D4 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20 , 2020
baseballBY JESSE DOUGHERTYWith a staff to rebuild, Wash-
ington Nationals Manager Dave
Martinez turned quickly to an old
and familiar friend. Jim Hickey
will be the club’s new pitching
coach, the Nationals announced
Monday, reuniting with Martinez
after they spent seven years to-
gether with the Tampa Bay Rays.
Hickey, 59, has spent 15 seasons
as a pitching coach. Those were
scattered across the Houston As-
tros, Rays and the Chicago Cubs
most recently. Hickey left the Cubs
in November 2018 and has since
been a special assistant for player
development with the Los Angeles
Dodgers. That he was looking for a
full-time job in the majors and
Martinez planned to bring his
own guys aboard made Hickey
and the Nationals a logical match.
“I have definitely evolved; it’s
become more, as you know, data-
driven,” Hickey said on a video call
with reporters Monday. “But at
the end of the day, it’s the same
game, and the best pitch in the
game is strike one and that kind of
thing. I think I’ve got the best of
both worlds — a little bit of old-
school and a lot of the newer-age
stuff as well.”
Washington had the opening
after parting ways with Paul Men-
hart this month. Menhart was the
pitching coach for most of 2019
and all of 2020. But Martinez’s
new contract, a multiyear deal
signed in late September, gave
him more autonomy with his staff.
The team did not renew the con-
tracts of Menhart, hitting coach
Kevin Long and bench coach Chip
Hale. Tim Bogar, Bobby Henley,
Henry Blanco and Pat Roessler are
the other holdovers from last sea-
son, and all four were on expiring
deals.
With Hickey on board, Marti-
nez will keep molding the group to
his liking. Bogar and Blanco go
back to Martinez’s time with the
Rays, too, making it likely they’ll
stick around. Henley is an organi-
zational lifer. Roessler figures to
be on the thinnest ice, having been
hired as assistant hitting coach at
Long’s recommendation. Hickey’s
hiring shows the Nationals are
wasting no time.
“You have no idea; I don’t even
think that I can explain it,” Hickey
said of having a fresh challenge at
this point of his career. “These last
couple of seasons here, as I was a
player development special assis-
tant with the Dodgers, was really,
really eye-opening, and it was
very, very gratifying. But you al-
ways just have that major league
tug. You want to get back to that.”
Hickey was the pitching coach
when the Rays won their first
American League pennant in
- Across a decade with Tampa
Bay, he helped develop David
Price, Scott Kazmir, James Shields
and Matt Moore, among others.
His latest role, in player develop-
ment with the Dodgers, led to
more work with younger arms.
The Nationals will return Max
Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and
Patrick Corbin to their rotation in - They’ll also bring back veter-
ans Daniel Hudson and Will Har-
ris in the bullpen. So what they’ll
need most from Hickey — what
the team has needed for years — is
a push for unproven pitchers. Joe
Ross, Erick Fedde and Austin Voth
have yet to establish themselves as
surefire starters. Relievers Tanner
Rainey and Kyle Finnegan have a
lot of positives to build on. Then
the next wave, players such as Ben
Braymer, Seth Romero and Kyle
McGowin, could use a strong
bridge between the minors and
majors.
A lot will ride on Hickey’s abili-
ty to bring them all along. His
recent experience with the Dodg-
ers, a team with a knack for foster-
ing arms, could help.
“What specifically stood out
about them, especially with how
they went about their minor
leagues, was just how on the same
page they all were,” Hickey said,
outlining a web of communica-
tion that would include Martinez
and pitching coordinators Brad
Holman and Spin Williams in
Washington.
“How united they all were and
how close [they] were personally
as well,” Hickey continued of the
Dodgers. “I thought that that was
very impressive. That’s the type of
thing I would like to see. I’m not
saying that’s not in Washington
now, but that’s the type of thing I
would like to see because you
definitely have to be in the same
step to get things done. And I don’t
anticipate that that will be a
p roblem at all.”
