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Tom Glavine
Tom Glavine, a 20-year
veteran of Major League Baseball (MLB) and currently a member of the
New York Mets, has proven to be one of the sport’s most durable
pitchers. In the last two seasons, following a slump, the southpaw
has strengthened his performance by throwing “inside” with both his
changeup and his fastball, and he has enhanced his control with a
quickening of his pitching motion; the result, in particular since
the 2005 All-Star Break, has been a return to form that has brought
him closer to an illustrious benchmark for starting pitchers—300
career victories. (Only 22 men have won 300 or more big-league
games, a fraternity that includes baseball’s most renowned hurlers.)
Glavine spent the first 16 years of his career with the Atlanta
Braves, the Mets’ chief rival in the National League Eastern
Division. While with the Braves he won the National League Cy Young
Award in 1991 and 1998 and was elected to the All-Star Game eight
times. He was selected as an All-Star representing the Mets in 2004
and 2006. Among the active leaders in career wins, innings pitched,
games started, complete games, shutouts, batters faced, and
strikeouts, Glavine ranks as one of the best pitchers of his
generation. In a
conversation with Scott Freeman for Atlanta Magazine (April
2001), Leo Mazzone, the Braves' pitching coach from 1990 until 2003,
offered the following assessment of Glavine: “Steady, consistent,
stubborn, on the edge, never giving in. He has tremendous arm action
and change of speed, and that makes him deceptive. Hitters know he’s
going to throw down and away, and they still can’t do anything about
it.” Echoing a commonly held sentiment, Mazzone also praised
Glavine's ability to alter his game plan while on the mound,
according to the effectiveness of certain pitches in particular
situations. “He does it in different fashions,” Mazzone told Steve
Marantz for the Sporting News (May 1, 1995). “I’ve seen him
throw 79 pitches in a 9-inning game. I’ve seen him do it with change
of speed. Whatever is working for him on a particular night, he’ll
use. He’s the type of pitcher who wins when he doesn’t have his best
stuff. I’ve seen him throw a shutout striking out one, and I’ve seen
him throw a shutout striking out 10.” Glavine is a crafty rather
than overpowering pitcher, baiting his opponents into ineffectual
swings instead of facing them down with blazing fastballs. Leigh
Montville, writing for Sports Illustrated (July 13, 1992),
noted, “He goes about his business with precision, not angst. He
deceives. He fools. One pitch sets up another pitch, and another,
and another. His dominant pitch, for goodness’ sake, is the
changeup.” One
of four children, Thomas Michael Glavine was born on March 25, 1966
in Concord, Massachusetts, and raised in a blue-collar, middle-class
household in Billerica, in the greater Boston area. He has one
sister, Debbie, and two brothers, Fred and Mike. (On September 14,
2003, at the age of 30, Mike Glavine made his major-league debut
with the New York Mets, after an extensive minor-league career.)
Tom’s father, Fred, was a construction worker in Billerica, where he
later started his own company, Fred Glavine Construction. Tom's
mother, Mildred, was a school secretary. Fred Glavine encouraged
Tom’s interest in sports but did not pressure him to excel, merely
wanting his son to enjoy himself. Tom Glavine played baseball,
street hockey, and football with the other children in his
neighborhood. He told an interviewer for Sports Illustrated for
Kids (December 1992) that he “dreamed” of becoming a
professional athlete, “but I knew that millions of kids had the same
dream.” Glavine
played baseball and hockey at Billerica Memorial High School,
concentrating on one sport per season and becoming a standout in
both. He was so proficient at hockey, in which he played center,
that National League Hockey (NHL) scouts sometimes attended his
games. One scout, who ranked Glavine 56th out of some 240
prospective NHL players, noted in a written report the teenager’s
“good skating ability,” “long stride with good balance,” and “good
acceleration,” and found Glavine to be “an excellent scorer, smart
around net . . . tough and durable,” a player who “[would] not be
intimidated,” and an “excellent competitor,” as quoted by Montville.
At the end of his senior year, Glavine was named the Boston area's
high-school hockey player of the year, an award that was presented
to him at the Boston Garden, the former home of the Boston Celtics
basketball team and the Boston Bruins hockey team. He also earned
the Boston Globe’s All-Scholastic and All Player of the Year
honors for his efforts on the ice. (Playing hockey in high school,
Glavine competed against such future NHL stars as Kevin Stevens, Tom
Barrasso, and Brian Leetch, each of whom lived in the greater Boston
area.) On the
baseball diamond, meanwhile, Glavine played multiple positions,
including pitcher and center fielder. The most memorable achievement
of his high-school baseball career came in his senior year, in the
1984 Massachusetts state championship game, against Brockton High
School. He started the game on the pitcher’s mound, throwing for
nine innings in which he surrendered only one run, and had been
moved to center field, with the score tied 1–1, when the game went
into extra innings. In the 11th inning, from the outfield, he threw
out an opponent attempting to score. In the 13th inning, with his
team at bat, he led off with a single, and later that inning he
scored the championship-clinching run.
