SEATTLE – Like a lot of kids, Brett Merrick once dreamed of playing major league baseball.
Unlike a lot of kids, Merrick had the talent to get there.
Merrick was a standout pitcher at Meadowdale High School, graduating in 1992, before going on to the University of Washington, where he still holds school records for saves and appearances, both single-season and career. He was then selected by the Cleveland Indians in the 12th round of the 1995 major league draft and started working his way up the team’s minor-league chain.
But in his fifth pro season, Merrick’s dream took a wrong turn. He experienced prolonged and painful shoulder tendinitis while pitching in Class AA, and the injury eventually led him to leave baseball. Returning home, he got married and started working in the insurance business.
At that point, Merrick figured his baseball career was down to coaching his son’s Little League team.
Which it was, until this season.
Earlier in the spring, the 32-year-old Merrick got a call from the Seattle Mariners. Jim Na, the team’s director of baseball administration, wanted to know if Merrick was still in shape. And if his arm was still good.
Yes and yes, Merrick replied, and at that point Na offered him the chance to be a major league batting practice pitcher.
Again Merrick said yes, jumping at the opportunity to get back into baseball. And these days he’s having so much fun, you’d think the Mariners had offered him a spot in their bullpen.
“I think I’ve got the best of all worlds right now,” he said the other day. “I really do enjoy working in the insurance business. It’s an office job, but it’s fun, it’s challenging and there’s never a dull moment. And then I get to come to the ballpark, get in uniform and play.”
The Mariners even asked if he wanted to travel with the team. Because Merrick has a wife and family, not to mention a full-time job, he had to say no. But he did accompany the club on the first road trip, to snowy Cleveland and then to historic Fenway Park in Boston, with perhaps another trip coming later in the season.
Otherwise, he shows up when the team is at Safeco Field. His office is in downtown Seattle, and he leaves there in the afternoon of game days to head for the ballpark.
For Merrick, the chance to be back in baseball is a treat, even in a fringe role.
“My arm feels great,” he said. “And just being around this team is fun. It’s a bunch of great guys, and as the season goes on they’re getting more and more familiar with me. And I don’t expect anything more. They’re big leaguers and this is their job. I’m just out there playing. But this is their livelihood, and anything I can do to help them out is great.
“They all know I use to pitch in the minors. And they like it because they say it looks like a pitcher coming at them. Some of the other (batting practice pitchers) are coaches or outfielders, and they throw like outfielders. But Raul (Ibanez) told me, ‘It’s nice to see it coming from someone that looks like a pitcher.’
“The other thing about these guys is that every time you throw batting practice, every one of them will come up to you afterward and say thank you. I think that’s pretty special.”
Pitching batting practice is, of course, unlike pitching in an actual game. For one, Merrick doesn’t stand on the mound. Instead, he pitches from a point midway between the rubber and the plate, with a screen in front to protect him from line drives and sharp one-hoppers.
For another, Merrick isn’t trying to get anybody out. No breaking balls, no changing speeds, no working the corners. Essentially his job is to lay the ball over the plate and let the hitters slug it out of the park.
“You’re working for the player,” said Mariners bench coach John McLaren, who has thrown plenty of batting practice in his time. The idea, he added, is to let the batter “hit the ball hard and feel good about himself before the game.”
It may sound easy, “but it’s not,” said Jeff Pentland, the team’s hitting coach. “It can be kind of hard to throw strikes sometimes, and some guys have a tough time throwing it easy enough. So it’s a little bit of an art.”
Merrick admits to having “a few butterflies, throwing to these guys” at the outset. But even though “I’d never thrown batting practice before I don’t have problems throwing strikes, though they did tell me I was throwing rapid fire. They said, ‘Take a little more time between pitches.’
“The other thing is, when you’re playing you learn how to make the ball move. To make it (curve) or sink. Now I’m learning how to make it straight, but once in a while it cuts and I’ve even broken a couple of bats. (The hitters) laugh about that.”
Pitching again, even if it is just batting practice, has stirred Merrick’s memories of his earlier dream. And, well, he is only 32.
“I would love to (get back into baseball),” he said. “There’s always kind of a thing in the back of my head saying, ‘Well, what if?’ But even though my arm feels great and I still feel like I can throw pretty decent, the odds are way against that ever happening.
“That’s a bigger dream than anything because these guys are so talented. I may joke around about it and it would be unbelievable, but on the realistic scale I’m a great insurance broker,” he said with a laugh.
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