[email protected]
Nationals
pick Hickey
to coach
the pitchers
BY JESSE DOUGHERTYsan diego — Once the Tampa
Bay Rays made the World Series,
just squeezing past the Houston
Astros on Saturday, something
odd happened in a room off the
team’s clubhouse at Petco Park:
The Rays ran out of ways to
explain Randy Arozarena this
O ctober.
“I don’t have any words that
can describe what he’s done, what
he’s meant to us this postseason,”
Manager Kevin Cash said of the
player who has lifted his team
again and again, then again with
a two-run shot in Game 7 of the
American League Championship
Series. Kevin Kiermaier and Mike
Zunino just shook their heads
and laughed a bit. When it comes
to Arozarena — the shooting,
slugging star of these playoffs —
his coaches, teammates and op-
posing pitchers are brain-twisted
and stumped.
To date, on the doorstep of the
World Series, Arozarena has the
rookie record with seven postsea-
son homers and counting. His 11
extra-base hits are a franchise
record. He was named the ALCS
MVP after bullying the Astros
with four homers, a double and
nine total hits in 28 at-bats. He’ll
be the Los Angeles Dodgers’ big-
gest problem in a lineup that, to
reach this title chance, fought
inconsistency and had to scrap.
But Arozarena is its constant
and a fitting illustration of these
Rays. The St. Louis Cardinals
tossed him into a trade in Janu-
ary. The deal was headlined by
José Martínez for a former first-
round draft pick — not the now-
25-year-old Cuban outfielder
with speed and hints of power.
Now, though, Arozarena is the
reason that swap looms above
this month. The Rays landed an
unknown player fit to guide them
through the wringer.
They just need four more wins.
“Ever since I got traded over,
it’s felt like a family,” Arozarena
said through a team interpreter.knowing exactly what’s going to
happen. But I knew if I escaped
successfully, I was going to be
able to help out my family in the
end.”
So Curtiss met Dworken’s bet
with skepticism, saying, “Man,
that’s a bold claim.” But last week,
when the Rays were a win from
the World Series, Curtiss admit-
ted that Dworken was right. Aro-
zarena erupted for seven homers
in September. Then the playoffs
started and he zoned in.
Arozarena notched four hits
and a triple in a first-round sweep
of the Toronto Blue Jays. He
punched the New York Yankees
with eight hits and three homers
in their AL Division Series. He got
even hotter against the Astros,
growing his legend, but it wasn’t
just the offense. Arozarena has
worn borrowed, black-sequenced
cowboy boots for good luck. He
celebrates like a kid. When the
Rays edged the Yankees to ad-
vance, Arozarena took down
teammate Brett Phillips in a
dance contest in front of their
dugout. He’s the heartbeat of
Tampa Bay’s order and its
a ttention-grabbing frontman.
“You sit here and look at this
group of guys, and I always say we
don’t have a lot of household
names,” Kiermaier said of the
small-market team. “But at the
same time, people are making a
name for themselves right now.”
Put Arozarena at the top of that
list. Count the number of fans
who now consider him their fa-
vorite, then add one to the tally.
Earlier this month, as he tore
through the AL, Arozarena was
asked about Cuban players he
admires. He mentioned Astros
first baseman Yuli Gurriel. He
played the game for a moment.
Yet his real answer came quick-
ly, perhaps revealing how he, of
all people, has often bent the
playoffs to his will.
“My favorite player is Randy
Arozarena,” Randy Arozarena
said, allowing himself to grin.
[email protected]A star is born for the Rays this postseasonTampa Bay teammates are running out of ways to explain the sudden emergence of slugger Randy Arozarena“My mother read it, and she
cried,” Weaver said.
So I covered a seven-game
Series without a word from the
most quotable manager in
history. Next spring training,
Earl approached. “My wife says
I’ll go to hell,” he said, “if I don’t
talk to you.”
“Okay, Earl,” I said, “but I don’t
have any questions right now.”
Millions will remember that
first Series I covered in 1975
because of Carlton Fisk waving
his arms, willing his drive to hit
the Fenway foul pole.
