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He's the latest in a long line of Pirates pinch hitters Sunday, May 07, 2000 By Ed Bouchette, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
John Vander Wal has a job to do. On many days, it takes him fewer than five minutes to accomplish it and, on average, he fails 75 percent of the time.
For this, they pay Vander Wal $850,000 annually.
A dream job, no?
"It sucks," Vander Wal said. "I hate it."
Two long lines form behind him: one of men who share the job and his opinion of it and another with those who would love to take it from him.
Vander Wal's trade is major league baseball player, this season with a new employer, the Pirates. His specialty is pinch-hitting, and he owns the major-league record for pinch hits in a season, getting 28 in the strike-shortened 1995 season for the Colorado Rockies. He's one in a long line of outstanding pinch-hitters who have played for the Pirates.
Yet there are few roles in the world of sports so under-appreciated, so difficult and less desirable than that of pinch hitter.
"Anyone who tells you he likes it is nuts," said former Pirate Jerry Lynch, one of the game's renowned pinch-hitters.
"I remember one week in Cincinnati, I went 0 for 7 as a pinch-hitter. Seven days in a row! We lost every game. You kind of take the responsibility, put it on your shoulder, especially in a one-run game.
"But you know what? I had a wife and four kids to feed. I did not like it, but sooner or later I had to like it."
What's to like, other than keeping your spot on a major-league roster and the handsome salary that goes with it? There is something to be said for that, but for those players like Vander Wal who aspire to something greater, getting tagged as a good, dependable pinch-hitter is like becoming a great character actor. It's steady work, good pay and you achieve celebrity status, but you're rarely going to become the next Tom Cruise.
Delivery Men
Chuck Tanner, a decent pinch-hitter in his day, had to deal with the frustrations of players in that role when he became a manager with the A's, White Sox, Pirates and Braves. Bobby Tolan, once a regular outfielder in Cincinnati, spent a brief period with the Pirates in 1977, Tanner's first year as manager with the team.
Tanner told him he would serve mainly as a pinch-hitter, and Tolan complained.
"Look," Tanner said, "I told you you're going to be a pinch-hitter. I understand you want to play every day. I can make that happen in a hurry, but it will be in Triple A."
Tolan thought about that for a while and, all things considered, he said he'd rather be in Pittsburgh.
Having gone through it himself, Tanner could appreciate the trials, reservations and mental anguish players experience in a steady pinch-hitting role.
Tanner broke into that job with a bang. He was a 24-year-old rookie with the Milwaukee Braves in 1955. Manager Charlie Grimm sent him up to pinch-hit for pitcher Warren Spahn on opening day in Milwaukee. Gerry Staley was on the mound for the Reds.
Tanner smacked Staley's first pitch -- the first Tanner saw in the big leagues -- for a home run. He later became one of a handful of players to ever pinch-hit for the great Hank Aaron, and he hit a home run in that at-bat, too.
But like every other player, he wanted to become a regular and he felt he was doing that with the Cubs in 1958, when he won the center field job in spring training.
Then one day, Manager Bob Scheffing asked him to bunt against the Giants' Pete Burnside, a wild, 6-foot-2, left-hander. The pitch came right at Tanner's head; he stuck his bat up, the ball glanced off of it and ricocheted smack into his mouth, knocking out a couple of teeth.
Phil Wrigley, the Cubs' owner, sent Tanner to his private dentist, but the pain persisted.
"Every time I ran, my jaw hurt so bad," Tanner said.
Thus, the career of another lifelong pinch-hitter was born. Tanner went on to collect 38 pinch-hits in 174 at-bats, nearly half of his major league plate appearances in an eight-year playing career.
"It's a tough role; you have to do a lot of studying," said Tanner, who lives in New Castle. "I think it helped me toward becoming a manager. I concentrated on pitchers; where the shortstop played -- I knew if he shifted it would be a breaking ball. I was in the game the whole nine innings, even if I didn't pinch-hit that day. It was like going to school. It really helped me when I was a manager in the minors.
"Sometimes you think it's the worst break you ever had; sometimes it turns out to be the best break."
Still, it is difficult to convince a pinch-hitter of that Vander Wal, like others before him, is frustrated by his role, but he works on performing it as best he can while trying to persuade the manager that he can still, at age 34, become an every-day or platoon player.
The Pirates traded Al Martin to San Diego for Vander Wal, who can play first base as well as the outfield. He is batting .333 and cracked a game-winning, pinch-hit, three-run home run against Montreal on April 12. He belted a grand slam April 27 against the Padres, a game which he started.
Vander Wal is 4 of 9 as a pinch-hitter this season, boosting him to 112 career pinch-hits, ninth on the all-time major-league list.
"I guess I really don't hate it," he said, amending his earlier reaction. "But it's a job in which you get one shot in a game. A lot of times, you have runners in scoring position and the majority of times, you're going to fail."
For a pinch-hitter, .250 and above is considered a good batting average. Vander Wal's career pinch-hitting average was .253 at the start of this season.
"I feel it's the toughest part of baseball," Vander Wal said. "But it's kept me in the game for a long time.
"It's tough mentally. You look at the starting players, they're getting four at-bats a game. You're pinch-hitting, not playing and you may get four at-bats a week. That's a big difference, man. I mean, a big difference trying to feel comfortable at the plate."
Lynch, fifth on the all-time list with 116 pinch-hits, sympathized with Vander Wal's plight, although he laughed a little.
