On the Road Again : Frank Tanana Still Has Value After All These Years, but Probably Not to the Mets, Who See a Trade to a Contender in His Future

It has been 15 years since Frank Tanana’s fastball could keep up with Sunday morning freeway traffic, but somehow he remains upwardly mobile. While the rest of the New York Mets are facing some dog days, Tanana figures to be throwing curveballs for a pennant contender.

Last Saturday, he improved his stock when he held San Francisco without a hit until Barry Bonds homered with two out in the seventh inning. It was the closest Tanana has come to a no-hitter in 20 major league seasons.

Tanana, who struck out more batters than Nolan Ryan in 1975, doesn’t make hitters look like John Kruk facing Randy Johnson anymore. Batters fear only losing concentration while waiting for another changeup. His speeds are slow, slower, still slower and slowest.

“The funny thing is, it was his fastball (that worked) against the Giants,” Met Manager Dallas Green said. “He had great command of his fastball, and when he has that, the rest of his stuff just falls in line. They can’t sit and wait for him to make a mistake with the slow stuff.

“He used the slow stuff well, too, but he got a lot of outs off the fastball, jamming guys and keeping them off balance. And it’s not like he was pitching against Little Sisters of the Poor. That’s a pretty good offensive team, and he just shut them down.”

It just goes to show how far you can get with a 77-m.p.h. fastball, teammate Dwight Gooden said.

“Man, I thought he was going to get (the no-hitter),” Gooden said. “I really did.”

Gooden and Green had better enjoy watching hitters struggle against Tanana while they can. The Mets signed him as a free agent this spring, primarily to serve as role model and mentor for their young starting pitchers in a drive for the National League East title.

Twenty-eight games out in July pretty much ruins that scenario.

“That plan is past,” Green said. “A lot of things are past us now. (A trade) would make a lot of sense. Frank knows that the contributions he can make at this point in his career are best suited to a pennant-contending team. Obviously, we can’t offer him much in that regard, and if we’re going to start looking to the future, which we probably will do very soon, Frank is not part of that future.”

But then, who figured Frank Tanana would be part of anybody’s future in 1993?

His earned-run average, 4.78, is worse than winless teammate Anthony Young’s. But Tanana’s record is 5-8. He pitched 14 consecutive complete games for the Angels in 1977, but he doesn’t go the distance anymore. Still, the 40-year-old left-hander remains a viable commodity.

The Mets figure to come out of any deal for Tanana with no more than a prospect, but he believes it’s the right move for all parties.

“If you’re on a bad ballclub and you’re not exactly a pup, they’re not going to look to you for the future,” he said. “This ballclub is at rock bottom, and with my experience, I could help a good team. But there’s not a whole lot I can do for a bad ballclub.

“In a sense, the idea of being traded to a contender is exciting, but I can’t dwell on that. I’m very loyal to the people who pay me, and at this point in time, that’s the Texas . . . not the Texas Rangers, the New York Mets, and I’m trying to help them be the best team they can be.”

You’ll have to excuse Tanana. He hasn’t pitched for the Rangers since 1985, but, who knows? He could be back in Arlington any day now.

“When the day comes, and I don’t doubt that it will, that I’m on another ballclub, then we’ll close the book on this chapter and start a new one,” he said. “It’s going to happen, and I would imagine it would happen soon, but I have no say in the matter, so there’s no use worrying about it.”

Worrying is not really the right word. Relishing is a better fit. He knows everything about pitching for bad teams, having pitched for the Angels for eight seasons.

“Good pitchers on winning teams are 20-10, and good pitchers on losing team are 10-20,” he said. “Interchange the pitchers, and you’ll interchange their records.”

Tanana has never won 20 games. He was 19-10 with the Angels in 1976 and was ahead of the New York Yankees, 8-0, going into the ninth inning on Aug. 22.

“It was 8-8 before I could even ice down,” he said.

“The only reason I won with the Angels was because I dominated,” he said, “I was as good as there was in the game. I would have been winning 25 games a year on a good team.”

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There are many not-so-fond memories of the good old days and much he’s not proud of that happened during his reign as baseball’s premier playboy pitcher.

After a victory on his birthday, he told reporters he planned on getting “smoked out of my gourd.”

“You’re young and living for the moment, and you don’t get interested in preserving what you have until it’s taken away from you,” he said. “It’s sad to say, but that’s what it takes for most young guys in this game to begin to take care of themselves and treasure what they’ve got, to realize how precious and valuable a career in the big leagues is.

“Some just blow it out, ruin their careers, even their lives, because of their inattentiveness to preserve and improve what they have.”

Tanana learned from two devastating emotional blows. He suffered his first serious arm injury in 1977--an inflamed elbow tendon that meant he had thrown his last 90-m.p.h. fastball--and in 1978 teammate Lyman Bostock was murdered.

“Both events had a profound effect on my life,” Tanana said. “I believed in eternal life. I wanted to go to heaven, and the death of Lyman made me think, ‘Hey Frank, tomorrow it could be you.’ And the sore arm, now I look back at the injury and I’m thankful for it. It led me to Christ and changed my life.”

It also altered his pitching style. Although he throws the same three pitches--fastball, curveball, changeup--he now throws from a myriad of angles at varying speeds. And when he gets the ball on or near the strike zone, he still can be very effective.

That hasn’t been the case often this season, but Tanana said he might be slipping into a groove.

“I’ve been mediocre,” he said. “I haven’t been as consistent as I’d like, but I’m throwing it much better now than I was earlier in the year. Overall, maybe I’d give myself a C.”

And in this game, a left-handed C can be enough to earn a promotion to the head of the standings.