wife grew up.

He still has a home in Lancaster and just opened a restaurant--Clubhouse 41 (Slaton’s uniform number)--there. But he stays on his 36-foot cabin cruiser moored in Long Beach Harbor when the Angels are in town.

“Jonathan’s 10 now and Jennifer is 8,” Slaton said. “Being separated from them was the hardest thing in the world for me. It was so tough. That’s why I was so happy to be traded here. During the summer, after school’s out, they come out to a lot of games. And then during the All-Star break, I take them over to Catalina.”

If he keeps going at this pace, though, he may have other commitments on July 15.

“This year, I feel more confident because I think I’m more prepared,” he said. “I’ve been lifting weights and I feel a little stronger. . . . I don’t really know if that’s why I’m winning, though.”

Slaton’s not counting on 35 starts, however. At the beginning of spring training, he wasn’t even assured of a spot on the roster. And when John Candelaria (who underwent arthroscopic elbow surgery a month ago but says he will be ready to pitch in June) is back, Slaton may again be relegated to the long relief/spot starter role.

“I was always a starter with Milwaukee until the injury, and then they switched me to spot starter/long man,” Slaton said. “And that’s why the Angels traded for me, to fill that role. It’s an important role, but really difficult. You’ll pitch a lot of games in a short period and then go two weeks without seeing action. It’s hardest to adjust to mentally.

“What happens when Candy comes back doesn’t concern me at this point. I can’t control those things and worrying about them just makes my job that much harder. Early in my career, I worried a lot about things I couldn’t control, but then I got hurt and thought I’d never pitch again. Now I just feel fortunate to be playing.

“Anyway, it seems like people on this team have a history of getting hurt and I think Gene Mauch is the kind of manager who will find a way to use me as long as I’m getting hitters out and winning.”

He’s not going to get any argument from Mauch on that point.

“I trust Jim Slaton a great deal,” Mauch said. “I just feel sure he’ll give us a chance to win and our players love to play behind him because they know his heart’s on the line.

“He’s not gonna go out there and pop anybody’s eyeballs out, but he’ll give us a chance to win.”

And maybe a few chuckles along the way.