On June 9, 1984 the
Los Angeles Kings hockey team drafted Glavine with the 69th overall
pick in the fourth round. (He was selected ahead of such players as
Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille, who both went on to stardom in the
NHL.) He was also offered a scholarship to play hockey at the
University of Massachusetts at Lowell. In the summer of 1984, when
the Atlanta Braves baseball team selected Glavine in the second
round of the amateur draft, he was faced with having to pick a
career path. He chose baseball, signing with the Braves. Glavine
said to John McMurray for Baseball Digest (October 1, 2005),
“You just go through the plusses and minuses of both sports. I think
that two things that weighed heavily with me in both sports were the
health factor and the ability to play baseball probably longer than
hockey.” Just a
few weeks after the Braves signed him, Glavine headed to Bradenton,
Florida, to play in the minor leagues. In the 32 innings he pitched,
he struck out 34 batters, triggering his promotion, in 1985, to the
Braves’ South Atlantic League team in Sumter, South Carolina. He
spent the 1986 season in Greenville, South Carolina, with the
Braves’ double-A affiliate, and began the 1987 campaign playing
triple-A ball in Richmond, Virginia, in the International League. On
August 14, 1987 he was promoted to the big leagues and joined the
Braves.
From the 1984 season
through the 1990 season, the Braves finished no higher than third
place in the National League Western Division. They became the
laughingstock of the National League, and their home attendance
figures slumped mightily. Glavine attained his first victory in
Atlanta on August 22, 1989, in a game against the Pittsburgh
Pirates. In the 50.1 innings he pitched that year, he won two games,
lost four, and compiled a 5.54 ERA. In 1988, his first full season
in the big leagues, Glavine won seven games, lost 17, and had a 4.56
ERA. One day in
spring training in 1989, while standing in the outfield during
batting practice, Glavine picked up a ball that had rolled toward
him and, without intending to, hurled it back toward the infield
with his middle and index fingers placed along the baseball’s seams
and the tip of his index finger and resting atop his thumbnail.
Experimenting with the new grip in subsequent games, Glavine found
that he could use it to reduce the velocity of his pitches while
maintaining his normal arm speed—thereby coaxing hitters to swing
prematurely. “Throwing that way just seemed natural to me,” Glavine
said to Leigh Montville, adding, “If I hadn’t found that pitch,
picked up the ball that way . . . I don’t know. Maybe I would have
found some other pitch. I don't know. I’m just glad I found it.” The
changeup pitch he developed (often called a circle-changeup) became
Glavine’s most reliable “out pitch,” or pitch meant to secure a
strikeout; he continues to throw it as many as 50 times in a game.
He employed his new changeup with great frequency and success during
the 1989 season. Of the 22 games in which he was the pitcher of
record, he won 14, and recorded a 3.68 ERA. In 1990, taking a step
backward, he won 10 and lost 12, compiling a 4.28 ERA.
For both Glavine and the Braves, 1991
was the start of over a decade of highly successful seasons. Midway
through the preceding season, on June 22, 1990, Bobby Cox had
replaced Russ Nixon as the team’s manager. Cox named Leo Mazzone as
the Braves’ pitching coach. Together, Cox, Mazzone, and John
Schuerholz, hired as the team’s general manager after the 1990
season, formed baseball’s soundest and most successful brain trust.
From 1991 through 2005 (except for the strike-shortened 1994
season), the Braves won an unprecedented 14 straight division
titles. The strongest element of the team was its rotation of mostly
young starting pitchers, including Glavine, who benefited from
Mazzone's counsel. From 1992 through 2002, for example, the Braves
had the lowest or second-lowest ERA in the major leagues. The team
also took home six of the eight National League Cy Young Awards
(presented to pitchers) given from 1991 to 1998.
The Braves won 94 games in 1991 to take
the National League Western Division title, advancing to the
play-offs for the first time since 1982. They defeated the Pirates,
four games to three, in the National League Championship Series (NLCS).
In that series Glavine was saddled with two losses, despite pitching
to a 3.21 earned-run average and surrendering less than one hit per
inning pitched. In the World Series the Braves lost in seven games
to the Minnesota Twins. In two starts in the World Series, Glavine
pitched to a slightly higher ERA (4.05) but picked up a victory in
the Braves’ 14–5 victory in Game Five.
