Young’s Numbers Add Up to a Heavy Billfold

Matt Young’s next scheduled start for the Boston Red Sox, originally set for tonight against the Angels, has been scratched, preempted until Friday in Oakland.

Reason: Stiff left shoulder.

Cause: No, it wasn’t from counting his money.

Poor Matt. Rich Matt. A fool and his money may be parted quickly, but Young and his $6.35 million are irrevocably attached.

You know Nolan Ryan by the number of his no-hitters, now a magnificent seven.

You know Roger Clemens by his numbers in the ERA column, a penny-ante 2.33.

You know Matt Young by the numbers on his contract.

Six-point-three-five million.

That’s $2.15 million a year for the next three years.

Young gets reminded of it, oh, every other hour because he’s not Nolan Ryan and he’s not Roger Clemens--just Matt Young, nine-year, four-city veteran with 54 career victories, 81 career defeats and a 4.26 career ERA, coming off an 8-18 season with Seattle in 1990.

By signing on Lou Gorman’s dotted line last winter, Young became poster boy for an entire movement, the first visual aid trotted out in the Baseball-Has-Lost-Its-Mind-And-Where-Is-Collusion-When-You-Really-Need-It? argument.

What can the Giants be thinking? Ten million for Bud Black?

Yeah, but did you hear the one about Matt Young? . . .

Treatises have been devoted to the theme, with Young popping up on all-overpaid teams all over the country. One publication ran photos of Matt Young and Neil Young side-by-side under the heading “Separated At Worth,” showing that Neil grossed less in 1990 concert-ticket receipts (roughly $2 million) than Matt will earn in 1991.

And Neil had the better year.

If Matt hasn’t seen and heard it all, he’s had close to his fill.

“What can you do?” he says, sitting on the steps of the visitors’ dugout at Anaheim Stadium. “My only reaction to all that was: Obviously, the money is there. I mean, it wasn’t like it was a shotgun negotiation. Is it crazy that a lot of other teams wanted to give me money, too?

“Obviously, somebody saw something they liked.”

Mostly, teams like the way Young throws, which is overhand and left-handed. Do that, keep the ball low and reasonably close to home plate and you’ll never go broke, or jobless, in this country. (Please see Fernando Valenzuela.)

“I expected a lot of offers,” Young says. “A lot of people saw last year that Matt Young was fully recovered from major reconstructive elbow surgery.

“Detroit made an offer. Baltimore. Seattle was still really interested in keeping me. Everything happened so dang fast. Really, it all came together in one day. We were corresponding with the Tigers, we were talking with Baltimore and, then, boom, boom, it’s Boston.

“It was weird. A couple guys signed and it snowballed. I was a second-tier player and once the top guys were gone, teams started thinking, ‘Maybe we better get him before he’s taken, too.’

“I remember sitting in a hotel room with my wife right after I signed and I’m saying, ‘I can’t believe what just took place in the last four hours.”

He wasn’t the only one, as he was to discover during long winter nights of difficult reading.

“At first it didn’t bother me because I was so excited,” he says. “I was oblivious. It gets to you when it begins to bother your wife or your mom or your family, when your family feels like it has to defend you to people. . . .

“Peter Gammons (of the Boston Globe) did a story and talked to some people in Seattle about me. I’m still laughing about what was said. Then, all the other sportswriters picked up on it. Here the Red Sox spend a lot of money and there’s this barrage of negative stories.

“I’m being criticized and I haven’t thrown a pitch. If I fall on my face, let me do it on my own. I don’t need a push. Let me at least throw a ball before you hang me.”

So far, Young has thrown enough balls to complete 55 innings for Boston. His record is 3-3 with a 4.20 ERA--although he had a nine-inning, two-hit no-decision and was 3-1 before his shoulder stiffened. So the jury is still out.

In Boston, where Red Sox fandom is religion, only with twice the guilt, Young can live with that. He claims he hasn’t been booed yet in Fenway, although that’s partly because Jack Clark presently presides as designated target.

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised,” Young says.

Of course, it’s still only June. Traditionally, Fenway fever needs a full summer to ferment. And Young has developed this thing about throwing to first base--he doesn’t--that could lead to trouble. Gorman, the Red Sox general manager, believes it’s a mental block--as a fielder, Young has always been his own worst enemy--and is talking about enlisting the aid of a psychologist to correct the problem, but, hey, we all have our own little quirks.

Young insists he’s properly braced.

“I think after you spend nine years in the big leagues, you become immune to all the negatives,” he says. “Your skin grows pretty thick.”

That, and you learn how to come to your own defense.

“Anybody who knows anything about baseball at least understands that the Red Sox made a move because they had to make a move,” he says. “I’m able to give a team 230, 240 innings a year. That’s a void they had. I’m a left-handed pitcher. They needed a left-handed pitcher. . . .

“You know, if you take my year last year, everything but the wins and losses, you say, ‘Hey, this guy had a pretty good year.’ (Young pitched 225 innings and had a 3.51 ERA.) My record was the one thing I have no control over. You never know what your run support is going to be on that specific day.”

But is that worth $6.35 million?

The Red Sox said yes. For Young, that was all he had to hear.

As for the rest, $6.35 million buys a lot of earplugs.