Baseball Now Consuming a Sober Delano

He was right out of the Randy Johnson mold, a 6-foot-7 left-hander with an overpowering fastball.

Mike Delano had everything going for him, including a 1,260 score on his Scholastic Assessment Test in 1995, his senior year at North Hollywood High.

But he almost threw it all away.

Overwhelmed by grief when his mother was found to be terminally ill with breast cancer, he plunged to a level of self-destruction from which few recover.

He drank eight 40-ounce containers of beer in one binge, and he repeatedly turned away offers of help from coaches, family and friends.

A promising basketball player, he was kicked off North Hollywood’s team for disciplinary reasons. When baseball came around, he was academically ineligible, despite the intelligence his SAT score implied.

He could throw a fastball 85 mph and had so much potential that he was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals despite never throwing a pitch his senior year.

But Delano was in no condition to pitch. He was in no condition to do much of anything. Despair and alcohol were consuming his life.

“I was just destroying myself,” he said.

That was Delano at his worst.

This week, a sober, healthy Delano, 20, pitched for the Chicago Cubs’ instructional league team in Mesa, Ariz.

He has a future again because he finally accepted help.

It took a while. His teenage years were a roller coaster of wasted opportunities.

After high school, Delano moved to Las Vegas to live with his father. He enrolled at Nevada Las Vegas and got straight A’s on his midterms.

But he continued to drink and soon stopped going to class. He moved back to North Hollywood, but his mother’s health was deteriorating. He needed to get out of the house.

He heard about a baseball tryout at Cal State Northridge. He had not thrown a pitch in more than a year.

Steve Rousey, the coach at Los Angeles City College, saw Delano’s potential and offered him a spot on his roster. Delano moved to a one-bedroom apartment at Sunset and Vermont. He had little money.

“I was eating once a day,” he said. “It was bad. My dad wasn’t really in my life. The only shot I saw me having was baseball. Coach Rousey was kind enough to give me a chance.”

Delano still was breaking rules. Rousey made him run 60 laps during a game in Palm Springs for violating curfew.

“He didn’t have the discipline to set his alarm clock; he didn’t have the discipline to do well in class; he didn’t have the discipline to get to practice on time,” Rousey said. “If this guy was a straight-arrow kid, he would have been a first- or second-round [draft pick]. He had that kind of ability.”

Delano continued to drink.

“It just got worse and worse,” he said.

His mother died in December 1996.

“We argued a lot,” Delano said. “I felt it wasn’t fair she was dying. I treated her so badly because I didn’t understand why she was sick and why she was going to die.”

Professional baseball kept beckoning. The Cubs took a chance on him. Delano got a $5,000 signing bonus and was sent to Arizona for rookie ball.

He didn’t last long.

He had a 12.41 earned-run average in 12 1/3 innings when he was suspended and sent home for drinking.

“I showed up late to some practices and I wasn’t conducting myself in a professional manner,” Delano said.

The Cubs gave him an ultimatum--get help or get lost.

“Them sending me home was really a wake-up call,” he said. “I worked very hard to get to professional baseball and I screwed it up.”

Delano enrolled in a substance-abuse program in Las Vegas, attending meetings six nights a week. He joined Alcoholics Anonymous. Finally, he was changing his life. Finally, he was accepting help.

“I think I was probably too hard-headed,” he said. “I think it had to happen this way. I think everything had to be taken away and built back up from ground zero.”

Last spring, Delano returned to baseball, striking out 60 batters in 44 innings for Williamsport of the rookie New York-Penn League. His record was 4-1. His ERA was 2.44. He was promoted to Class-A Rockford and went 2-1 with a 5.40 ERA. His fastball was clocked at 92 mph.

And so now he is in Mesa, a prospect again. For now, a responsible person again.

“I think Michael’s ability can take him to the big leagues,” said Steve Fuller, a Cubs’ scout. “The other part, growing up, has to come together. It’s like anything else. You can lead a horse to water. Let’s see if he drinks it. It’s been a positive year for him.”

This week, in a 40-minute telephone conversation from Mesa, Delano talked about his battle against alcohol and the price he paid.

He was a starter for North Hollywood’s basketball team and could have been one of the region’s top high school pitchers. Basketball Coach Steve Miller and baseball coaches Rick Pally and George Vranau tried to help him.

“Everybody was great,” Delano said. “They all tried real hard to give me chances to turn my life around. I just wasn’t ready. They saw where I was going. I didn’t want to listen.”

Delano said he hasn’t had a drink since the Cubs sent him home in the summer of 1997. He wakes up early in the morning and feels good about himself. He is engaged and plans to be married in February.

“I can say the things that were destructive in my life, I’m not doing anymore,” he said. “I’m not ashamed what happened. I’m proud what I’m doing now. I got as bad as you can get. I love this game too much to let myself ruin it.”

He has a message for others who might fall to the same temptations.

“The thing other people have to know is it doesn’t get better without you wanting to get better,” Delano said. “There’s no secret somebody can tell you. You’re not going to listen until you see it yourself. You have to want to change.”

What would Delano’s mother think if she could see him now?

“I’m doing what she always wanted me to do,” he said. “I was there the night she died. She knew I loved her. I got to make my peace.”

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Eric Sondheimer is columnist for the Valley and Ventura editions.