Never the ace of the Braves’ pitching
staff, Glavine was nonetheless regarded as a model of consistency
and durability. From 1991 to 1993, for example, he posted three
consecutive 20-win seasons, leading the National League in victories
in each of those years. In 1991, in recognition of his 20–11 record,
2.55 ERA, and nine complete games, the Baseball Writers Association
of America named Glavine the Cy Young Award winner in the National
League. The following year he became the first National League
pitcher to start consecutive All-Star Games since Robin Roberts of
the Philadelphia Phillies—who had accomplished the feat in 1954 and
1955. The Braves advanced to the World Series for a second straight
season, winning a rematch against the Pirates in the 1992 NLCS, four
games to three. Glavine rebounded from a Game Six start that lasted
just one inning—one in which he surrendered eight runs—to toss a
complete game in Game One of the 1992 World Series, a four-hitter
against the Toronto Blue Jays, which the Braves won, 3–1. His
performance in Game Four was equally strong: in notching his second
complete game of the series, he allowed six hits, four walks, and
two runs. The Braves, however, lost that game, 2–1, and went on to
lose the series, four games to two. In the 1993 NLCS the Braves were
thwarted by the Phillies from qualifying for their third consecutive
World Series.
Between the 1993 and 1994 seasons, when the National League was
expanded to include a third division, the National League Central,
the Atlanta Braves were moved from the National League West to the
National League East. Baseball’s realignment also included a
restructuring of the play-offs, which would double the number of
teams invited to the play-offs from two to four—the three division
winners and a wildcard team. In 1994 Atlanta’s hope of reaching the
National League championship for the fourth consecutive time was
dashed by the players’ strike, which arose over plans to impose a
salary cap on the MLB athletes. Glavine posted 13 wins, the
fifth-highest total in the league, and an earned-run average of
3.97, his highest since the 1990 season, during the abbreviated 1994
season. Ironically, Glavine attributed those relatively modest
figures to the strengthening of his left arm, which added roughly
five miles per hour to his fastball and caused him to lose some
control of his pitches. Glavine, who had become the players' union
representative for the Braves in 1991, emerged as a target of many
fans’ ire because of his visible role in the strike and
negotiations. The players’ strike ended on April 1, 1995, and games
resumed on April 25.
Atlanta finished that season with a
record of 90 wins and 54 losses. In the first round of the National
League play-offs, beginning on October 3, 1995, the Braves faced the
Colorado Rockies, the league’s wild-card finisher. Taking the ball
in Game Two, Glavine hurled five scoreless innings before
surrendering a three-run homer to the Rockies’ outfielder Larry
Walker, with one out in the sixth inning—a blow that tied that game
at three. (The Braves went on to win the game, 7–4.) After winning
the series against the Rockies three games to one, the Braves swept
the Cincinnati Reds in four games for the National League
championship. In Game One of the pennant series, on October 10,
1995, Glavine pitched seven strong innings, striking out five
opposing batters; the Braves won in 11 innings, 2–1. In the World
Series, against the Cleveland Indians, Glavine won the first two
games. (In Game Two he surrendered a second-inning two-run home run
to the Indians’ first baseman Eddie Murray before recording a 4–3
victory.) With Glavine resting, Cleveland took Game Three, Atlanta
Game Four, and Cleveland Game Five. In Game Six, on October 28,
1995, Glavine took the mound at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium to
give what still stands as his most dazzling performance in a
pressurized situation. He allowed only one hit over eight innings,
striking out eight batters, and pitched the Braves to a 1–0
victory—and their first World Series championship since 1957.
Glavine was named the series’ most valuable player.
The Braves advanced to the World Series
again in 1996 and 1999, both times losing to the New York Yankees.
In his 16 years in Atlanta, Glavine started 32 postseason games,
racking up 12 wins and 15 losses and a 3.58 earned-run average. In
World Series play during those years, in eight games started, he won
four, lost three, and recorded three complete games. In 1998 Glavine
took home his second Cy Young Award. That season he posted a
career-best 2.47 ERA, 20 wins, and six losses.
On December 5, 2002, after contract
negotiations with the Braves failed to work out to his satisfaction,
Glavine signed a four-year, $42.5 million deal with the New York
Mets. Sportswriters believed that in signing Glavine the Mets had
obtained a veteran leader who would bolster their pitching rotation.
The Mets had reached the World Series in 2000 (in which they were
defeated in five games by the New York Yankees), then finished in
third place in their division in 2001 and compiled a disappointing
75–86 record under Bobby Valentine the following season. Art Howe
replaced Valentine after that year. Acknowledging the team's recent
decline, Jack Curry wrote for the New York Times (January 24,
2003),“[Glavine] walks, talks and acts like a leader, something the
Mets desperately need.”
