Years of Struggle Now Worth It for Stewart

Dave Stewart has been struggling lately. He wasn’t impressive in the All-Star game, and Saturday in Toronto the ace of the Oakland A’s pitching staff was rocked for six runs in four innings.

After he yielded only seven homers in his first 139 innings, the Blue Jays ripped three off him.

Tony LaRussa might be worried if the pitcher were anybody other than Stewart. The A’s manager has learned to put his faith in the 32-year-old right-hander, who after years of struggle has put together the kind of seasons that have gained him status as a survivor and an achiever.

The only major-league pitcher to win 20 or more games the past two years, Stewart (13-5) is on pace to do so again.

Success has come fairly late in the brief span allowed the pro athlete, and that seems to have made it sweeter for Stewart. He knows he came close to being out of baseball and, having turned his career around, he respects himself without being boastful.

“If I could have planned things for myself, I would have done these things eight years ago,” Stewart said last week while in the company of an All-Star team for the first time in his big-league life. “But things come along slower than that.”

So slowly in his case that a little more than three years ago, early in the ’86 season, he was released by the Philadelphia Phillies. He was 29, just coming off elbow surgery, and the Texas Rangers had quit on him the preceding season after he was 0-6.

Stewart hadn’t won a game since ’84 and that wasn’t a very good year for him either, a 7-14 record with a 4.73 ERA.

He was making more news off the field than on it. There was a near-fight in the clubhouse with Doug Rader, then managing the Rangers, and Stewart was arrested in Los Angeles for publicly soliciting someone he didn’t realize was a transvestite.

While the arrest made him a target for laughs, the release by the Phillies hurt most of all.

“When you get released, initially you think somebody’s crazy,” Stewart said. “But after a while when nobody is knocking at your door, you start to worry.”

The A’s, who were having pitching problems, signed him to a Triple-A contract in late May 1986. He made one appearance for the Tacoma Tigers and was called up by Oakland.

Stewart was floundering, mostly pitching out of the bullpen, when the A’s made a managerial switch in early July from Jackie Moore to LaRussa.

July 7, 1986, was to be the key date in Stewart’s career. It was LaRussa’s first game managing the A’s and he needed a starting pitcher that night in Boston to go against a red-hot Roger Clemens in a nationally televised game. Although he allowed four runs in six innings, Stewart won.

Although he has pitched many better games for the A’s since, that was the starting point. Stewart credits La Russa with rescuing him from pitching obscurity.

“It’s the best manager-player relationship I ever had. The difference is the ability to be able to talk and say what I think and not be punished for having the thoughts I have,” Stewart said.

Last season Stewart was all that a manager wants in a No. 1 pitcher, leading the majors in starts, 37, and innings pitched, 275.

The top individual prize, the Cy Young Award, has escaped him. Clemens won in ‘87, when Stewart thought he should have won it, and last year it went to Frank Viola. Stewart agreed with the selection of Viola.

LaRussa had no control over the Cy Young voting. But as the American League manager in the All-Star game, he did have control over who would be his starting pitcher.

There was considerable public sentiment for 42-year-old Nolan Ryan, who had a remarkable first half and was returning to the scene of many of his triumphs after not having pitched for the California Angels for 10 years.

LaRussa chose Stewart. “To me, there was no question the guy most deserving was Dave Stewart,” LaRussa said. “I thought a lot about Nolan Ryan and I join in the thinking of everybody else. He’s something special. But so is Dave Stewart.”

Stewart said he wouldn’t have been offended if La Russa had chosen Ryan. “I didn’t see a problem with him going with Nolan Ryan,” Stewart said. “He’s done some things in this game. To me it seems the man can pitch as long as he wants. He still throws the ball as good as any 18- or 19-year-old I know.”

Nor was Ryan offended by not starting. “I really didn’t have feelings about it one way or the other,” he said. “And I think they picked the right person. After all, he does have the most wins in the league.”