Emotional Rescue : Games Are Therapy for Brewer Coach Tony Muser, Burned in Explosion

An hour before Tuesday’s game between the Angels and Milwaukee, Brewer coach Tony Muser was hitting ground balls to Robin Yount and talking baseball with his teammates near the batting cage at Anaheim Stadium.

That Muser was doing anything on this day was a surprise.

On Feb. 27, Muser was caught in the explosion of a natural gas heater and subsequent fire at the Brewers’ spring training facility at Chandler, Ariz., one that injured 10 people and gutted much of the new $1.6 million facility.

The cost to the 38-year-old Muser’s health cannot be quantified. Suffice to say that it changed his life forever.

Muser, a Los Alamitos resident, took the worst of it, suffering second- and third-degree burns over 55% of his upper body.

The story of Muser’s injuries and recovery is painful, graphic, disquieting and inspirational.

Muser is not fully recovered--he’s still not well enough to resume coaching third base during games, but the fact that he’s at the ballpark and in uniform seems to indicate that the worst is behind him.

Muser’s return to baseball is remarkable if only because doctors and friends warned that he would be out the entire season.

“After I started feeling better, I told (Milwaukee General Manager) Harry Dalton I wanted to come back May 9, at Anaheim Stadium,” Muser said. “I’d told him the day after the accident that I wanted to be back by All-Star game time, so maybe I was pushing it, but when I heard the anthem May 9, I cried.

“Before the accident, I weighed 220. At my lowest, I weighed about 155, so I lost a lot of weight. I’m about 187 right now, and, hey, I feel great.”

Muser spent much of the spring at the Arizona Burn Unit in Maricopa and then at the burn unit at UC Irvine, where he underwent various physical therapy processes such as hydrotherapy and skin grafting.

He still sees a physician in Milwaukee but now much of his therapy is the emotional kind. For a baseball man, that means hearing the sound of the crack of the bat.

Muser: “I’m lucky I had baseball to come back to or I would’ve gone crazy. Baseball’s my life--all of my friends are here.

“I’m going to have a nasty scar on my arm for the rest of my life--it’s not something you can forget--but I thank God I’m able to look back on it now, how tough it was laying in that hospital bed.”

Muser is quick to credit his wife, Nancy, for helping keep his spirits up during the darkest moments.

“When I told her later that I didn’t know she could be so tough is when I found out that after she’d seen me all burned up in the hospital, she’d go out in the hallway and cry, but never in front of me,” Muser said.

“You know, I got over 3,500 cards from friends, the public, even old teammates I hadn’t heard from in 20 years or so, and Nancy read every one to me.

“I felt fantastic! Just when you think nobody loves you, when you think you have to go through life’s difficulties all by yourself, you find out that people really do care.”

To say that Muser has a new outlook on life would be an understatement. He said the accident has helped him realize that every moment is precious.

Muser: “I mean, that’s why this Dick Howser thing bothers me. Here he was in the World Series last season and now the series doesn’t mean anything to him, does it?

“You see, sometimes in baseball we take every 2-2 pitch, every 3-2 pitch, every fly ball as life and death, but now I know it’s not. We don’t always stop to think what a great life we have in baseball, whether we’re the manager, star player, 24th man, or one of the coaches.

“Every year after the season I take the family to Yosemite National Park and spend some time up there--it’s under the stars, it’s beautiful, and there’s some great fishing at Tuolumne Meadows.

“This year it’s going to be extra special.”