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Gagne, Eric
Profession: Baseball players;
Athletes; Sports people
Date of Birth: 1976
"I'm me on the mound," the Los Angeles
Dodgers closing pitcher Eric Gagne told Daniel G. Habib
for Sports Illustrated (June 2, 2003). "I like to show
my emotion, be real aggressive and give everything I've
got for one half inning." At his best in pressure-filled
situations, Gagne has embraced the closer's do-or-die
ethos with gusto. His intensity has paid enormous
dividends for the pitcher, who has emerged as one of the
foremost closers in the game. In 2003 the Baseball
Writers Association of America named Gagne as the year's
National League Cy Young Award winner—marking the first
time a relief pitcher had been so honored since the
great Dennis Eckersley captured the prize, in 1992. The
award recognized Gagne's two-year ascent from the
category of borderline major-league starters to the
ranks of baseball's most feared hurlers. During that
time he set records by becoming the first closer to
achieve more than 50 saves in each of two seasons; tying
John Smoltz's National League record for saves in a
season, with 55 in 2003; and setting the mark for most
consecutive saves, with 63. Moreover, with his goatee
and goggle-like eyeglasses, signature fist pump, and
devastating pitching arsenal, the burly Gagne is not
only one of baseball's greatest throwers, but one of the
sport's most distinctive.
Eric Serge Gagne was born on January 7,
1976 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to Richard Gagne, a
bus driver, and Carole Gagne. He grew up in Mascouche, a
Montreal suburb. Like many French Canadians, from an
early age Gagne loved ice hockey, especially the
Montreal Canadiens, a team in the National Hockey League
(NHL). He was also a passionate devotee of the Montreal
Expos, idolizing the baseball club's longtime third
baseman Tim Wallach. Encouraged by his parents, Gagne
pursued his interest in sports, playing both baseball
and hockey, the latter as a defenseman. "I was a good
skater, bigger than everybody else, had a good slap
shot," he told Ken Gurnick for the Major League Baseball
Web site (May 14, 2002). "Not great hands for dribbling.
I played junior hockey, which is like minor leagues in
baseball." "He played to win ever since he was young,"
his father told Brian Daly, as quoted on ottawalynx.com
(November 12, 2003). "He didn't play because he wanted
to make millions of dollars when he grew up. He just
wanted to win." His father also told Daly that his son
is "not a guy who is going to give up. He wasn't pushed,
he made the steps by himself, one stage at a time." As a
youth Gagne developed a reputation as an enforcer, a
player whose often threatening presence dissuades
opposing players from intimidating the less-imposing yet
more skillful scorers on the enforcer's team. His career
as a hockey enforcer left its mark on his knuckles,
which bear scars from his many fights. His goggle-style
eyeglasses protect the site of a long-ago injury near
his eye.
Gagne attended the Polyvalente Edouard
Montpetit High School, in Montreal, which specializes in
training gifted athletes. (A dozen of its alumni are
currently on the rosters of Major League Baseball
teams.) The year he turned 15, Gagne left his parents'
home to live in his own, school-provided apartment in
Montreal. Throughout high school he struggled to decide
whether to pursue baseball or hockey exclusively. As a
Montreal-area French Canadian, he felt strongly drawn to
the national pastime; his ability to throw blistering
fastballs and other particular talents, however,
suggested that baseball was his true calling. For two
years Gagne was a starter on Team Canada's junior
world-championship baseball team. In 1995 he moved to
the national team; since it already had more than enough
starters (among them the future major-league hurler Ryan
Dempster), he began serving as closer for the first
time. Meanwhile, Gagne had attracted the interest of
major-league scouts. In 1994 the Chicago White Sox
drafted him, in the 30th round. As a high-school senior,
he faced choices that included playing baseball for the
White Sox organization, accepting a hockey scholarship
to the University of Vermont, or remaining in Canada and
possibly pitching for Canada in the next Olympic
baseball competitions. Gagne decided to focus on
baseball (and a possible Olympic appearance); he
matriculated at Seminole State Junior College, in
Seminole, Oklahoma, a school recommended by one of his
Team Canada colleagues. At Seminole State, Gagne, a
native speaker of French with minimal command of
English, learned the latter language by attending
twice-a-day tutoring sessions, taping class lectures and
listening to them repeatedly, and watching such American
sitcoms as Everybody Loves Raymond and Mad About You. On
the baseball diamond he perfected his fastball, slider,
splitter, and other aspects of pitching under Lloyd
Simmons, the Seminole State coach at that time. At over
six feet and nearly two hundred pounds, Gagne had an
imposing presence, and Simmons encouraged him to look
and act intimidating on the mound and to throw high and
tight when the situation called for it--for example,
when he faced a power hitter, or when a batter crowded
the plate. Simmons influenced him greatly. "He turned me
around," Gagne recalled to Gurnick. "He showed me
discipline, how that makes you a better player, to give
100 percent all the time."
