A Real Bomb Thrower : Dodgers Are Hoping Rudy Seanez Is Again Ready to Blow Away Hitters With His 100-m.p.h. Fastball

The telephone call jolted him out of bed in his Cincinnati hotel room. He was instructed to be at the stadium early. Fred Claire, the Dodgers’ executive vice president, wanted to see him.

Dodger reliever Rudy Seanez remembers a thousand thoughts. The way he figured it, he was either going to be traded, sent back down to triple-A Albuquerque or even released.

He walked into the room, saw the grim look on Claire’s face and knew it was trouble.

Claire started to speak, but as the words tumbled out, Seanez suddenly became confused. This had nothing to do with his pitching performance. Nothing at all.

Claire said something about a bomb threat . . . how his was conduct unbecoming a Dodger . . . something about an apology. Seanez knew he was in trouble, but considering the trauma that he has endured in his professional career and those endless days wondering whether he should quit baseball and work at his father’s machine shop in Brawley, Calif., how could he help but grin?

“Maybe I should have taken it more seriously,” he said, “but I was just so relieved it was nothing else. Believe me, I’ve never been so glad to have a general manager mad at me in my life.”

Seanez, 26, who never met a gun or explosive device he didn’t like, had purchased a digital clock weeks before in Phoenix that resembled a fake bomb, complete with six fake sticks of dynamite. He kept it in his Dodger Stadium locker as a gag.

The next thing Seanez knew, a stadium security guard found Manager Tom Lasorda’s office door ajar, looked inside and discovered a bomb. Or so he thought.

An LAPD bomb squad was summoned at 2:15 in the morning, and four hours later, Lasorda was startled awake by the police, who reported its findings. He was upset that someone was snooping around his office with the team on the road, Claire wanted Seanez to make a public apology, and Seanez was wondering which of his loving teammates swiped the fake bomb out of his locker and put it in Lasorda’s office.

“To this day,” Seanez said, “I’m not sure who did it. I’m sure someone was just trying to pull off a gag, but I got all the blame for it. I had to do all the explaining.

“Considering everything I’ve been through, it was nothing.”

The incident was quickly forgotten when the strike ended the season a day later. Seanez went home to Brawley, figuring it would be the last time he heard from Claire until the spring.

He was wrong.

Claire telephoned four months later. He told Seanez that he wanted him back, proposed a contract and presented it to Seanez’s agent.

“My jaw dropped,” Seanez said. “The moment I could speak again, I said, ‘Yes.’ I didn’t want to give him any time to change his mind.”

The Dodgers not only wanted him back but gave him a two-year, $1-million contract: $350,000 in 1995 and $650,000 in 1996. He joined Mike Piazza and Eric Karros as the only Dodger players with guaranteed contracts in 1996.

The contract makes little fiscal sense but symbolizes the faith of a team that refuses to quit believing in the pitcher with the legendary fastball.

“I’ve seen them all, from Nolan Ryan to Sandy Koufax,” Dodger scout Mel Didier said, “but Rudy Seanez is the only pitcher I’ve had at 100 m.p.h. on my (speed) gun in all of my years at baseball.

“Oh, I’ve seen plenty of guys who had great fastballs, guys throwing 97 and 98 m.p.h., but never 100, and Seanez did it twice.

“When he’s healthy, and if he stays healthy, he’s as good as anyone in the game.

“How can anyone give up on an arm like that?”

The legend began in Brawley.

Seanez would wander into the back yard with his cousin, Joe Verdugo, and fire rocks at the trains that rumbled behind his house.

They found that they couldn’t stop the trains, so they used to crouch behind bushes and throw oranges, eggs and everything else they could find at passing cars and trucks. You’d better believe business boomed at the local car repair shop.

“I don’t know how it happened,” Seanez said, “but we never got caught. I hope by saying that, people don’t come back now and say, ‘Hey, you owe me.’ ”

Said Verdugo: “We terrorized everybody: Dogs, cats, kids from different neighborhoods. At the same time, Rudy’s arm was getting stronger and stronger. He may just have been throwing rocks, but he was throwing smoke.”

