Learning About Relief : Daughter’s Problem Brings Perspective to Howell

Jay Howell will remember the sound for at least the rest of this baseball season, if not for the rest of his life.

It went deeper than a cheer or a boo. The Dodger relief pitcher did not hear it in a large stadium, but in the darkness of his bedroom.

Beeeeep.

It was the high-pitched squeal of a monitor attached to the chest of his newborn daughter, Dana Christine. After being born five weeks premature Jan. 31, she suffered from episodes of apnea, an irregularity in an infant’s breathing that can cause Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

For two weeks, she remained in the hospital’s intensive care unit. For the next four months, after rocking Dana to sleep, Howell and his wife, Alison, were forced to wrap her in wires. The wires were attached to a device that would wake her--and them--if she underwent respiratory failure.

When she stopped breathing, the alarm went off.

“It was like a fire alarm,” Howell said. “I’ll never forget the way it sounded. It was so loud. We’d jump right up and run right over to her crib and, luckily, it was either a false alarm or she would always wake up and start breathing.

“But I’ve never been so scared. We lived in a constant fear of losing her.”

As is the case with most infants who have been so afflicted, Dana Christine has outgrown the disorder. She breathes regularly. There are no more monitors, no more sleepless nights for her parents.

But her father has been left with the memory of the sound--and a lesson that can be applied on the baseball field.

“I have learned, you do the best with what you can do,” Howell said before this week’s All-Star break. “And then you count your blessings.”

It is with this attitude that he and the Dodgers hope he can survive--even prosper--during the second half of what so far has been the worst season of his career.

Entering tonight’s game against the Chicago Cubs here, Howell is 3-4 with a 3.14 earned-run average and only four saves in nine opportunities. Opponents are batting .287 against him, the second-highest average against a Dodger pitcher with more than two appearances.

Last year, when Howell accumulated a Dodger-record 28 saves, he had an 0.78 ERA at the All-Star break with 15 saves in 17 opportunities.

The difference can be found in more than just his fastball and curveball. . . . It can be found in his left knee and in his right shoulder and in a competitive heart that serves him well when he is sound, but is a curse when he is hurt.

Howell spent part of the first half on the disabled list and part of it on the mound, blowing games in the late innings when he could barely lift his arm or leg.

He also spent part of it in an emotional meeting in Manager Tom Lasorda’s office, wondering if the Dodgers weren’t to blame for his problems--at the same time blaming himself.

“Basically, until recently, Jay was pitching at 70%,” fellow reliever Tim Crews said. “Anybody who watched him closely could tell that. He tried to pitch with pain and it didn’t work, and it is really unfair to compare him to the last couple of years here.”

But mention the word unfair to Howell and he shrugs. At 34, in his 11th major league season, he knows that the word fair cannot be applied to baseball.

Howell refuses to admit to the existence of viable excuses. Upon review of his first half, he has decided that he stunk.

“Please, do not make any excuses for me,” he said. “So things have been tough for me. It is easy to pitch when things are going good. Anybody can pitch then.

“When things are going tough, you find out what kind of person you are. And I have not been productive. Simple as that. I have not done the job.”

Lately that has changed. He has allowed a run in only one of his last seven appearances. Observers say his shoulder appears to be fine, and his knee is nearly recovered.

“I think you will see a huge difference in the second half,” Crews said. “You can see that he is becoming his old self again, throwing the heck out of the ball again.”

But the process will be slow. Admittedly, Howell is returning from the deep.

“And it takes a lot to come out of the water,” said Howell, who believes his shoulder is fine and who hopes to begin running on the knee soon. “It takes something to keep fighting when people have lost confidence in you.”

Howell’s competitive nature is probably up to the fight. It’s what put him in this jam, which began during spring training, when nobody is supposed to be competitive.

In the final days of the shortened training camp at Vero Beach, Fla., Howell pitched one inning against the Atlanta Braves and struck out the side. He might as well have shot himself in the arm.

His shoulder became stiff and he was unavailable for the first six days of the season.

“I knew I overthrew. I knew it was wrong. . . . But when I am out there competing, spring or not, I try to get the guys out,” Howell said. “I forget about everything else.”

At the same time, he was trying to forget about pain in his left knee. Howell admitted that he took a cortisone shot in the knee during spring training, hoping that there was no problem.

On April 21 against Houston at Dodger Stadium, pitching on a knee that was swollen and aching, he allowed two runs in the ninth inning to turn a 5-4 lead into a 6-5 loss.

He took the blame and didn’t mention the knee. Three days later, he underwent arthroscopic surgery to repair a partial cartilage tear caused by years of pitching. He was placed on the disabled list but promised to hurry back.

Unfortunately, he did.

On May 18, capping a remarkable rehabilitation, he pitched two scoreless innings against Philadelphia for a save in his first appearance since the surgery and pronounced himself fit.

The next night, when the Dodgers ran out of pitchers in an 11-inning game against Philadelphia, he allowed three runs in two innings with his shoulder still weak from his month of inactivity.

Until recently, his shoulder had not recovered from this rush job.

“The smart thing to do would have been to tell them no, I could not pitch that second night against Philly,” Howell said. “But what were they going to do, put Eddie Murray on the mound? They didn’t have anybody else. And you know, I almost scuffled through it--almost.”

Howell says that he should have taken more time with the knee rehabilitation.

“I felt I wanted to hurry back; I think I was missed, and I hate not playing,” Howell said. “I gave in to the part of me that loves to compete. Maybe I should have gone slower because the bottom line was, I didn’t give myself a chance to get sharp.

“Whatever happened, it was my fault. I should have stopped it.”

On May 23 in Chicago, he did stop it. After pitching two-thirds of an inning in a save situation, he walked off the field before finishing the game. He said his shoulder was still stiff.

The restraint worked for five days. On a rainy afternoon in Pittsburgh on May 28, he pitched off a slippery mound in the ninth inning with two out and runners on first and second and the Dodgers leading, 5-4.

He walked Don Slaught, then gave up a two-run, game-winning single to Jose Lind in the Dodgers’ most crushing loss of the first half. They had entered the ninth with a 5-1 lead.

The next day, Howell requested an audience with Lasorda. In the emotional session, Howell said that he and his rehabilitation needed to be treated with more consideration.

He told Lasorda that the club shouldn’t take advantage of his competitiveness by asking him to pitch in games where the conditions are not right for a pitcher with a sore shoulder and a still-puffy knee. As Howell recently admitted, he placed some of the blame for his situation on the club.

“I felt then that I had to say something,” Howell said. “I could not keep coming into games in ninth-inning situations while my arm was not ready. Of course, I was mad at them. It was only natural. I thought they were taking advantage of me.”

Lasorda said his response was simple: “I told Jay I would never, ever put a pitcher in a game if he wasn’t healthy. I told him we needed for him to make sure we knew that he wasn’t healthy.”

In 13 appearances since their discussion, not all in pressure situations, Howell is 2-1 with four saves. He has allowed only five runs in 20 innings for a 2.25 ERA.

“Now I have it all in perspective,” Howell said. “Instead of asking them, ‘What are you doing to me?’ I should have been saying, ‘What am I doing to myself?’ I know that I have to call the shots, I have to take responsibility.”

Said Crews: “I think he knows that two wrongs don’t make a right. Sure, the ballclub should have known he was hurting. But he also should have known he was hurting.”

Howell has learned all about hurting this season. He hopes in the second half he can use this knowledge to rediscover baseball happiness.

“My little girl, she’s awesome,” he said. “And I’ve been given a pretty good opportunity to turn things around myself.”