Later in 1994, due to a technicality,
Major League Baseball declared Gagne an amateur free
agent; thus, the White Sox no longer had a claim to his
services. In the spring of 1995, Claude Pelletier, a
Canadian-born baseball scout with the Los Angeles
Dodgers who had been following Gagne's development for
several years, offered him a contract with the Dodgers.
With his heart set on the Olympics, Gagne hesitated,
until Pelletier pointed out, according to the JockBio
Web site, that the Canadian national baseball team "had
yet to qualify for the Atlanta Summer Games, while a
deal with the Dodgers guaranteed him a shot at pro
ball." Gagne then joined the Dodgers, earning a $75,000
signing bonus.
Gagne began his career in the Dodgers
organization with the Class-A Savannah Sand Gnats of the
South Atlantic League, in the spring of 1996. In his
first year he won seven games, lost six, and piled up an
impressive 131 strikeouts over 115 innings. He missed
the entire 1997 season because of a torn ligament in his
right elbow; the injury led him to undergo "Tommy John"
surgery, in which the ligament was replaced with a
nonvital tendon harvested from elsewhere in his body.
(The procedure is named for another Dodgers pitcher, who
was the first person to have the operation, in 1974.)
Gagne's convalescence was difficult mentally as well as
physically; as he told Gurnick, "I was concerned about
being able to [throw] the ball at all, about ever
playing baseball again. You have to start all over. I
couldn't throw from here to the wall. For the six
months, I couldn't pick up a ball. I couldn't wash
myself." He told Marc Goldin for the Associated Press
(September 27, 2003), "I thought about going back to
play hockey. . . . I thought about going back to school
for a psychology degree at McGill University in
Montreal." Those misgivings notwithstanding, Gagne
returned to organized ball in the spring of 1998, with
Class-A Vero Beach of the Florida State League, with
whom he began to rebuild his pitching repertoire. Given
the fragility of his elbow, he was not permitted to
throw splitters or sliders. Instead, he focused on his
fastball and added the change-up to his arsenal. He
completed the season with nine wins and 144 strikeouts.
Gagne began the 1999 season with the Double-A San
Antonio Missions of the Texas League. With a devastating
change-up and scalding fastball, Gagne pitched two
perfect innings in the Double-A All-Star Game, held at
mid-season. He maintained his dominance through the rest
of the season, notching at least 10 strikeouts in five
consecutive starts; he was the first minor leaguer in
three years to accomplish that feat.
Leaping straight from Double-A to the
big leagues, Gagne made his debut with the Dodgers on
September 7, 1999. He performed outstandingly on the
mound, pitching six scoreless innings and recording
eight strikeouts in a game won by the Florida Marlins,
with no decision for either him or the Marlins' pitcher,
Ryan Dempsey. In the next weeks he won one game and lost
one, compiling an earned-run average (ERA) of 2.10, with
30 strikeouts and 15 walks in 30 innings. At the end of
the season, with 185 strikeouts in 167 innings and a
12-4 record with the Missions, he was named the Dodgers'
minor-league pitcher of the year.
Gagne did not live up to expectations in
the 2000 season. After spring training, in which he
compiled an ERA of 15.63, he failed to make the
big-league roster; instead, he was optioned to the
Triple-A Albuquerque Dukes of the Pacific Coast League
(PCL). But after several of the Dodgers' starting
pitchers suffered injuries during the early weeks of the
season, Gagne was again called up to the big-league
club. Control continued to elude him, however, and he
was shuttled back and forth between the Dukes and the
Dodgers throughout the season. When he returned to the
Dodgers in September, he succeeded in making some
satisfactory starts. In the majors that year, Gagne
pitched a bit over 101 innings and started 19 games; his
record also included four wins and six losses, an ERA of
5.15, 79 strikeouts, and 60 walks. His numbers in
Albuquerque were more impressive: Gagne won five games
and lost one and posted a 3.88 ERA. He also shone in the
postseason, pitching to a semifinal-round victory for
Albuquerque in the PCL play-offs against the Memphis
Redbirds.