Seanez, who wanted to emulate his older cousin by playing baseball, realized at 11 that he had a gift. He joined the local Little League team, entered his first game in the seventh inning, reached a full count on the first three hitters and struck them out.

There was the time a boy collapsed at home plate and remained motionless for 15 minutes. Seanez had accidentally broken his ribs with a fastball. Seanez was 12.

There was the time a first baseman was knocked unconscious. Seanez’s pickoff throw broke the first baseman’s glove and slammed against his chest. Seanez was 14.

There was the time a catcher refused to squat behind the plate--until the coach supplied him with two batting gloves and a foam rubber pad. Seanez was 15.

“He threw so hard, and was so wild, that none of the kids even wanted to take batting practice against him,” said Mike Romero, his coach at Brawley Union High. “I don’t know who he scared more, the batters or the coaches.”

Seanez, who once confided to his parents that he was worried he might kill somebody, struck out 239 batters in 145 innings during his junior and senior seasons. He struck out 17 batters in a seven-inning game during his senior season.

The talk of the town soon became the rage of the Major League Scouting Bureau.

“Really, it was by accident I was even discovered,” Seanez recalls. “A scout was passing through, saw me throw a no-hitter, and hands this card to my mother. She didn’t know what was going on.

“We all got excited but we didn’t know what was going to happen because nothing like this had ever happened in this town before.

“Then, of all teams, the Cleveland Indians draft me. I never even heard of Cleveland before. The Indians? Never heard of them.”

It was the beginning of an eight-year nightmare. Seanez never lived up to expectations. They said he was too wild, emotionally immature and, worse, injury-prone.

“He was supposed to take my job down the road,” said Doug Jones, former Cleveland closer. “I remember having a lot of talks with him, stressing to him that he doesn’t have to throw 100 m.p.h.

“But he was young, feeling intimidated and didn’t say a lot.”

Cleveland finally gave up on him after the 1991 season, trading him to the Dodgers for Dennis Cook and Mike Christopher. It appeared to be a stroke of genius, particularly when Seanez dazzled everyone in the Mexican winter league, compiling a 0.00 earned-run average in 34 innings, striking out 71 and walking 23. The Dodgers had plans for him to be their closer.

“I remember him striking out nine of our players in a row,” Dodger outfielder Reggie Williams said. “Nine up, nine down. The best anyone got off him was a foul tip.”

Yet, Seanez never threw a pitch that season for the Dodgers. He sat out the entire season because of a back ailment called spondylitis, an inflammation of the vertebrae. He recovered just in time to have shoulder surgery.

The Dodger unloaded him to the Colorado Rockies in November 1992 for second baseman Jody Reed. The Rockies gave up on him at the 1993 All-Star break, and he went to the San Diego Padres. Then, after a 13.50 ERA in three games, it was the Padres’ turn to let him go.

“There I was, in January 1994, out looking for a job,” Seanez said. “Nobody wanted me anymore. I was willing to take a triple-A job. I would have taken a double-A job.

“I was ready to work for my Dad at his machine shop. I figured baseball gave up on me, and I was about to give up on baseball.”

It might have been the end, until Claire invited him to the Dodgers’ 1994 spring training camp. There were no guarantees. The Dodgers committed to pay only for his spring training expenses.

Well, Seanez made the triple-A Albuquerque team, was promoted on June 9 and finished the season pitching 11 scoreless innings, going 1-1 with a 2.66 ERA. Proving it was no fluke, he pitched six weeks in winter ball, yielding a 0.40 ERA while saving 10 games.

Seanez, who retired the side, striking out two batters, in the Dodgers’ 7-1 exhibition victory over the Florida Marlins Thursday, may finally be back--for good.

“I hear people saying I got a rotten deal in life,” Seanez said. “I hear people saying what a shame it is that I’ve been hurt so much, and wondering what I could have done.

“To me, I’ve been blessed. I’ve got no complaints. I could easily be working with my dad, or mining in the gold mine with my cousin, or doing anything else in Brawley.

“But I’m back. I’m healthy. And I’m pitching.”