Un-Fettered

If Mike Fetters had any idyllic notions about his first big-league start, they were lost after the first inning, when he stared at a clubhouse ceiling and fought desperately for his next breath.

It was 1990. Fetters had been recalled the day before from triple-A Edmonton to make an emergency start for Angel ace Chuck Finley, who had injured his toe. Fetters was 25 years old, four seasons out of Pepperdine, and had a long, lively arm the Angels loved.

On the mound he appeared high strung, like a 4-year-old at the top end of seven Ding-Dongs. His shoulders heaved. He blinked a lot. He treated the baseball as if it were a hand grenade, the pin was between his teeth and he couldn’t wait to just get rid of it.

Still, Fetters was a rookie. Rookies are nervous. At some point, a few begin to recognize the game again and find their place, and discover that only their tax forms look remarkably different. The rest are left to ponder the impact of a 12th-grade education on the technological revolution.

On May 19 of that rookie season, Fetters strode off the field at SkyDome, through the dugout, under the stands and through the double doors of the visitors’ clubhouse. He lay down and tried to pull air into his aching lungs, while his teammates and coaches wondered if he still intended to pitch the second inning.

“I was a wreck,” Fetters said.

The big leagues bring out a lot of things in a lot of people. For Fetters, it brought an alarming lack of carbon dioxide. He was hyperventilating, a reaction--he learned later--partially brought about by exercise-induced asthma.

Former Angel Manager Doug Rader said he was occasionally concerned by Fetters’ spells, and that he would look for guidance from trainer Rick Smith.

“I just looked at Smitty,” Rader said, laughing. “If Smitty gave me the nonchalant look, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Fetters was not in physical danger. His pitching suffered, however.

“It’s hard to relax your muscles when your mind is going a hundred miles an hour,” he said. “You can’t concentrate at that point. I’m trying like hell to catch my breath.”

It was not his first major league appearance, but it is among his most vivid. Fetters sat this week in the Dodger clubhouse, more than a decade later, and smiled at the memory. Only this winter, with the help of a performance consultant near his home in Gilbert, Ariz., was Fetters finally able to fully understand that he could control such psychological impulses.

As a result, Fetters, at 35, has revived his career from the ashes of injury, self-doubt and anxiety, and from the professional unsteadiness of five organizations in three years. He is 3-0 with a save and a 2.21 ERA in 21 appearances for Manager Davey Johnson, who has employed Fetters in middle, setup and closing roles.

He has thrived with the Dodgers while losing none of his signature intensity. Indeed, he appears to be pitching better than ever.

“I think everything came together because of the fact I wanted it so bad,” Fetters said. “I wanted to keep my career going. More than anything, I thought I still had some good years left in my arm after elbow surgery [one year ago]. The hardest part was to get the mental part of it back, to know that I am good again.

“Once you fail a little, when you feel like you’re invincible as a closer and all of a sudden you have a lack of success, you’re not sure that success is ever going to come back. It’s been three years since I closed. That’s a long time to not have that quiet confidence. I feel I have that again.”

Fetters was traded before the 1992 season from Anaheim to Milwaukee, where he spent six seasons. He saved 32 games for the Brewers in 1996. He pitched for Oakland and the Angels in 1998 and for Baltimore last season. Various injuries kept his appearances sporadic and his ERAs high. The Dodgers were one of the few teams to show any interest last winter, so Fetters accepted their minor league-contract offer and set out to rebuild his body and mind.

“I didn’t know if my career was going to last any longer,” he said.

Lori Marick, a former amateur bodybuilder based in Tempe, played a large part in Fetters’ final push. Marick, 38, has an eclectic resume that lists experience in sports psychology, personal training, hypnotherapy, visualization techniques and deep-tissue massage.

While on Marick’s massage table, it occurred to Fetters that the same techniques he was using to block the pain of deep-tissue massage might also allow him to relax and focus on the mound.

“You’ve got to be able to let it go,” Marick told Fetters. “The body holds tension. You can’t pitch if you’re tight and frustrated and you’ve got all these other things that are causing you to be that way.”

The result is what you see on the mound. The long, deep breaths. The moments when Fetters appears to stare off into nowhere. The quick snap of his head. The murderous glare. All leading to the pitch, to the moment he lets loose with the baseball, clear-headed and committed.

They are the carefully laid strategies that keep Fetters off the clubhouse floor.

“I would get myself so worked up,” Fetters said. “The first time I got to the big leagues and that happened, I went back to the minor leagues. They ran a bunch of tests on me and found out I had exercise-induced asthma, which didn’t make things any better.

“That’s been my biggest problem my whole career, not being able to slow things down. It wasn’t until this winter when I learned how to control my breathing. Even in Milwaukee, when I was a closer, there were times I’d have to step off the mound to catch my breath.

“I remember times [then-Brewer Manager] Phil Garner would come up and say, ‘Are you OK?’ I’d say, ‘I can’t breathe. I’ll be OK. Let me just catch my breath.’ ”

He remains nervous. He cannot avoid that, nor does he want to. The difference is, he’s knocked about four Ding-Dongs from his anxiety level.

“I’ll get to the mound and I’ll look down,” he said. “I’ll pick an object the first time I step on the rubber. I’ll find something in the grass that I’ll look at that slows me down. I’ll take a deep breath. Clear my thoughts. Clear my breathing. Then I’ll pick up the sign and I’ll be ready to go.

“I’m still intense, but I’ve learned how to control it so I don’t get exhausted. I’ve slowed it down. Between pitches I’m slower than I’ve ever been.”

Before, his only strategy was to hurry.

At times, still, Fetters pitches like a guy fending off a swarm of hornets with a shovel. His breaths are deep enough to suck all the air out of Echo Park. His head pivots sharply. His chin juts defiantly. Then come the long arms and legs and, finally, the baseball.

“He really does look like a different guy, like he’s not internalizing it anymore, and he’s become very animated,” Rader said. “I turned on a Dodger game recently and thought, ‘My God, look at Michael. What’s going on with that?’ ”

Fetters is living better with it, living with the buildup, and the results. He said it’s better that way.

“Some guys it just takes a little longer,” he said.