Crim Rises to the Top Along With Milwaukee

Boston Red Sox slugger Jim Rice stepped to the plate and looked menacingly down his bat at Milwaukee’s rookie pitcher as if to say, “Welcome to the big leagues, kid.”

So began Chuck Crim’s major league debut.

The former Thousand Oaks High pitcher recorded his first big-league strikeout moments later, fanning Rice on a hanging slider, and went on to pitch two hitless innings for his first victory in the majors.

“I thought I’d go out there and hyperventilate,” Crim, 25, said in a phone interview last week. “But when I struck out Jim Rice, it took the monkey off my back. It was an unbelievable feeling.”

As unbelievable as the feeling Crim got after the Brewers opened the season with a major league record-tying 13 straight victories, two of which were his.

And as unbelievable as the way Crim felt when Manager Tom Trebelhorn told him he had made the club in spring training.

It’s all been so unlikely.

Crim, who returns to California tonight for the Brewers’ series against the Angels on Monday and Tuesday, wasn’t originally invited to spring training. He was packing his bags for minor-league camp, wondering if he’d ever make it to the majors, when he got the call .

“How quick can you get here?” asked Bruce Manno, the Brewers’ director of minor-league personnel. An injury at the Brewers’ camp in Arizona had created an opening for another player.

“I arrived the next day and started to fire,” Crim said.

He made the first cut, then the second, and by the time the Cactus League season ended, Crim was 2-0 with a 1.08 earned-run average in 16 innings.

“It came down to me and Mark Ciardi,” Crim said, “and then Pete Vuckovich retired and both of us made the club. It was unbelievable.

“I came to camp as a fill-in and I pitched myself into the big leagues, really. Because I was a non-roster player, I wasn’t expected to make it. It was a Cinderella story.”

The glass spikes have fit perfectly. During Milwaukee’s winning streak, Crim compiled a minuscule 0.68 ERA. In five appearances as the pitching staff’s long reliever, Crim has allowed just one run, striking out seven in 13 innings.

Crim compiled similar statistics weekly when he was pitching Thousand Oaks into the Southern Section 4-A Division semifinals eight years ago. He earned a scholarship to the University of Hawaii after that season and went 15-0 his freshman year for the Rainbows, leading them to the College World Series.

Crim was 9-4 his sophomore year at Hawaii, 11-3 as a junior and was hoping to go in one of the first three rounds of the baseball draft. To his disappointment, he wasn’t picked until the 17th round by Milwaukee.

“I think there was some hanky-panky going on,” Crim said. “I think someone said something to the scouts about me wanting to go back to college for my senior year. There were some rumors.”

Crim signed anyway.

“I wanted to play professional baseball. I didn’t care how much I was paid,” Crim said. “But I guarantee you, I was the highest-paid 17th-round draft pick.”

Crim started at the bottom--rookie ball in Pikeville, Ky.--and worked his way up each season, reaching the Triple-A level at Vancouver in 1985.

He was invited to the Brewers’ camp the following spring but only pitched two innings and was one of the first players sent back to the minors. He began the 1986 season with Vancouver, but after eight appearances was sent down to Double-A ball in El Paso, Tex.

“I was real upset,” Crim said. “It was the first time I had to deal with something like that, and I didn’t take it well at all because there was no reason for it.”

Six weeks later he was back in Vancouver, in time to pitch eight scoreless innings in the Pacific Coast League championship series. He finished the season with three wins, six saves and a 2.24 ERA.

And no invitation to spring training.

“All they saw were the numbers,” Crim said. “I just had a lot of hard luck going.”

Then he got the call and his luck changed.

And so, apparently, have the Brewers’ fortunes. Picked by many to finish near the bottom of the American League East, they are the toast of baseball.

“We can’t wait to get on the field right now. It’s like we have something to prove,” Crim said. “We have so much confidence. The 13-game streak did that for us. We’ve gotten some respect now.”

Crim credits much of his success to a newly developed sinker, which he claims has made him more aggressive.

“I throw it inside to right-handed batters, whether it’s Jim Rice, Cal Ripken, or whoever,” Crim said. “I don’t think they’re used to it. I go after them.”

Crim lives in Milwaukee during the season with his wife, Deanne, and 6-month-old son, Cody. Even though he is making the major league minimum of $62,500, he is more than content.

“I could easily be back in Vancouver watching all of this,” Crim said. “You have to pinch yourself to make sure it’s real. It’s like a dream come true.”