Getting Reoriented : After a Disappointing Season in Japan, Bannister Starts Over With Angels

Floyd Bannister already had more than one sutoraikku against him when the Angels signed the 13-year major league pitcher to a one-year contract in December.

He had spent half of last season in Japan, trying, not altogether convincingly, to prove he could recover from rotator cuff surgery he had undergone in June of 1989.

And he will turn 36 this June. Granted, he is a left-hander, but he still has reached an age at which players are approached by clubs cautiously, if at all.

There was more. Before going to Japan, Bannister had been bought out of the final year of his contract with the Kansas City Royals after making only 14 appearances during the 1989 season, then undergoing surgery for the shoulder problem.

“It was looking pretty bleak,” Bannister said of his situation before last season. “I knew being 34 years old and coming off shoulder surgery like this, it would be tough to get an opportunity.”

With virtually no options in the United States, Bannister played in Japan for the Yakult Swallows, who released him in June, when his half-season contract expired. During his final month with the Swallows, Bannister had started only one game, and spent the rest of his time throwing on the side with an arm that was overworked and tired.

So what was anyone to think last winter, when the Angels signed him to a one-year contract that could be worth $1.15 million this season?

Never mind that Bannister has two 16-victory seasons, despite having spent much of his career with sub-par teams. Never mind that he led the American League in strikeouts with Seattle in 1982, or that he helped the Chicago White Sox win a division title in 1983 by going 13-1 after the All-Star break and winning nine consecutive games.

But the Angels, it turns out, are pleased, and Bannister, a starter all his career, is by all appearances on track to make the opening-day roster as a long reliever.

“He’s got a very good chance of making the team,” said Marcel Lachemann, the Angel pitching coach.

In his first appearance of the spring, Bannister gave up two hits in two innings. In his second two-inning stint, Thursday, he gave up two hits and two runs, but one of the runs was unearned. He also struck out two and walked one.

“He’s throwing the ball very well,” Lachemann said, adding that Bannister is up to at least an average fastball, 88 or 89 m.p.h., and that he has a good changeup and a good curve to left-handed hitters.

“He’s a veteran pitcher who knows how to pitch,” Lachemann said. “He’s also a very, very hard worker.”

If Bannister indeed works his way onto the team, the reward will be substantial: $450,000. It is the first major incentive of a contract whose base salary is $250,000. There are more incentives linked to such things as appearances and starts, should he fill a spot-starter role or break into the rotation.

The seeming mystery is how Bannister is doing so well after faltering in Japan after a 3-0 start.

By the time he left, he had lost two of his last three decisions and ended up on the sidelines.

The answer seems to lie in the ways of the Japanese game of besuboru . Some of its methods can be hard on any pitcher, much less one trying to recover from an injury.

In Japan, the game is conducted under the premise that little is more honorable than work and precision. Drills and practices are esteemed rituals.

As Robert Whiting described it in “You Gotta Have Wa,” his book about Japanese baseball, the slogan used to start a game in Japan shouldn’t be “Play ball!” but “Work ball!”

Bannister agrees.

‘It’s pretty much work, work, work,” he said. “That’s their philosophy. They think hard work is the main way to get better, especially after an injury. They have to practice. It’s more important than winning. They’ll have three-, four-, five-hour practices. The games are very secondary.”

The assembly-line philosophy intrigued Bannister, who has a copy of Whiting’s book.

“They allow ties,” Bannister said. “A 2-2 tie is fine. Nobody wants to go out and embarrass the other team.”

But the infusion of Japanese culture into the American game did not do wonders for rehabilitating his arm.

“I don’t know if they understand how fragile an arm is,” Bannister said, explaining that pitchers threw almost every day, and sometimes threw as many as 150 to 200 pitches on days when they did not pitch in the game.

“A lot of times I would ask guys why they were throwing when some of them had sore arms,” Bannister said. “They would say, ‘Well, it’s my job.’ A lot of them think the older you get, the harder you have to work to retain your skills.”

Drills added to the strain on Bannister’s arm.

“It wasn’t just pitching, it was throwing to the bases, doing fundamental drills,” he said, describing three- and four-hour workouts during the season. “I was doing a lot more throwing because of that.”

Bannister, who was diligent in his rehabilitation after the surgery, had started strong with the Swallows.

“I felt good. I didn’t have any pain or any discomfort,” he said.

As time went by, and the number of pitches added up, that changed.

Finally, with his arm sore, Bannister asked for 10 days off and got it.

“I think they were fearful I might sue,” Bannister said.

When the Swallows sought to sign him to week-to-week contracts after his half-season contract expired, Bannister went home to Paradise Valley, Ariz.

Later, as he worked out in the Arizona instructional league, the Angels decided to sign him. It helped that he knew Manager Doug Rader from when both were in Chicago, and Senior Vice President Dan O’Brien and scout Bob Harrison, both of whom worked in Seattle.

“I caught a break,” Bannister said. “My main goal is get myself in the best shape I can. Other than that, I’m happy first of all to get the opportunity. Opportunities like this don’t come around a lot.”

Bannister said he would be content with a relief role, particularly because left-hander Bob McClure has had injury problems. He is an experienced left-hander who knows American League hitters.

But he acknowledges that he would like the chance to be a starter again beforehis career ends. He hopes to play “a couple or three more years,” he said.

He would like to improve his record of 133-142, a mark that observers have long said does not do justice to his talent.

The Japanese experience had its drawbacks, but it also is part of the reason Bannister is with the Angels now.

“An injury like that normally can pretty much end a guy’s career,” Rader said. “At least he got the opportunity to continue to pitch. It was doubtful any club was going to let him go back to double-A or triple-A to see if he could come back. The whole Japan situation was very much to his benefit.”

Lachemann agreed. “It might have been a blessing in disguise,” he said.

Or, at least, in another language.