Gagne performed inconsistently in the
opening months of the 2001 season, and he again traveled
back and forth between the Dukes and the Dodgers before
earning his spot on the big-league roster permanently in
July. That same month the Dodgers' general manager, Dave
Wallace, proposed to others within the organization the
possibility of using Gagne as a closer, but no action
was taken toward implementing his suggestion. Near the
end of the season, the Dodgers found themselves with an
unusually large number of pitchers in their starting
rotation but a leaky bullpen as they battled for a
wild-card spot. Consequently, the team's manager, Jim
Tracy, began using Gagne as a long reliever. Gagne
proved to be effective in that role, but the Dodgers
were unable to clinch a play-off berth, finishing the
season with a record of 86 wins and 76 losses. At
season's end, Gagne had compiled six wins, seven losses,
and an ERA of 4.75. He notched 130 strikeouts, 46 walks,
appeared in 33 games—in 24 as a starter—and pitched, in
total, a little more than 151 innings.
In the 2002 season Gagne found his
footing in the major leagues, establishing himself as
one of the game's premier closers. To prepare for that
year's campaign, he undertook a strenuous exercise
regimen, working out in Montreal with several hockey
players. By the time he reported to spring training, he
had increased the velocity of his fastball from 93 to 97
miles per hour (mph). At the same time, his already
impressive change-up strengthened. When Tracy tested
Gagne in the bullpen during spring training, the pitcher
played well. At the start of the regular season, Tracy
announced that he would try a "closer-by-committee"
system involving Giovanni Carrara, Paul Quantrill, and
Gagne; whoever performed best would become the team's
full-time closer. Just a week into the season, Tracy
assigned Gagne to that position. A "turning point" in
his career, as Gagne told a Sports Illustrated (June 17,
2002) writer, came on April 11, 2002, during a contest
with the San Francisco Giants. The Dodgers held a
one-run lead when, in the bottom of the ninth inning,
Tracy--showing "a lot of confidence in me," as Gagne
told the Sports Illustrated writer--sent him to the
mound. Gagne pitched his way into trouble, putting
runners on first and third with one out. Tracy then
visited the mound, telling Gagne, "I should bring in
[the lefthander Jesse] Orosco, but I'm not. It's your
game." Gagne struck out the next batter and got the
final out on a fly to center field. During the rest of
April, Gagne performed outstandingly, racking up nine
saves with an ERA of 0.69. He continued in that mode in
May and June. "The stuff [Gagne is] featuring now is the
best stuff I've ever seen . . . ," his teammate Shawn
Green said to Mike DiGiovanna for the Los Angeles Times
(June 22, 2002). "He's throwing a 97-mph fastball
wherever he wants it. He could hit a gnat right now. And
his changeup moves so much he can throw it for strikes
or in the dirt so hitters will chase it. It's incredible
to watch and fun to play behind. I'm glad I don't have
to face him." In a contest with the Cincinnati Reds on
August 1, Gagne was ejected from the game for hitting a
batter with the ball; in the ensuing verbal
confrontation between Gagne and the umpire, the former
bumped into the latter while arguing his case. A day
later Major League Baseball officials ruled that the
umpire had been at fault, that his dismissing Gagne from
the game had been unwarranted, and that the league would
not punish Gagne for the incidental contact. In the
following games Gagne pitched just over 82 innings in 77
games, in which he notched 52 saves out of 56 chances
and posted a record of four wins and one loss. His save
total for the season ranked fifth in baseball history
and set a Dodgers record. Perhaps his most spectacular
statistic that season was his strikeout-to-walk ratio:
Gagne struck out 114 batters while walking only 16, a
ratio of over seven to one. He earned the National
League's pitcher-of-the-month award for June and was
named to the All-Star Team, which played on July 9,
2002. (That game ended in a tie.) After the season the
Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum named him and
Larry Walker, of the Montreal Expos, the co-winners of
the annual Tip O'Neill Award (named for the 19th-century
Canadian ballplayer James "Tip" O'Neill), which honors
the player "judged to have excelled in individual
achievement and team contribution while adhering to the
highest ideals of the game of baseball," according to
the Canadian Baseball News Web site. Gagne's success as
a closer stems not only from his physical abilities but
also from his mental fortitude, which enables him to
withstand the constant tension that comes with his
position. When a closer enters a contest, there is
little margin for error. If a starting pitcher gives up
runs, his teammates have the chance to improve the score
in subsequent innings, but a closer has no such luxury;
his job exists at the juncture of victory and defeat. In
addition, a closer must be able to shake off a dramatic
loss and return the next day to a similar
pressure-filled situation; what has been described as
"the closer's quick turnaround and the amnesia that is
essential to the job" are among Gagne's notable assets.
