Langston Gets the Money, and Also Takes the Blame

When you get $3,350,000 to pitch in the big leagues, get signed with a big fanfare and are, like, the second- or third-highest paid pitcher in the game, what do you do when you suddenly can’t get anybody out, can’t seem to get ahead of the hitters, are always pitching out of a jam and, before you know it, are suddenly looking more like a 20-game loser than a 20-game winner?

What you do if you’re most pitchers is, you blame the mound, the wind, the weather, the town, your teammates, catcher, the manager, sun spots, the administration, front office. Anybody.

The grass is too green. Too long. The umps are squeezing the strike zone on you. It’s jealousy. Envy. The league has it in for you. You find someone to blame.

At the very least, you decide your arm is sore. Never mind that it doesn’t show up on the X-ray or the MRI, what do the doctors know? It’s your arm, isn’t it? You ought to know when it hurts. And it hurts like hell when you’re 5-15.

When all of the above happened to Mark Langston, he ran true to form. He found someone to blame.

Mark Langston.

Mark found his enemy right in the mirror. He didn’t blame his infield, his outfield, his arm, the umpires. He didn’t break up the locker-room furniture with a baseball bat. He didn’t snarl at the press, snub fans, hide in the trainer’s room. Even when his former manager, Dick Williams, sneered that he was not surprised, Langston held his counsel.

It wasn’t as if Mark Langston were used to failure. He once won 19 games pitching for a Seattle team that could charitably be called mediocre, and in a park--the Kingdome--that could charitably be called snug. Three of his first four years in the majors, he led the league in strikeouts and the fourth year he was on the disabled list with a sore elbow.

He struck out 10 or more batters a game 37 times in his career. He once struck out 16 batters in a game. He threw a one-hitter. He was to share (with Mike Witt) a no-hitter.

He was always in shape. His fastball was in the 95-m.p.h. range and it hopped. His slider looked like the fastball till the last instant.

If ever a player looked worth the $3-million price tag, Mark Langston was it. He was only 30, he was only going to get better.

He got worse. Hardly had he put on the Angels’ uniform than the horror film began. Mark Langston went from June 5 to Aug. 1 without winning a game. His record went from 4-5 to 4-13. His ERA went into the stratosphere. You couldn’t tell his ERA from his Social Security number. The only complete game he threw in that period, he lost.

The fastball fluttered. The slider slid out of the strike zone.

The fans became sarcastic, then abusive, then outraged. “Hey, Langston, exactly what is it you do for a living?” they jeered. “Hey, Langston, how much do you charge for a home run?” Actually, his home run ratio wasn’t bad--he allowed only 13 in 223 innings and the major league record is 50. “Hey, Langston, did they pay you $3 million to throw batting practice?”

“It was embarrassing,” Mark Langston recalled the other night. “It was worse--it was humiliating.”

Did his arm hurt? he was asked.

Langston smiled. “I wish I could say it did. No, I just started to get behind on the count. It’s very hard to make your pitches when it’s two and oh or three and one on the hitter. The hitter has all the advantage. You have to make pitches you don’t want to make.”

The hitters, in short, were playing with house money. While Langston was like a guy trying to make up big losses at the table with reckless chances.

“The art of pitching is pitching from ahead,” he said. “What happened was, I became more of a defensive pitcher. I didn’t lose my fastball, I lost my confidence.”

His mechanics got screwed up, too, he advised. It was almost as if he had been pitching off his toes, not the flat of his feet. “I was trying to make perfect pitches. I was making the pitches too fine. Instead of going at people, I was trying to nibble them out of there.”

One result was 104 walks, fifth most in the league. A result of that was 109 earned runs, second most in the league.

He turned it around when he hit 5-15. “I went back to cassettes of me pitching in Seattle,” he said. “It almost looked like a different person. Latch (Angel pitching coach Marcel Lachemann) and I studied my form then.”

They discovered he had turned himself from a power pitcher to a toe dancer. It was as if he should be wearing a tutu. It was almost as if he were trying to smuggle the ball past the batter.

He managed to right himself, to get down off his toes and drive the ball again. He finished the season much more respectably, winning five and losing two. He pitched two complete games in the final weeks, one a shutout. He beat Nolan Ryan at Arlington, Tex., 3-2.

Someone computed that Langston lost three games by 2-1 scores and one by 2-0. The team got 18 runs for him in his 17 lost games. But they also computed that opposing batters hit .375 against him with the count 2 and 0 and .441 when the count ran to 3 and 1.

For Mark Langston, 1991 is starting out more promising. He’s 2-1 with one complete game, 24 strikeouts in 31 innings. On the other hand, the ERA is still a troubling 4.26. He hopes at least to reverse 10-17. Maybe pitch the Angels into a World Series.

If he doesn’t, however, don’t look for him to blame the economy, the government, the smog, war in the Persian Gulf, the environment or the traffic. He’ll blame the same guy he did last year. The guy with the ball.