A Knack for Teaching : Former Angel Pitcher Romanick Finds His Way Back to the Game

Ron Romanick didn’t remember his own prophecy. Seattle Mariner pitcher Bob Wolcott had to remind him.

Three years ago, Romanick told a group of young pitchers that a day would come when they would use what he was teaching. They would be in the major leagues and need these little tidbits and techniques. They would seek him out and acknowledge this little chat.

Romanick had forgotten that speech. Wolcott had not, and brought it up recently.

“I didn’t know what he was talking about at first,” said Romanick, the roving pitching instructor for the Mariners. “Then he started telling me about the stuff we worked on three years ago and how he uses it today. Bob told me he understood now it was all to build his future.”

High praise for Romanick.

At an age when some contemporaries are still pitching, Romanick, 35, deals in futures. His charges have been the pitchers in the Mariners’ farm system, some he already has nudged into the major leagues--a route that was a blur for Romanick.

It has been 10 years since he pitched for the Angels. Romanick was a wunderkind back then. A kid who jumped from double A to the major leagues for the 1984 season, won 26 games in two seasons, then spiraled into oblivion. Injuries and frustration forced him out of the game by 1988.

He dabbled in golf, worked through personal struggles and found himself back where he started. Romanick returned to professional baseball in 1993 and now tells pitchers to do what he says and not what he did.

“These guys will sometimes look at you as a broken-down old coach,” Romanick said. “They don’t see you as that young guy who made mistakes. It’s my job to add my hindsight to their talent so they don’t do the same.”

Romanick has been so effective that he recently returned to the major leagues. He was asked to travel with the Mariners to help out Bobby Cuellar, the team’s pitching coach.

Starters Randy Johnson and Chris Bosio have been on the disabled list for more than a month, leaving the starting rotation in younger hands. Romanick’s working knowledge with those pitchers made his presence necessary.

“Some guys work better with older players, some guys have the ability to instruct younger players,” said Woody Woodward, the Mariners’ vice president for baseball operations. “Ron just has a knack for teaching.”

Which was noticeable at first sight.

Woodward wasn’t searching for a pitching coach four years ago. He was there to watch his son, Matt, practice with the Chaffey Baseball Club, a select team in the Seattle area. Matt Woodward, now a first baseman at Florida State, wasn’t even a pitcher. But his father couldn’t help but notice Romanick and hired him.

“You could see right away he was patient,” Woodward said. “There wasn’t anything demanding about his approach.”

A trait developed through years of struggle.

Romanick left baseball after the 1988 season and tried to shift his competitive nature to golf. He played as an amateur on the Golden State Tour and in South Africa against players such as John Daly. He refused interview requests, telling reporters to wait until he was on the PGA Tour.

He never made it. Romanick was about to enter a golf school--a requirement for him to get on the tour--in 1991 when he learned his mother and father had cancer.

His parents had divorced when he was young and he had not been close to his father. But he returned to the Seattle area to help his parents. His father died in 1994 and his mother a year later.

During that time, Romanick also won a difficult custody battle for his son.

“Life throws you difficult curves,” Romanick said.

Baseball sustained him.

Jim Stewart, who has been a mentor to Romanick for 20 years, was coaching the Chaffey Baseball Club and insisted Romanick come coach.

“Ron was kicking around trying to sell real estate and I got him to come out to some weekend baseball camps,” said Stewart, who is also a part-time scout with the Mariners. “I told him, ‘Look, you love the game, you love kids, coach with me.’ It was that simple.

“With his experience and the great rapport he has with kids, I knew he was going to be able to teach. He would put his arm around a kid and tell what he did was wrong, but it doesn’t come out negative. Even the high profile guys, high school kids who strike out 17-18 batters in games, Ron could get them to see that there are better ways to do things.”

Romanick’s track record was solid. While with Chaffey, he helped refine Jason Brester, (San Francisco Giants’ second-round pick in 1995), Brian Falkenborg (Baltimore Orioles’ first pick in 1996), and others who would have been hard pressed to remember him as a pitcher.

“Every once in a while a kid will have one of my baseball cards,” Romanick said. “They will see I had some success and look at me a little different.”

What the card shows is that Romanick went from double A to the Angels. It shows he was 12-12 his rookie season and 14-9 in 1985. It shows he dropped to 5-8 in 1986, the last year the Angels won the West Division title. He never pitched in a major league game again.

What it doesn’t show are the difficulties Romanick had during that time.

Romanick said he never completely recovered from a 1981 car accident. He was thrown through the windshield when the car he was riding in was struck by a truck and injured several cervical joints.

“I eventually developed arthritis in my neck,” he said. “I saw all the doctors in the world over the years and they couldn’t do a thing for me. It got so I couldn’t even turn to my left.”

The Angels never knew about the accident, or the injury. All they knew was Romanick’s ability.

“He was very capable,” said Mike Port, then the Angels’ general manager. “He knew the art, or craft, of pitching very well. He seemed to get the most out of his ability.”

But Romanick knew there were problems, even after a great start in 1985. He was 13-4 in early August, but won only one of his last 10 starts.

Romanick, who had been a power pitcher, was trying to finesse hitters. He thought off-season surgery to repair a broken bone in his foot would bring back his velocity. But after a 3-1 start in 1986, he again faded and was demoted to triple A.

There were heated words, from Romanick and Port. Romanick was traded to the New York Yankees in 1987 and spent the 1988 season in the Milwaukee Brewer organization.

“I started breaking down at the ripe old age of 26,” Romanick said. “I couldn’t take the workload. It’s a tough thing for a guy to take, being washed up that young.

“I learned a lot from it. I was a power pitcher and then a four-pitch guy. I went from double A to the major leagues and I had some hard times. I use all of it to teach these kids.”

After being hired by the Mariners in 1993, Romanick coached at Bellingham (Wash.), a Class A short-season team. He moved rapidly through the minor leagues; almost as rapidly as he did as a player. He coached in Riverside in 1994 and Port City (N.C.) last season, doing so well that Woodward promoted him to roving pitching instructor this year.

Romanick not only supervises development, but he also created a manual and philosophy for the organization to follow.

“Instructing is not just working on mechanics,” Woodward said. “It’s how to get the job done on different levels. When you have someone like Ron working with minor league players, it helps the major league team. These guys we’ve brought have an idea how to pitch at this level.”

Wolcott, Rafael Carmona and Matt Wagner, three Romanick disciples, are currently with the Mariners. More will likely follow.

“I found I still had the passion for baseball,” Romanick said. “It was a hard thing to retire in my prime. I had some moderate success and then I couldn’t play anymore. I had to get that out of my system. Now I’m on the other side.”