Ape’s World : Kansas City Pitcher’s Unorthodox Formula for Success Results in a Winning Equation

Kansas City Royals pitcher Mike Magnante thought it could wait until morning, but teammate Kevin Appier was persistent.

As with most of Appier’s questions, this one was complex. Appier wanted to know how long it would take the force of gravity to accelerate an object from zero to the speed of light.

He had rushed to Magnante’s hotel room and implored the Burroughs High graduate to figure out the formula on the spot. After rapid calculations, Magnante, who earned a degree from UCLA in applied mathematics, came up with the answer--30,600,000 seconds.

“The funny thing was,” Magnante recalled, “he had already figured it out. He just wanted to see if I could do it.”

Competitive and quirky, Appier, from Lancaster, is one of the American League’s best young right-handers since sticking with the Royals over the past 67,593,600 seconds or since May, 1990.

When he pitches, Appier, 24, is so intense that teammates keep their distance. When he is not pitching, his mind wanders.

Teammates call these states of wonder, “Ape’s World.”

“He’ll come up with a bizarre thing, not dealing with baseball,” Royal pitcher Mark Gubicza said. “Something about the shapes of the clouds or subatomic particles.”

Gubicza, a Northridge resident, appreciates Appier’s individualism.

“You don’t want everyone to be the same,” he said. “It’s not that he doesn’t talk about the game.”

In fact, Appier has attempted to apply his scientific musings to baseball.

“For a while, he was figuring out a way, through physics, to throw the ball harder,” Gubicza said.

On days he pitches, Appier restricts his interests to the task at hand.

“He’ll get himself on game day into his own little world,” Royal pitching Coach Guy Hansen said. “Sometimes it’s tough to get into that world. It’s not anything negative, it’s just that he takes things so very seriously.”

Hansen, the Taft High and UCLA graduate who signed Appier out of Antelope Valley College in 1987, has learned how to enter “Ape’s World.”

“Because he’s very smart, a rap session can be complicated,” Hansen said. “He loves information and he wants information, but over the course of a game, I have to be concise because he’s so locked into the game.”

For Appier, pitching is a personality-altering process.

“You open yourself up to be aware of only as many things as you need to be aware of,” he said. “On the mound, it’s so intense. I’m a lot meaner than I am off the field.”

Appier’s mean streak enabled him to excel despite the Royals’ 1-16 start. Through five starts, he was 0-2, but with a 1.27 earned-run average. In both losses, the Royals were shut out, 1-0.

Eventually, his teammates increased their run production and Appier boosted his record to 10-3 with a 2.33 ERA, third-best in the league. His 95 strikeouts, including 10 against the Boston Red Sox on July 7, rank him fifth in the league.

“I’d love to have his future,” Oakland A’s Manager Tony LaRussa said. “He’s got the No. 1 spot in the rotation and he’s handling the pressure well.”

Impressed by Appier in spring training, Royal Manager Hal McRae scrapped plans to start Mike Boddicker in the season opener and went with Appier.

Appier welcomed the opportunity to replace ace Bret Saberhagen, who was traded to the New York Mets.

“I guess there’s more pressure,” Appier said. “But I put so much pressure on myself that any more pressure by people is absorbed.”

After going 13-10 with a 3.42 ERA in 1991, his first full season in the major leagues, Appier attributes his improvement to a combination of experience and more consistent rhythm and mechanics.

The Appier attack is three-pronged: a fastball ranging between 87 and 91 m.p.h., a split-finger fastball and a slider.

“His slider has terrific action,” Hansen said. “It comes in tight with a spin like a fastball that makes it tough for a hitter to read.”

Appier also has learned to vary his release point. In spring training, he developed two distinct angles, a three-quarter arm position, and a slightly higher position in which he releases the ball nearly overhand.

“Once you go through the lineup a couple times, you gotta go to a different angle to show the hitter something new,” Hansen said. “So he has three pitches from two angles and a good feel for either angle. And on any given day, one pitch can be exceptional.

“One day in Texas, his slider was off, so he threw 34 split-finger fastballs. So not only can he get you out with his stuff, when his stuff is gone, he can get you out with deception.”

In 130 innings this season, Appier has issued only 38 walks and has not given up more than 61 walks in any of his five pro seasons.