Glavine’s career with
the Mets began inauspiciously. On the cold and windy afternoon of
March 31, 2003, in New York's Shea Stadium, he surrendered eight
hits, four walks, and five runs in a game against the Chicago Cubs,
in less than four innings pitched. (Speaking to reporters after the
game, Glavine said that he had had trouble gripping the ball in the
way needed to throw his changeup in the 39-degree weather.) The
season as a whole was substandard for Glavine: he posted a 9–14
record (his first losing record since 1990) and a 4.52 earned-run
average, which was uncharacteristically high. Also, in pitching only
183.1 innings, he ended a streak of seven seasons with at least 200
innings pitched. The Mets sank even lower in the standings,
finishing with a 66–95 record (the second-worst in the NL in 2003),
34.5 games behind the division-champion Braves.
In the first half of
the 2004 season, Glavine seemed poised to bounce back, pitching to a
2.66 earned-run average and a 7–7 record. He was selected to play in
the 2004 All-Star Game, held in Houston, Texas, in July. In early
August his record stood at 8–10, with a 2.92 ERA. Then, on August
10, an SUV (sport utility vehicle) slammed into the taxi
transporting Glavine from LaGuardia Airport to Shea Stadium. Glavine
lost two front teeth. (He underwent extensive surgery, mostly after
the season.) He returned to the field later that month but pitched
poorly for a time, saddling himself with a 5.71 ERA. In his first
two seasons with the Mets, he collected only 20 wins against 28
losses—while watching his former team, the Braves, win the Eastern
Division championship both years. (They did so again in 2005.)
Meanwhile, the Mets' 71–91 record in 2004 represented the team’s
third consecutive losing season.
At the time of the
2005 All-Star Break, Glavine’s record stood at 6–7 with a 4.94
earned-run average—numbers that fell short of the pitcher's past
performance and did not meet the Mets’ standards. Glavine’s pitching
increasingly drew boos from the Mets fans gathered at Shea Stadium.
Because of his reluctance to pitch inside, which he had never done
with consistent success, the hitters facing him were free to ignore
that area of the strike zone and look instead for pitches over the
outer area of the plate. To address the problem, Glavine worked with
Rick Peterson, the Mets’ pitching coach, and expanded his repertoire
to include more pitches designed to cross the inner area of home
plate. Also, he sought to unsettle hitters by occasionally throwing
a curveball, a pitch he had consciously avoided since his days in
Atlanta. Beginning after the All-Star Break, he won seven of the 13
games for which he was the pitcher of record and pitched to a 2.22
ERA. His final statistics for the season—a 13–13 record with a 3.53
ERA and two complete games, one shutout, and 211 innings
pitched—belied his value to the Mets in the latter part of the year.
Glavine has admitted that in his first two and a half seasons in New
York, stubbornness played a part in his unwillingness to change his
style. “My natural reaction was, ‘I was successful for 17 years this
way. . . . Surely, when I fix my mechanics I’ll be all right,'” he
said to Paul White for USA Today (June 29, 2006). Guided by
first-year manager Willie Randolph, who stressed to his players the
importance of mastering baseball’s fundamentals and encouraged
aggressive base-running, the Mets finished 2005 with an 83–79
record, registering their first winning season since 2001.
As of mid-September 2006, the Mets had
compiled the National League’s best record, 90–55, and Glavine had
won 13 games and lost six. He began the season by picking up where
he left off the previous year, keeping hitters off-balance by
throwing his fastball inside with greater frequency and by using a
faster pitching motion. In July he was selected to play in his 10th
All-Star Game. Glavine’s sterling first half of the 2006 season
refueled interest in his pursuit of 300 career victories. As of
mid-September the southpaw had 288 wins, and he may reach the 300
mark in 2007. If he accomplishes that feat, he may be one of the
last starting pitchers to do so for the foreseeable future—in part
because of the introduction in the 1970s of five-man pitching
rotations, which decrease the number of starts per pitcher. (Another
factor is the rise of specialized bullpens, which lead to the
departure of starters earlier in games.)
“I know I am very stubborn in terms of
my pitching, and that’s part of what’s made me successful,” Glavine
told John McMurray. “But I think away from the field, I would
characterize myself as pretty quiet and very unassuming.” Glavine is
six feet one inch tall and weighs roughly 190 pounds. He and his
wife, Christine, have two sons, Peyton Thomas and Mason Riley;
Glavine also has a daughter, Amber Nicole, from his first marriage,
which ended in divorce, and a stepson, Jonathan, from his current
marriage. The pitcher and his family divide their time between homes
in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Alpharetta, Georgia. Glavine is an
avid golfer; his Georgia home sits on a golf course. He also enjoys
listening to music by James Taylor. Among the most articulate
players in baseball, Glavine said recently that he may pursue a
career in broadcasting when his pitching days end.
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