"You tell him," Lynch instructed, "that I said the biggest mistake he made was being successful pinch-hitting. If he slacked off, he might get a regular job. But you tell John it ain't all bad. I stayed in the big leagues 13 years by being a pinch-hitter. You get a pension, and the money they're making now!
"Hey, we all want to play. I don't think a manager wants to have anyone happy sitting on the bench. But tell John to keep grumbling and he'll play once in a while."
Many of the top pinch-hitters in baseball history have come through Pittsburgh at one time or another. They include the best of all, Manny Mota, who leads the list with 150 pinch-hits. He played for the Pirates from 1963 to 1968 in a career that covered 1962 to 1982.
The late Smoky Burgess, second with 145, played for the Pirates from 1959 until '64 in an 18-year career that ended in 1967. It was often said the manager could wake Burgess up in the middle of the night, send him in to pinch-hit and he'd line a double into the gap.
Lynch, fifth on the list with 116, began and ended his 13-year big-league career with the Pirates, sandwiched around 61/2 seasons in Cincinnati.
The club's current pinch-hitting specialist, Vander Wal, broke Jose Morales' single-season pinch-hit record of 25, set in 1976 with Montreal. Morales is fourth on the list with 123 hits.
Vander Wal is proud of his record, to a point.
"It also shows I wasn't playing a lot. It is bittersweet. I'm thankful for the accomplishment, but I want to play."
He has talked to Manager Gene Lamont about it, and he already has seven starts here. That's almost as many as he got the entire '95 season in which he broke the record with the Colorado Rockies.
"There are guys I know who are out there playing every day [in the majors] that I know, if I was given the opportunity, I'd at least get there or above where they're at. I have no doubts in my mind if I was given a shot, especially four or five years ago, that I wouldn't be where I am right now.
"But, I'm still here, still playing, thankful I'm a big-leaguer. This is my ninth year. I'll play another three or four years and call it a good career."
A successful pinch-hitter does not day-dream on the bench for eight innings, step up and get the job done, not unless you were Smoky Burgess. Players had different ways to get ready, such as Tanner studying the play of the shortstop. Others chart pitchers, take practice swings if a pitching machine is available and, on cold nights, hang out in the warmth of the clubhouse.
"Here, we're fortunate enough to have Iron Mike," Vander Wal said of the indoor machine down the hall inside Three Rivers Stadium. "And it's not a very far walk. We had the same thing in Colorado.
"You go in, take swings, get loose, just make sure you get the juices flowing when you get out there. That's the main thing."
Dave Magadan, at 37 nearing the end of a long career in which he had been a regular, now serves mainly as a pinch-hitter for the San Diego Padres. He has 69 career pinch-hits, fourth among active players, but he's 0 for 5 this season.
"I know this year I'm going to be the last left-hander off the bench," Magadan said. "In the middle of the game, I stretch, I swing the bat, hit off a tee, do a soft toss and get ready to bat. Then, whatever the situation calls for, I adapt my way of thinking."
That way of thinking differs not only with situations, but with the pinch-hitters themselves.
Lynch prided himself on hitting home runs in his pinch-hitting role.
"I'm fifth in pinch-hits [he has since been passed by Arizona's Lenny Harris] and I hit 18 pinch-hit home runs," Lynch said. "When I went up there I rang the bell. Some guys get a base hit and that doesn't do anything. When you get an extra-base hit or hit it out, managers love that. The manager didn't send me up there to take a base hit, he sent me up there to cause problems. I did not go up and take a base hit with two out and no one on in the ninth.
"That was my nature; it's not everyone's nature."
It was, for at least a season, Johnny Frederick's nature. The Dodgers' Frederick holds the season record with six pinch-hit home runs in 1932.
Magadan, who once went through an 0-for-14 stretch as a pinch-hitter, remembers his most productive pinch plate appearance, and it wasn't a hit.
"One time in Houston, I ended a game with a bases-loaded walk. That was my greatest moment as a pinch-hitter."
He did, however, hit his first major league home run as a pinch-hitter with the Mets off of the Pirates' John Smiley in Three Rivers Stadium on April 20, 1987.
Vander Wal's most memorable pinch-hit came in the 1998 playoffs when he was with San Diego. His two-run triple in the bottom of the eighth gave the Padres a 4-1 lead in the fourth game and they went on to beat Houston to reach the NL Championship Series and, ultimately, a World Series loss to the Yankees.
But they all have to take a back seat to the two most famous pinch-hitters in baseball history.
Bernie Carbo of the Red Sox hit a dramatic one in the eighth inning of the sixth game of the 1975 World Series that set up Carlton Fisk's memorable game-winner.
But no pinch homer has been as dramatic as Kirk Gibson's two-out, two-run blow in the ninth inning off of Oakland ace reliever Dennis Eckersley that gave the Dodgers a 5-4 victory in the opener of the 1988 Series. The dramatic first-game win propelled the Dodgers to a five-game series triumph.
And then there was Eddie Gaedel. At 43 inches tall little longer than a baseball bat, the midget was sent in to pinch-hit in a 1951 game for the St. Louis Browns in a stunt by owner Bill Veeck. Gaedel drew a walk.
That success wasn't enough to keep him in his pinch-hitting role, however. Major League Baseball ruled the next day that Gaedel could no longer play.
It's just one more example of how pinch-hitters can't even win for winning.
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