After a successful side-session on Friday and strenth test on Saturday, Tim Wakefield prepares to return to the hill on Monday. The return should put him in line for the playoff push, though the reports coming out of Boston are not the most encouraging:
He will pitch once every ten days through the end of the season.
He has a “loose bone fragment” in his lower back which will need offseason surgery and the resultant rehab.
And… that’s a lot for a pitcher to endure, especially one with a family, two rings, and nothing left to prove on the mound.
Which is why I will watch Wakefield’s next few starts a little more intently, with no distractions and my undivided attention. I won’t take him for granted any longer.
Wakefield is still at the top of his game. The great thing about a knuckleballer is that his success does not depend much on velocity, so as long as he can make that ball flutter, he will be a quality pitcher.
But the man is 43, and, as much as we would like to hope, as much as we would like to believe that Wakefield is immune to father time, he isn’t. He’s still just a man. And like any other man in the world, his body will one day tell him that there is nothing left… and it will be time to call it quits.
I hope that that time is not for another decade, but it is time to face the music, to wake up from our collective denial and admit three things to ourselves:
1) We have taken Tim Wakefield for granted during EVERY season over the last 15 years. There has never been a more unappreciated star on the Red Sox, a more selfless player, and a more indispensible commodity, for his price tag, his dependability, and, especially, for his talent.
2) A knuckleballer can’t throw forever, no matter how much we would like to believe he can, even if he doesn’t throw 90 mph, or even 80.
3) Tim Wakefield is a father-figure to every young Boston Red Sox fan, especially those born after 1980. He is the longest tenured member on the club, a class act, and invariably tied to every Red Sox memory, both good and bad, of the last 15 years: the mid 90s when the postseason was only a dream; the near-dynasty of the last five years.
Only TIM WAKEFIELD could survive Game 7 in 2003 without being immortalized as the man who lost to Aaron “F*cking” Boone. Only he could tame the city of Boston and not be subjected to a career of ridicule and disdain.
Only TIM WAKEFIELD could save the ALCS in 2004 by sparing the bullpen with 3.1 gutsy innings; the game, and series, already out of reach.
But his body must be telling him something.
He is 43 years old. He will finish the season with the fewest games of his career since 1992 (his rookie season with Pittsburgh). His injuries are becoming more frequent, more nagging, and, worst of all, they are lingering and spreading.
So, while this is purely conjecture, and there are no signals coming from the Wakefield camp that this is the last season of his career, I won’t miss any of his last few starts of 2009.
With that said, let’s all hope for the best – that this is just a blip on the radar screen of an illustrious career. But, just in case, don’t miss what may be the last month in the career of one of the most unique and talented pitchers the MLB has ever seen.
I won’t.