Spirit Was Willing, Not Body

Two months ago, Darren Dreifort lugged a bucket of baseballs into his backyard and, just for fun, threw a couple of dozen pitches.

Not long after, he underwent knee surgery.

The procedure had been scheduled beforehand.

Seriously.

The surgery was the 16th in a career that ended Aug. 16, 2004, but lingers in trips to physical therapy, a sustained relationship with Dr. Frank Jobe and various aches that go ignored.

He sat this week in a La Canada coffee shop, 33 years old for a few more weeks. He wore brown cowboy boots that looked to have a thousand miles on them, an old pair of jeans and a white button-down shirt, wrinkled.

He sipped from a large paper cup, the morning paper spilling over a small, round table.

He looked up, surprised.

“When did Brazoban blow out?”

A few minutes down the Glendale Freeway, it’s baseball season. Here, baseball is gone, at least until one of his three young sons discovers an interest in the game.

He watches an inning or two on television once in a while, “but the kids want to watch SpongeBob,” and has agreed to attend a game with a friend who has season tickets at Dodger Stadium, but hasn’t gotten around to it yet.

Darren and his wife, Ann, moved to Austin, Texas, last year, settled in and figured that was that. He’d pretty much decided to retire by then, the final weeks of his industry-legend contract all that was left of baseball and, after that, he didn’t know. They loved Austin, but found they loved Los Angeles more, moved back, bought a house on a hill, and, well, here they are: young, a family to raise, secure for life, and untroubled by the past, other than the occasional limp. He wished it had gone differently.

“It was hard because I never entered a season thinking anything less than what they were counting on,” he said. “I never entered a season thinking there was no way I could live up to expectations or no way I could do my job or finish the season. I never had any doubts. When whatever happened happened, it was kind of out of my control. It wasn’t for lack of work or not doing what I needed to do to prepare myself. That’s where I can look myself in the mirror every day.”

It doesn’t seem right, of course. He’s too big, too strong. Doctors have patched together pitchers with half the body, half the spirit, and they play until the hitters say they can’t.

Not Dreifort.

In 11 seasons after the 1993 draft, in which he followed only Alex Rodriguez, he made 113 starts and 161 other appearances. He pitched until his body broke, over and over, and if the Dodgers were going to pay him another $55 million to keep trying, as he said, he never took the ball figuring to hand it to the trainer at the end of the day. He was always going to be the pitcher Tom Thomas scouted, Fred Claire signed and Tom Lasorda, and others, summoned.

“He is easily one of the finest human beings I have ever met in the game,” former Dodger general manager Dan Evans said. “I really feel bad I never got to see him healthy.”

When he sat out the 2002 season because of his second reconstructive elbow surgery, Dreifort subtly restructured his contract to allow management more payroll flexibility. On a roster of bloated contracts, he was the only one who offered.

He didn’t want to retire at 33. He had to. It’s final, he said, even if he awakens one December morning feeling, oh, great.

“Then I’ll be happy to feel great,” he said. “This is the way my body is. I felt great a lot of Decembers and ended the season in June. I’m happy with where I’m at.... My body, it’s just not holding up. It’s one thing after another. I’d be just waiting for the next blowout.”

For more than a decade, there have been suspicions about the initial blowout, the first Tommy John surgery after a half-season in the Dodger bullpen, and the long-term effect it had on what agent Scott Boras called “the best college pitcher I’ve ever seen.”

Dreifort held a copy of his 1994 game log, his rookie season. Two innings one day in mid-April, three innings two days later. Nine appearances in 13 days in late April and early May. When Lasorda called, he went. Fellow relievers advised him to refuse. By late June, he was in the minor leagues. Nine months later, he had packed his pajamas and gone to see Jobe.

“I knew there was a stretch in there where there was a lot in a short period of time,” he said, running his finger down the printout. “Even the days I didn’t get in I remember being up in the bullpen ready to go in. Just didn’t get into the game. But, you know, it was always my option to say no. In that situation, I’m not sure that anybody would.”

Lasorda said he didn’t recall “using him a lot.”

“He had as good a live fastball as you’d want to see,” Lasorda said. “When he got that ball down, it was unhittable. Thing is, if he was too strong, it didn’t sink.”

And, as Boras pointed out, Dreifort threw harder after his elbow had been reconstructed.

Really, it’s not important to Dreifort anymore. He holds no grudge, and expects none toward him. He followed orders, as he was raised to do. He did what he could, for as long as he could, and now has a wife and three sons to tend to.

If he lives right and is careful, he said, he might put off knee replacements until he’s 50. Maybe he’ll throw a baseball with his kids. Maybe his relationship with Jobe will settle into a card around the holidays. Maybe he’ll go back to school, teach history like his dad, something like that.

Maybe tomorrow. Today, it’s back to rehab. The knee, again.

“Right now I definitely don’t feel like I’m 33,” he said. “Some days I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus. Other days I feel OK.”