Mean, Leaner Machine : No-Nonsense Beck Shaping Up as Stopper for San Francisco

Rod Beck hears. He just doesn’t listen. Not in these situations, when the noise from a crowd of thousands is lost in the pulsating sound of his own heartbeat.

He is on the pitching mound, standing before his manager, Roger Craig, who is poised with baseball in hand.

The San Francisco Giants are locked in a close game and Craig, a veteran of 35 major league seasons as a coach and player, dutifully summarizes the situation in his slow, Southern drawl.

“OK, we’re up by one. One out, man on second. . . .”

But his words are met by only an impatient, outstretched hand and Beck’s focused stare.

“Half the time I know he doesn’t hear a thing I say,” Craig said, chuckling, before a game at Dodger Stadium over the weekend. “He just wants the ball. He’s like, ‘Give me the ball!’ “

And so, with increasing regularity, Craig does exactly that.

Before a no-hitter on Monday by the Dodgers’ Kevin Gross staved off a Giant sweep, the series had served as a showcase for Beck, a 24-year-old from Grant High in Van Nuys.

The Giants posted one-run victories in the first three games with Beck earning a save in each.

It could be a preview. Just who is this man with the Fu Manchu?

Perhaps one of the league’s top closers.

If Craig, a former Dodger pitcher, speaks of Beck with a twinkle in his eye, it’s because he believes the stocky right-hander soon will be recognized as a star.

“He has the personality, the perfect makeup, to be a great closer,” Craig said. “He’s got a 92, 93, 94 mile-an-hour fastball, a good breaking ball, a good split and no fear. No fear.”

Plus, he looks the part. Beck is a chunky 6-feet, 215 pounds, complete with a bushy, drooping mustache and an intense glare.

“He’s got a mean look to him,” Craig said. “Like (Rich) Gossage.”

All of which accounts for some rather Giant expectations.

“Next year he’ll have 35 saves,” Craig said, “without much problem at all.”

Beck, who has a modest total of 12 saves to lead the struggling fourth-place Giants, shrugs off such predictions. He knows that a few misplaced pitches can make one’s tenure as closer ever so brief.

“It’s nice to know Roger has that kind of confidence in me,” he said. “But I also know if I falter, my job is up for grabs.”

That knowledge comes from experience.

Beck seized the opportunity to become the San Francisco closer only after the tandem of left-hander Dave Righetti and right-hander Jeff Brantley failed to deliver. Beck’s climb up the Giant bullpen ladder was made in dramatic fashion.

Starting the season in middle relief, Beck pitched 17 scoreless innings in his first eight games.

The streak ended when he was cuffed around in a game against the Philadelphia Phillies. But even while giving up five runs in 1 1/3 innings, Beck revealed a trait that would aid him in becoming the bullpen ace.

He showed a nasty streak.

“Almost started a brawl,” Righetti recalled with a smile. “He hit a guy who didn’t really try to get out of the way. So Rod said something to him. And the guy said something back and then Rod made a gesture and we almost had a fight.”

The player, Phillies third baseman Dave Hollins, started after Beck but was intercepted by Giants first baseman Will Clark.

“When you’re getting rocked, it’s not much fun, so you don’t want anybody else having fun, either,” Beck said. “That’s probably not the last time something like that will happen.”

That game against the Phillies, on May 3 in San Francisco, marks the only outing in which Beck has given up more than one run.

Two days later, he started a string in which he retired 26 consecutive batters, striking out 14. Twenty-seven in a row for a starting pitcher is a perfect game. Beck’s streak spanned six appearances. It ended when Chicago Cub outfielder Andre Dawson blooped a single to right field.

Beck was so dominant that Craig wondered if he wasn’t playing under an assumed name.

“I had scouted and watched him before in mini-camps during spring training and he threw pretty good, but nothing like this,” Craig said. “All of a sudden, he was throwing 93, 94 miles an hour at times.”

And, with only 11 walks in 68 2/3 innings, he still has the pinpoint accuracy that was his trademark in 1986 when he won four playoff games and carried Grant to a City Section championship.

Back then, Beck’s fastball topped out at about 80 m.p.h.

“That’s why the Dodgers weren’t interested in me,” Beck said. “They said I didn’t throw hard enough, which was a fact then.”

But not now, a change that Beck credits to a newfound affinity for taking care of himself.

Before last winter, the most strenuous off-season exercise Beck sampled was a round of golf on a weekend. “I never did more than what was required of me,” he said. “I showed up to play the game and that was it.”

Finally, after four years of prodding, the Giants convinced him that getting in shape would lengthen his career. They suggested a five-week session in New Orleans with Mackie Shilstone, a renowned personal trainer.

So Beck checked in. He weighed 245 pounds. His body fat, 25%, rivaled that of a fried drumstick. “I was not a healthy person,” he said.

After a month, Beck was down to 230 with 14% body fat. Since then, he has shed 15 more pounds--and picked up five m.p.h. on his fastball.

“That’s unheard of,” Beck said. “If I’d have known it would do this much for me, I’d have gotten in shape a long time ago.”

A slider and a split-finger fastball round out Beck’s repertoire, and he can throw each of his pitches from a variety of angles.

“I said earlier this year, and I really didn’t want Rod to see it, but he reminds me of Catfish (Hunter),” Righetti said. “He’s not just a thrower. I enjoy just watching him pitch.”

Righetti said he also finds it amusing that Beck has kept another Hunter signature: his mustache.

“I didn’t know we were allowed to wear them like that (falling below the upper lip), but I guess he’s pitching so well that now we are,” Righetti said.

Indeed, the Fu Manchu is a Beck trademark. He has worn it since high school. “I thought maybe it was a little intimidating for high school hitters, but now it’s just me,” Beck said. “I don’t imagine my mustache is going to intimidate too many guys up here.”

In the minor leagues, Carlos Alfonso, then the Giants’ director of player development, ordered Beck to shave.

“He’d come to town and I’d shave it,” Beck said. “Then he’d leave and I’d grow it back.”

Alfonso now is the Giants’ pitching coach. But he hasn’t said a word.

And with good reason. National League hitters are batting only .207 against Beck. At least one formidable opponent already has placed him in a category that includes some of the league’s best pitchers.

The Dodgers’ Eric Karros ranks Beck behind only David Cone and Jose Rijo--and just in front of Tom Glavine--as the toughest pitchers to hit.

“I’ve probably seen him nine or 10 times going all the way back to (Class) A ball,” Karros said. “I don’t have a hit yet and I think I’ve probably struck out six or seven times. Either I’m due or I’m just not going to hit him.”

So far, Karros is just one on a lengthy list.