With men on base, Hansen said Appier “steps up his stuff” and becomes even more accurate.

“If Kevin’s not the best, he’s one of the best out of the stretch position,” Hansen said.

In one way, Appier can be compared to former Cy Young Award winner Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Like Gibson, Appier does not drag his trail foot along the ground, which causes him to fall off to the first-base side of the mound after he releases the ball.

“It’s not what you would call a quality fielding position,” Hansen said. “But I think we’ll take the trade-off. He could probably throw strikes standing on his head.”

Hansen is concerned that Appier’s unorthodox follow-through is putting undue strain on his back and shoulders but is not eager to change it.

“With the way he’s going, I’d be subject to being fired if I tinkered with him now,” Hansen said.

Appier planned on becoming a major-leaguer as a Little Leaguer.

“That’s what I based my life around,” Appier said.

Winter ball, spring ball and summer ball weren’t enough; Appier jogged and threw on his own. His brother Steve, eight years Kevin’s senior, was a primary source of motivation.

Appier, who was not drafted out of Antelope Valley High in 1985, accepted a scholarship to Fresno State.

But he didn’t like Fresno and after compiling an 8.53 ERA in three appearances for the Bulldogs, Appier went home to Lancaster and enrolled at Antelope Valley College.

“He’s a once-in-a-lifetime coach’s dream,” former Antelope Valley College Coach Ted Henkel said. “We were so compatible and he was so coachable.”

With Henkel’s guidance, Appier increased the speed on his fastball from 85 m.p.h. to the low 90s.

Soon, a caravan of professional scouts was following the Marauders to Western State Conference games in Ventura, Valencia and Van Nuys.

“Sometimes there were 26 (radar) guns pointed at him,” Henkel said. “I was very worried. With all those people following him, a young man could get nervous. But the farther he got in a game, the stronger he got. If you didn’t get to Kevin Appier in the first three innings, that’s all she wrote.”

After going 11-6 with a 2.65 ERA, including 161 strikeouts and only 34 walks in 136 innings for Antelope Valley College, Appier was selected by the Royals with the ninth overall pick of the June, 1987, draft.

Appier moved rapidly through the Royals’ minor league system and made his major league debut June 4, 1989. In a 5-1 loss to the Angels, he gave up eight hits and four runs in 5 1/3 innings. On June 13, he earned his first win, over Oakland.

In his next four appearances, Appier went 0-3, his ERA soared to 9.13 and he was sent back to triple-A Omaha (Neb.) on the Fourth of July.

“When I first got called up, I had no idea I would go back down,” Appier said. “And then when I went down, it was really rough.”

While he was in Kansas City, Appier’s pitching arm lacked vigor. The “dead arm” syndrome, as it is known, flared throughout his minor league career. He also had difficulty throwing his slider for strikes.

Appier finished the ’89 campaign in Omaha with an 8-8 mark and 3.95 ERA, then discovered the source of his arm problems during instructional league.

“I was talking to coaches and players and I noticed when we sat down and analyzed my pitching career that there was a pattern,” Appier said. “Each year, the dead arm periods were longer. I wondered if my arm was breaking down because it had no chance to build back up.”

In a successful effort to rid the “dead arm” episodes, Appier began an extensive weight training program.

In 1990, he started the season in Omaha, and after posting a 2-0 mark with a 1.50 ERA, he was promoted to the Royals--this time to stay. In late July, Appier hit his stride, winning six in a row.

The Sporting News rookie pitcher of the year, Appier wound up with a 12-8 record, three shutouts and a 2.76 ERA. In balloting for the the A.L. rookie of the year, he finished third behind the Cleveland Indians’ Sandy Alomar Jr. and the New York Yankees’ Kevin Maas.

In spite of such accolades, Appier lacks name recognition. It doesn’t help that he plays in a small market for a struggling team.

An All-Star game appearance could have been Appier’s coming-out party. But reliever Jeff Montgomery was selected as the lone Royal representative this season.

Without a national stage, Appier could remain unsung. Certainly he isn’t talking much.

“Sometimes, you can get me going, but a lot of times I’m really quiet,” Appier said. “I’m kinda weird because I’m quiet.”

In Ape’s World, weird is the norm. And so is good pitching.