He Needs to Be Perfectly Frank

He has to be the best pitcher in baseball today. Maybe ever.

Roger Clemens? Naw. He’s got that big, bust-out fastball, a snapping curve. That’s not pitching, that’s shotputting. That’s “Here, hit this if you can!” stuff.

Dwight Gooden? Dr. K? Naw. Heat and more heat. You go up to hit on tippy-toes. You can’t dig in or you may be buried there.

David Cone? Naw. You’re overmatched. Overpowering stuff. A pennant arm.

No, the best pitcher in baseball has to be Frank Tanana. Of the New York Mets. Formerly of the Detroit Tigers, Texas Rangers, California Angels and points south and east.

“What’s that?” you say, scrambling through record books, checking the fine print for Hall of Fame stats, Cy Young Awards, MVPs.

Do me a favor. Don’t bother with that stuff. Baubles. Beside the point.

Look down Tanana’s record. Check that date of birth: July 3, 1953. Frankie-boy is going to be 40 any day now. And he’s still a starting pitcher for the Mets. He’s still no worse than even money to give them seven or nine sterling innings and win, maybe, his 236th big league game.

Supposing I told you Frank Tanana’s arm gave out on him 15 years ago and that he has won 170 big league games over the last decade or so on memory. On cunning.

Tanana does it with mirrors. He’s like a dealer in a card room who bluffs everybody out of the pot with a couple of treys in the hole.

You see, Frank lost his fastball--and he had a good one--about 15 years ago. At the time, he was part of the great 1-2 punch of the Angels--Nolan Ryan and Frank Tanana. That’s how good he was. Mentioned in the same breath with No-Hit Nolan.

He could bust it in those days, too. In many respects, he was considered superior to the young Ryan. Better control. While they were teammates, Tanana was walking 45-75 batters a year. Ryan was walking the world. A league-leading 204 once, 202, 183 and so on.

Their first year together, 1974, Ryan was 22-16 with an earned-run average of 2.89 and a strikeout total of 367, the league high. Tanana was 14-19 with an ERA of 3.11 and 180 strikeouts.

The next year, Ryan struck out 186 and went 17-18 with an ERA of 3.45. Tanana had 269 strikeouts--the league high--an ERA of 2.63 and a 16-9 record.

They were 1 and 1A, the modern equivalent of Spahn and Sain (and pray for rain). But eventually, it happened. The arm fell apart. First, the elbow, then the shoulder. Ryan’s arm went on and on, like that battery commercial. Tanana’s all but went numb.

The velocity dropped. The pain increased. Tanana could hardly throw the ball without screaming. He tried cortisone, then hydro-cortisone. It eased the pain. But it didn’t cure the arm. Finally, he tried prayer. That worked. Tanana became a born-again Christian.

He also made an important discovery. With a sore arm, and despite a fastball that had diminished from 95 to 75 m.p.h., he was still getting hitters out. In 1978, he actually posted an 18-12 season and an ERA of 3.65 with an arm that was like a rag mop.

The point was, the hitters didn’t know. They were stepping in against a Frank Tanana they remembered.

It was a lesson not lost on Tanana. You don’t have to overwhelm major league batters. You can underwhelm them. Barnum would have loved major league hitters. There’s one born every minute. Pitchers should wear checkered coats and derby hats and have a valise full of potato peelers. They are running a con.

For an under-armed Frank Tanana to brave the major leagues was like swimming through shark-infested waters with a nosebleed. Going through lion country on a bike.

Frank was unarmed but dangerous. He knew something about big league hitters some pitchers with overpowering stuff never find out: They will swing at illusion. Any magician knows that “Pick a card, any card” works with hitters, too.

The strike zone is a myth to most hitters, even great ones. For every Ted Williams who demands that a pitch be in the time-honored quadrant of the strike zone, hundreds of them have no more idea of where it is than the Lost Dutchman mine. It’s Oz to them.

“I must say, I like those big, wild swingers,” Tanana says. “I’d give a week’s pay for one of them to come up in a game-deciding situation with the bases loaded.”

The next thing the unarmed man must do is never let the enemy know where he’s coming from.

“I can’t be predictable,” Tanana says. “Roger Clemens can send them a telegram giving the location. I have to surprise ‘em.”

He can’t launch a frontal assault. It’s constant guerrilla warfare. With Will Clark at the plate, Tanana is outnumbered.

Home plate is 17 inches wide at the front, extending straight back for 8 1/2 inches, then tapering back for another 12 inches to a point. But for Tanana, most of that is no-ball’s land. A power pitcher can use the whole configuration.

“I can only deal in the outer three inches,” Tanana says.

Ballplayers call this “the black” in honor of the black rubber bordering the plate. If Tanana’s ball finds itself over anything white, the next sound you hear is seats splintering.

Tanana has to get ahead in the count. He must never, ever have to come in with a strike. He can throw one, of course, any time he wants. But he’d better not.

“And you wouldn’t believe how they’ve shrunk the strike zone,” he complains. “It’s getting invisible.

“Fortunately, some hitters take it as an insult if they get walked. Their strike zone is bigger than the umpire’s.”

He has to get ahead of the hitter because it is important to get the hitters to hit his pitch, not their own.

“Once you’re ahead in the count, you can call up some exotic pitches that are hard to hit but hard to control. In other words, you get the hitter anxious, leaning, afraid he might be called out on a marginal pitch. You get him lunging. I love a guy who’s protecting the plate. He’s half a hitter.”

It’s a battle of wits, not hits. Tanana should ice down his brain after every start.

Patient hitters annoy him, he says, because his pitches have three basic speeds: slow, slower, and stopped. His fastball, once only five m.p.h. slower than Nolan Ryan’s, is now five m.p.h. slower than a soap bubble. When you ask him, “Are your fastballs in the 0-to-20, 20-to-40 or 40-to-60 range?” he grins and answers, “All of the above.”

“Oh,” he says, laughing, “I think I’m in the low 80s.”

Teammates scoff. Sparky Anderson used to say Tanana was the only pitcher he knew whose ball got cobwebbed on the way to the plate.

He has won 170 games with an arm that should be in a sling, not a uniform, throwing balls that moved barely faster than junk mail. He won 66 games with his arm--and 170 with his head.

“I’ve been written off for 15 years,” Tanana says, smiling. “But Nolan and I are still going strong.”

Strong may not be precisely the word to describe how Tanana goes along. He’s working toward his 250th victory. Ryan is working toward his 325th.

Of course, Ryan’s arm should go to the Smithsonian. Come to think of it, so should Tanana’s.