Ship of Fools? : Wild Humor, Painful Pranks Help the Angel Bullpen Staff Stay on an Even Keel

Mike Holtz knows he’s a marked man, so he darts through the Angel clubhouse like James Bond slipping through the bowels of a master criminal’s lair. His eyes flit from side to side, his head spins to protect against an attack from the rear.

Who knows what evil lurks around the next corner? He could be walking straight into a throat chop or a heart punch or even a double-barreled shotgun.

Or, worst of all, the dreaded nose flick.

“The nose flick hurts the most,” Mike James said. “I just tried to trade a double-barrel and a rib-splitter and an ear rake for one nose flick, but the negotiations broke down. Couldn’t find any takers.”

The nose flick is the H-bomb of the Pain Game, a Three Stooges slap-poke-pinch-and-punch war waged daily by the Angel relief corps. The double-barreled shotgun (a punch to the chest with both fists simultaneously), the ear rake (a two-handed karate chop along both sides of the head) and the rib-splitter (a jab in back) all pale in comparison to the nose flick (a sprung middle finger into the soft spot between the nostrils).

“You got a pimple in there and you get a nose flick, you’re out for a week,” James says somberly.

For a team that finished 19 1/2 games out of first place last season, these guys are pretty loose. But late-inning relief pitching was seldom among the Angels’ litany of 1996 inadequacies, so maybe there’s a tad of logic behind all this lunacy.

Troy Percival had 36 saves and a 2.31 earned-run average last year, solidifying his spot as one of baseball’s best closers. James had a 5-5 record, one save and a 2.67 ERA as Percival’s setup guy. Left-hander Chuck McElroy was 5-1 with a 2.95 ERA after coming over from Cincinnati in exchange for pitcher Lee Smith.

And newcomers Holtz (3-3, 2.45 ERA) and Pep Harris (2-0, 3.90 ERA) pitched impressively after joining the Angels in late summer.

So opposing hitters, who often had their way with Angel starters and middle relievers, were pained to see the closing end of the Angel pen. Even if the guy coming out to the mound was still smarting from a nose flick.

“Percy and I did it with Vancouver in the minors and it just carried over,” James explained. “I’m not sure where it started. But somebody will walk up and give somebody a throat chop, you know, thwack, and it gets started. Then everyone has to get one.

“It hurts, but it’s a real quick hurt and it makes me laugh.”

James, of course, is the guy with a body piercing the size of an engine bolt through the middle of his tongue. And he says the procedure to insert it “hardly hurt at all.”

“Let’s just say you learn to expect the unexpected,” Holtz said. “Funny thing is, I’m the biggest Three Stooges fan alive. I’ve been to all of their graves. So I like a little tomfoolery.”

If Holtz and Harris, who has struggled this spring, make the team, Holtz will be glad to pass on another bullpen ritual: the Snack Pack, a collection of sunflower seeds, gum, candy and other assorted goodies that is tendered with loving care by the relief pitcher with the fewest days of major league service.

“Last year, I had everything separated and in little sandwich bags with the dates on them,” Holtz said, “but Bryan [Harvey] would always take something out and then ask for it and I’d have to run back to the clubhouse five or six times every game. Really.

“Then somebody would find a loose sunflower seed shell in there and say it stuck them under the fingernail and they were going to have to go on the DL. But I didn’t mind. It’s learning bullpen etiquette and it’s also learning how to stay loose.”

At this point, Harris--who gave up seven runs while getting two outs recently--would be glad to grab the Snack Pack and never let go. “I don’t know if the guys joking all the time makes this any easier,” he said, “but it makes you feel part of the group. You know, if they aren’t picking on you, I guess that means they don’t like you.”

Manager Terry Collins, the man hired to bring firebrand intensity to the sometimes listless Angels, is actually a big fan of bullpen buffoonery, more because he’s seen the value of the resulting stress-reduction than because he’s a wild-and-zany guy.

“The mentality of a relief pitcher, well, they’re a different breed,” Collins said. “They have to be loose, though. If they come into these pressure situations and they’re tight, their stuff is just no good. So I want them to relax, have fun, laugh a little and still stay prepared.”

Many of the Angels’ young relievers have struggled this spring and Collins thinks veterans such as Percival and James can have a very positive influence when it comes to dealing with adversity.

“There is a lot of pressure on a young kid trying to make a team in the spring,” Collins said. “Hey, this is a very humbling game and there are times when you’re going to fail. And I think when they see how these guys react to these situations, it can help them develop quicker.”

On occasion, James appears to be a less-than-positive influence, in a traditional sense, anyway. But it was just such a lesson he was trying to teach newcomer Shigetoshi Hasegawa the other day when the former Japanese Pacific League star returned to the clubhouse after a particularly rocky exhibition outing against Oakland.

“Don’t worry, it won’t be the last time,” James told him. “Say [stuff] happens.”

Hasegawa repeated the words and laughed. Then he said them again and everybody laughed.

Chuck McElroy arrived from Cincinnati last year with a straight face and a couple of pretty crooked pitches. But he hadn’t pitched well with the Reds. After a heavy dose of Ray Knight--it might as well have been Bobby Knight--he blossomed amid the merry mayhem down in the left-field corner at Anaheim Stadium.

