The Lonely Road Back : One of the Most Painful Aspects of Orel Hershiser’s Recovery Is the Sense of Isolation From His Dodger Teammates

It hit him when surgeons stuck that first needle into his right shoulder on the morning of April 27: Orel Hershiser realized his life was changing.

Lying in a hospital bed, with his wife, Jamie, nearby, and feeling the anesthetic enter the muscle, he suddenly saw how this impending surgery would affect more than his shoulder.

And he began to cry. From what he was told--because he was soon too woozy to remember--he cried for an hour.

“It was like I finally realized the impact of what they were about to do,” Hershiser said.

Nearly three months have passed since doctors reconstructed a pitching shoulder so damaged by overuse that he may never pitch effectively again. Hershiser has not cried since.

His life, not merely as a pitcher but as a person, has not been the same, either.

“I am with a team, but I am not a player,” he said recently, shaking his head. “I am as alone as I have been in a long time.”

Most baseball players on the disabled list still do everything with the team except play. Hershiser has proved that in sickness, as in health, he is not like most baseball players.

The man who did not miss any of 195 career starts before the surgery can no longer stand to even watch a game. Both at home and on the road, where he joins the team to work on his rehabilitation exercises with therapist Pat Screnar, Hershiser leaves the stadium before the third inning.

He is not avoiding traffic, but frustration.

“I might watch the game on the clubhouse television set for a couple of innings, but then I have to leave before I get too tied up in it,” he said. “It’s just too hard to watch.”

The most recognizable Dodger has worn a uniform only twice since the surgery, both times for promotional purposes. Hershiser no longer goes into the dugout. He refuses to step onto the field.

“I have no purpose on the field,” he said. “There is nothing there that can help me, and just being there can frustrate me.”

The team leader who used to form impromptu clubhouse discussion groups about strategies can no with his teammates. He might still offer a bit of quiet advice to a pitcher, but otherwise he hovers outside circles of teammates.

“No one can relate to a ballplayer except another ballplayer who is active,” Hershiser said. “How can I talk with them about rivalries? My only rivalry now is with weights.

“How can I talk about hitters, experiences, grudges? How can I say anything about something I’m not doing?”

Hershiser sighed and said, “Whatever I say to them, it’s like them getting it from a fan.”

Those who catch glimpses of him arriving when the rest of the team is taking batting practice, or leaving before the first pitch, might say his presence is as fleeting as a ghost’s. Hershiser might agree with them.

“I think when you are on the disabled list, your mind can play tricks on you,” he said. “Sometimes, I think that’s happened to me.”

On a typical day in St. Louis last week, Hershiser stayed in his hotel room until about noon, working on his Bible study and, later, his business investments. He then joined a couple of players for lunch. Together they walked through a mall.

He returned to his room and realized he didn’t have anything else to do. So he walked to the ballpark and put in his 90 minutes of rehabilitation before batting practice. He showered, changed, then watched a couple of innings of the game on the clubhouse television.

Once again, having nothing else to do, he returned to the hotel to spend the rest of the evening alone.

“In the beginning, I did a lot of things to keep myself mentally occupied, like sorting through videotapes, framing old pictures, cleaning up a lot of things from 1988, stuff like that,” he said. “But now, I’m running out of things.”

His teammates wish he would not isolate himself. But they understand.

“I know it’s a shallow feeling being on the disabled list,” catcher Mike Scioscia said. “You don’t feel part of anything, good or bad. It’s lonely. I can guess what Orel must be going through.

“But we don’t look at Orel any differently. Friendships extend beyond the field. We still look at him foremost as a friend.”

Yet at least one teammate said Hershiser knows what he is doing, and it is for the best.

“If Orel was on the bench all the time, it would be an instant reminder of, ‘If only we had him healthy, how much better would we be?’ ” pitcher Tim Belcher said. “With him staying away like he is, there is no tease.

“Now, it’s like, when we get him back next year, it will be like a new acquisition. Like a free agent or something.”

Even his brief appearances pain Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda.

“Seeing him around here is like going through a buffet line where you can’t eat,” Lasorda said. “To see a guy like that who can’t pitch, it hurts a little bit.”

So Hershiser continues his routine of weights and exercises in attempted obscurity, enveloped in the singular challenge of returning to the mound next season. Most times, his only company is the constant questions:

--Does the shoulder still hurt? When, if ever, will he come back?

The shoulder does not hurt. Hershiser said that for the first time since he began averaging 243 innings a year in his first full season in 1984, he wakes up every morning with no aches, no stiffness, no pain.

This part is driving him crazy.

Screnar said: “Every other day, he says, ‘Let me go throw, it feels fine.’ I tell him he can throw, but he is not ready to throw. The strength is not there.”

Hershiser is tentatively scheduled to begin light throwing on the sidelines next month. He claims that if the Dodgers make the World Series, he would be ready to pitch then.

“I would try it, too,” Hershiser said. “Maybe that would be where Dr. (Frank) Jobe pins me on the table, but I would try it.”

Hershiser acknowledges that even he has no idea if he will ever pitch again.

“I could feel fine now, feel fine pitching batting practice, feel fine in intrasquad games . . . but nobody is going to know until I face my first official batter in a regular-season game situation,” he said. “I am an optimist, but I am also a realist.”

--If, seven years ago, he had known that prolonged use of his arm would cause his shoulder deterioration, would he have thrown so many innings? And when the shoulder hurt throughout his first four starts this season, why didn’t he take himself out?

“Yes, I would pitch the same way again, absolutely, no regrets,” Hershiser said. “I was paid to be a pitcher, and so I pitched when I was supposed to pitch. That’s how it works, and that’s how I would do it again.”

When asked about the amount of pain he silently endured earlier this year, he paused. He would not describe it. And he would not say he would not pitch with pain again.

“Pain is part of the game, and playing with pain is part of the game,” he said. “Dr. Jobe has asked me to watch myself in the future. It’s like, if we go into the sixth or seventh inning and we have a big lead, what’s the big deal if I come out?

“I told him I would try. But it will be very, very hard.”

--What about other major league pitchers, including Dodgers, who have taken themselves out of games early because of fear that a shoulder could be damaged?

Hershiser said if that fear is the reason those players are leaving games, they are wrong.

“The problem is, as salaries go up, players are becoming more like corporations, all measuring and worrying about their assets and liabilities,” he said. “Thinking that way can hurt the game. The players lose the all-or-nothing attitude that got them to the big leagues.”

Besides, Hershiser said, he is not a perfect example of the problems of arm overuse.

“For one thing, the reason I was hurt was because I am hyperelastic, meaning I’m almost double-jointed,” he said. “My joints go beyond the normal flexibility, so I take more of a pounding.

“Players should run their lives by themselves, and not look at me. I know I don’t run my life because of some other player.”

Hershiser will collect his guaranteed salary of $1.6 million this season and $2.8 million next season. His off-the-field businesses have also not suffered much, although he lost contracts involving two of his television commercials.

“If you’ll notice, I am not walking around like I have been handed some life-crushing blow,” he said. “I have not been wiped off the face of the Earth.”

But more often than not, there are times like the evening he left Dodger Stadium early and spent the rest of the night backstage at a Janet Jackson concert. He posed for pictures with Jackson. He had a great time. The next morning, his wife ran into their bedroom and excitedly handed him the newspaper.

“I saw where that same night, Fernando Valenzuela had thrown a no-hitter,” Hershiser said. “I could not believe it.”

Hershiser rushed out, had the newspaper framed and presented it to Valenzuela as a gift that afternoon in the Dodger clubhouse. Valenzuela thanked him, shortly before Hershiser disappeared.