Carrying out his responsibilities as a closer gives him
"the best feeling in the world," he has said, according
to the JockBio Web site. "The game's on the line, and
you're the guy in the spotlight." Jim Tracy told Mike
DiGiovanna for the Los Angeles Times (July 6, 2002) that
Gagne "has shown time and time again that he has the
poise and guts of a burglar." Of his comparative lack of
success as a starter, Gagne explained to Daniel G. Habib
for Sports Illustrated (June 2, 2003), "Being a starter,
you have to be more mellow, more relaxed. It was boring.
I'm not that kind of guy." The days of waiting between
starts, the study of filmed play, the constant emphasis
on mechanics--all essential to a starter's
success—apparently do not suit Gagne's temperament.
Prior to Gagne's historic 2003 campaign,
the pitcher and the Dodgers organization wrangled over a
contract in the preseason before reaching a deal. There
was fear in spring training that Gagne's fastball, which
clocked in regularly at 97 mph during the 2002 season,
might have lost some its pep, but those fears quickly
proved unfounded. Entering home games to Guns N' Roses'
"Welcome to the Jungle" issuing from the stadium's
loudspeakers, Gagne pitched extraordinarily well,
showing that his 2002 performance had not been a fluke
and inspiring Dodger fans to don T-shirts emblazoned
with the words "Game Over." During the regular season,
he achieved 55 saves in 55 chances—an unprecedented
accomplishment. His total tied the all-time National
League record, set by John Smoltz of the Chicago White
Sox in 1990, and fell only two short of the all-time
major-league record, set by Bobby Thigpen of the White
Sox, also in 1990. (Thigpen achieved his 57 saves in 65
chances.) Gagne pitched 82.1 innings in 77 games, won
two contests while losing three, and compiled an
amazingly low ERA--1.20. With 137 strikeouts and 20
walks, Gagne again demonstrated overpowering pitching
and tremendous control. He also set the major-league
record for consecutive saves converted: 63, accrued over
the 2002 and 2003 seasons. (In his second All-Star Game,
in 2003, Gagne pitched the game-deciding home run, to
Hank Blalock, which gave the American League the lead.
The statistics compiled in All-Star Games are not
applied to players' regular season totals, so Gagne's
consecutive-saves streak remained intact.) At season's
end Gagne was considered a prime candidate for the Cy
Young Award, even though the Baseball Writers
Association of America, which chooses its recipients,
has traditionally shied away from honoring relievers,
believing that they are too specialized and log
considerably fewer innings than starters. As Gagne's
landslide victory in the Cy Young voting showed, the
writers found him to be eminently deserving of the 2003
award. Steven Hirdt of the Elias Sports Bureau, which
compiles baseball statistics, said of Gagne's
performance to Ross Newhan for the Los Angeles Times
(September 28, 2003), "I'm sort of in awe, like
everybody else. . . . I mean, averages, statistics,
calculations and things like that generally are not
designed to deal with perfection, and what we have here
is a unique situation."
In exchanging vows during his wedding
ceremony, according to the JockBio Web site, Gagne said
to his wife, Valerie, "I pledge you my heart and my
arm." The couple have a daughter, Faye, who was born in
2000, and a son, Maddox, born in 2004. In the off-season
Gagne enjoys playing golf, although at times, out of
frustration, he has broken clubs and thrown several into
ponds. Gagne works actively in various charities and
regularly visits hospitalized children. "I'm weak for
kids," he told T. J. Simers for the Los Angeles Times
(June 19, 2003). "I knew a youngster when I was younger
who died from leukemia, and . . . I learned so much from
watching him. . . . I'm in a position to do some things
now, and I'd just like to give these kids something else
to think about for a week or so instead of what they
have to go through every day."
Suggested Reading: ESPN Web site; Jock
Bio Web site; Los Angeles Times IV p2 June 19, 2003,
with photo, IV p1 Aug. 5, 2003, with photo, IV p7 Sep.
28, 2003, with photo; Major League Baseball Web site;
Sports Illustrated p81 June 17, 2002, with photo, p56
June 2, 2003, with photo
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