AILING, FAILING : Angels’ Cliburn Wonders If He’ll Ever Play Again

This is the fourth year that Stewart Cliburn has spent at least part of his summer here in this Alberta city, playing baseball for the Trappers, the Angels’ Triple-A team.

He knows about the weather, which can go from good to bad quickly. He knows about the residents, about the nicest people this side of Brigadoon.

He knows the good restaurants and the happening night spots. He even knows how to walk through West Edmonton Mall--the world’s largest, with 400 stores, amusement park, water slide, wave pool and lagoon with four submarines, one more than the Canadian Navy--without getting lost.

Cliburn knows all he wants to know about Edmonton. The city that a few years ago was a steppingstone for a promising young pitcher now seems a heavy rock tied around a 30-year-old man’s neck.

In eight minor league seasons, pitching in places such as Shreveport, La.; Nashua, N.H., and Holyoke, Mass., as well as Edmonton, Cliburn had compiled less than spectacular statistics but had gained a reputation for hard work and perseverance.

Then in 1985, Cliburn, whose most conspicuous achievement to that time had been pitching his high school team to the Mississippi state championship with the help of his catcher and twin brother, Stan, found himself pitching for the Angels. Not the Midland Angels, the Salem Angels or the Quad City Angels, but the California Angels.

He pitched 99 innings in 44 games, usually in middle relief. He compiled a 9-3 record with 6 saves and a 2.09 earned-run average. He was a leading candidate for American League rookie of the year.

“Some reporters told me I had a good shot at winning it,” he said. “I said, ‘Really? No kidding!’ I hadn’t even thought of that. I was just so happy to be there in the big leagues. Anything else was frosting.”

Cliburn didn’t win the award--Chicago White Sox shortstop Ozzie Guillen did--but he felt he had gained something much more important: Security.

“No doubt, it was the happiest year of my life,” Cliburn said.

So grateful was he that when the pain began in his right shoulder in spring training of 1986, Cliburn pretended not to feel it.

Even when he could no longer deny the pain to himself, though, he tried to hide it from others.

“I should not have been pitching,” Cliburn said. “There was no pop on my fastball. The pain just kept getting worse. But I had put all this pressure on myself. I was so hungry, I never wanted to see the minor leagues again.”

He began spring training with shoulder bursitis, then developed an aching triceps muscle and finished the exhibition season with a 9.00 ERA. By April 22, he was on the disabled list with tendinitis--in Edmonton.

He didn’t make it back to the Angels last season. He pitched in only 20 games, logging just 23innings, for the Trappers. His 6.94 ERA and 1-2 record seemed to have canceled all his good work in1985.

“It was the lowest point of my life,” Cliburn said.

The spring of 1987 wasn’t much better. His right shoulder still hurt, his fastball--usually 89 to 90 m.p.h.--was clocked in the low 80s. What he had hoped to hide from in ‘86, he bitterly accepted in ’87.

“I saw it coming that I wouldn’t make the team,” he said. “I had read where Gene Mauch said Cliburn would pitch for the Angels if he was healthy. I wasn’t healthy. This season has almost been as bad as last season.”

Cliburn pitched 19 innings in 16 games for the Trappers, posting 8 saves and a 1.89 ERA, but removed himself from a game in early July with pain in his right shoulder.

He is on the disabled list again.

It was cold, damp and gloomy an hour before the Trappers were to play the Las Vegas Stars in a Pacific Coast League game in Edmonton’s John Ducey Park.

The park is a cozy place that tends to destroy pitchers. The Trappers’ Todd Fischer gave up 10 runs in a recent game, then took a bat to a trash can for a few minutes.

“It’s ridiculous,” said DeWayne Buice, an Angel reliever who played for the Trappers. “I’ve seen so many pop flies go out for home runs that it’s a joke. If a pitcher has a 4.50 ERA in that place, he’s doing a real good job.”

It can also get a bit uncomfortable if you’re a fan. Though the noon-day temperatures had been in the high 70s, it had dropped into the 50s by game time.

“It’s sick when you can see your breath in the middle of July,” one spectator said.

Cliburn made his way through the dugout, holding all the equipment he would need for the night’s game--a clipboard.

His silk Trapper jacket was snapped all the way up, so it was impossible to tell if he was wearing a uniform shirt. He wouldn’t need it, anyway.

He sat on the steps of the dugout, his back against the wall, charting pitches, thinking dark thoughts about his future. These days, that’s all he has.

“It’s becoming very scary,” Cliburn said. “I wonder if I’m ever going to get better, if I’m ever going to be totally healthy again. I think about 1985 and I wonder if I’m ever going to be like that again.”

His daily routine at the ballpark has become ultra-sound treatments on his arm and shoulder, massages and running.

“With nothing to do, no games to pitch in, I wonder if the Angels have forgotten about me,” he said. “And if they haven’t forgotten, I wonder if they just figure I’m a guy they can’t depend on because I’m always getting hurt.”

Mike Port, Angel general manager, said he has not forgotten Cliburn.

“We are aware of the progress of every player in our organization,” he said. “I can understand Stewart’s perspective since he’s not getting an opportunity to put the numbers up and he’s not getting phone calls from Anaheim every day.”

When Cliburn’s shoulder was injured in 1986, Mauch said that it was not a question whether Cliburn would make the Angels, just a question of when he would be able to do so. Port tends to agree but has tempered hope with an eye to the medical reports.

“The most important thing for Stewart is to get healthy,” Port said. “He’s been diligent about his progress. We’d like to see him reach the position he did two years ago. I’m sure he would, too. Ultimately, time will tell.”

Cliburn made his first appearance in a major league game in 1984 against the Kansas City Royals. He had been called up late in the season when major league teams are allowed to expand their rosters to 40 players. The Angels were down by seven runs late in the game at Anaheim Stadium, which meant Cliburn would get a chance.

But in the half-inning before Cliburn’s appearance, Reggie Jackson hit his 500th home run. When the Angel half of the inning was over, a microphone was put on the field, and owner Gene Autry made his way out to congratulate Reggie. All the while, Cliburn was throwing. When Jackson made his way to the microphone, Angel third baseman Doug DeCinces made his way toward Cliburn.

“Take your time,” he said. “This will take a while.”

The way Cliburn sees things these days from Edmonton, his time may be running out.