“With Ray, if you had one bad game, it was like the world ended and you felt like you might never pitch again,” McElroy said. “OK, it’s a business, but it’s also a game and if you don’t have any fun, you won’t pitch well. And it can’t just come from the players clowning around, it has to come down through the coaches and the manager.

“This bullpen has so much talent and so much heart. I love it here. We mess around down there, but we know how to stay focused and when it’s time to be serious, we know how to put the game face on and get the job done.”

McElroy, who gave up 10 runs in 12 1/3 innings with the Reds last season and just 12 in 36 2/3 innings with the Angels, says the atmosphere in the bullpen has long-term as well as short-term benefits.

“When you come in with the bases loaded and one of the toughest hitters in the game at the plate, there’s plenty to be tense about, so it’s very important to be relaxed,” he said. “But what’s just as important, when things do go wrong, you want to be able to go home, go to bed and come back the next day hoping you get to pitch in the same situation again.”

Holtz, who is listed at 5-9 but isn’t quite, suffers from a barrage of short jokes and even admits that they get to him sometimes, although he’s loathe to let his teammates know it.

He refers to himself as “one of the more normal guys in the bullpen,” and would probably be just as comfortable in a more businesslike setting. In a quiet moment in a nearly deserted Angel clubhouse, he pondered the real value of the throat chop, ear rake and dreaded nose flick.

“Is there really method to this madness? I don’t know, that might be pushing it a little bit,” he says, smiling. “I think guys just like to mess with each other.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Relief Facts and Figures

ONE-SEASON LEADERS

Saves

1. Bryan Harvey, 1991 46

2. Lee Smith, 1995 37

3. Troy Percival, 1996 36

4. Donnie Moore, 1985 31

5. Dave LaRoche, 1978 25

5. Bryan Harvey, 1989 25

5. Bryan Harvey, 1990 25

Relief appearances

1. Minnie Rojas, 1967 72

2. Mark Eichhorn, 1991 70

3. Bob Lee, 1965 69

3. Mike James, 1997 69

5. Bill Kelso, 1967 68

6. Bryan Harvey, 1991 67

7. Eddie Fisher, 1970 65

7. Donnie Moore, 1985 65

THE BULLPEN IN ’96

*--*

G IP W-L SV BS HD GF IR-SC 1stB H R ER Mike James 69 81.0 5-5 1 5 11 23 47-17 49-69 62 27 24 Troy Percival 62 74.0 0-2 36 3 0 52 28-4 50-62 38 19 8 Chuck McElroy 40 49.0 7-1 0 2 4 11 34-8 27-39 45 22 21 Mike Holtz 30 29.1 3-3 0 0 3 8 29-6 19-30 21 11 8 Mark Eichhorn 24 30.1 1-2 0 2 1 6 27-17 16-24 36 17 17 Greg Gohr 16 29.0 1-1 1 0 0 7 9-2 10-16 44 28 28 Jason Grimsley 15 24.1 0-0 0 0 0 4 19-13 9-15 26 23 20 Shad Williams 11 17.1 0-0 0 0 0 3 13-9 8-11 30 21 21 Shawn Boskie 9 20.1 3-1 0 0 0 1 12-6 5-9 23 10 10 Jeff Schmidt 9 8.0 2-0 0 0 0 1 11-4 6-9 13 9 7 Pep Harris 8 15.2 1-0 0 0 1 0 13-2 6-8 15 8 6 Ryan Hancock 7 14.0 2-0 0 0 0 4 7-0 6-7 13 6 6 Darrell May 5 4.0 0-0 0 0 0 2 12-6 4-5 7 5 5 Dennis Springer 5 5.1 0-0 0 0 0 3 3-0 4-5 7 5 5 Jim Abbott 4 14.1 0-0 0 0 0 2 8-6 1-4 14 9 6 Kyle Abbott 3 4.0 0-1 0 1 0 1 4-1 1-3 10 9 9 Robert Ellis 3 5.0 0-0 0 0 0 3 0-0 2-3 0 0 0

ERA Mike James 2.67 Troy Percival 2.31 Chuck McElroy 3.86 Mike Holtz 2.45 Mark Eichhorn 5.04 Greg Gohr 8.69 Jason Grimsley 7.40 Shad Williams 10.90 Shawn Boskie 4.43 Jeff Schmidt 7.88 Pep Harris 3.45 Ryan Hancock 3.86 Darrell May 11.25 Dennis Springer 8.44 Jim Abbott 3.77 Kyle Abbott 20.25 Robert Ellis 0.00

*--*

G--games pitched, IP--innings pitched, W-L--won-loss record, SV--saves, BS--blown saves, HD--holds (save situations protected), GF--games finished, IR-SC--inherited base runners and number that scored, 1stB--first batter efficiency (number retired of all first batter faced), H--hits allowed, R--runs allowed, ER--earned runs allowed, ERA--earned run average.

All statistics for relief appearances only. Statistics available only for pitchers that finished the year with Angels.