I’ll remember that Series
because it symbolized the
incredible difference between
American sports then and now. I
told a college friend that I could
smuggle him into the Fenway
Park press box if, instead of
dressing like the psychiatrist he
had become, he would dress like
a slob and carry a notebook and
pen.
It worked. We acted like we
belonged, I casually tapped my
credential, and we watched
together in the back row of the
main press box. Now, we might
end up in cuffs, and that kid
reporter would get fired.
In part, I was cavalier because,
after six years at The Post, never
covering anything above high
school sports, I still didn’t know
if I wanted a life as a sportswriter
or even a journalist. A new sports
editor took me off preps and
made me the only baseball writer
in America in a town with no
team.
The ways our identities form,
the choices we make, can be that
flexible. The 1975 World Series
turned out to be, at that time, an
instant choice as the greatest
World Series ever played. The
sport began moving from out of
favor to beloved again — and
something worth writing about.
I’d always loved the game and
its literature, played it as well as I
could, and saw it as one of many
windows from which a writer
might glimpse the horizon. So, I
stuck with it, to let it play out —
never imagining at 27 that I had
framed my whole life.
Stories take you places in the
process of writing that you never
considered. It just happened
again. Where would I be today if
Fisk’s ball had gone foul?
[email protected]For more by Thomas Boswell, visit
washingtonpost.com/boswell.watch together as something that
has never happened before
comes to pass. As I was about to
type the word “impossible,” Scott
Brosius hit a two-run, two-out
homer in the ninth to tie the
score. On Alfonso Soriano’s walk-
off hit in the 12th, there should’ve
been a final play at the plate, but
the ball took a bad hop. Maybe, I
wrote, it “hit a police shield or
Babe Ruth’s watch fob.”
Game over, hit “send.”
And you wonder how stories
on games that end at 1 a.m. get in
the paper on your doorstep at
6 a.m.
In some sense, the “best”
Series are the ones involving
teams you covered all season.
What an advantage and chance
to shine! My first time was 1979,
and Baltimore Orioles Manager
Earl Weaver was so mad at me
that, for the whole postseason, he
refused to speak to me or to any
group of which I was a part.
I had written about an
argument he had with Jim
Palmer the day after the O’s
clinched the AL East. Earl had
said for days how much he would
drink in the victory celebration; I
simply wrote that Earl had kept
his word, which probably
factored in the fuss.“Story eaten,” I gasped to my
editor on the phone. “Can we still
make the City [edition]?”
I doubt anybody held the
presses, but it felt like it. “Did we
make it?” I asked 20 minutes
later. Yes!
Relieved, I leaned back in my
chair. Then I heard applause.
Who says “No cheering in the
press box”?
My No. 2 was just bat-flip
showboating. At the 2001 World
Series, the Yankees tied Game 4
on a Tino Martinez homer with
two outs in the ninth, then won it
in extra innings. The next night,
one of The Post’s top editors sat
next to me. That was unusual.
But the Series had never been
played in New York the month
after 9/11, either.
Midnight approached. My
column on a Diamondbacks win
was finished, set to send. Then a
premonition came: “It happened
again,” I wrote. “It couldn’t, but it
did.” The editor, now a good
friend, read along.
Nothing had happened, yet, as
I wrote about “a city so full of
pain that it cannot find words to
speak it and so desperate to
rediscover joy that it can’t stop
screaming its cheers.”
My new premise: Reader, let’sI suspect that creativity, whether
the scale is miniature or
masterpiece, feels a little bit
similar.
Of course, there are nights
when not much adrenaline
shows up or your ideas are
mundane. Minutes from
deadline, you look at 3,000 words
of unholy mess. “The hell with it,”
you say, admit defeat and
commandeer 1,200 words —
some from here, some from there
— and hope nobody realizes how
disgusted you are. On to the next
day.
Fans ask sportswriters for
their “favorite” World Series.
That’s friendly, but it misses the
point. The athletes are playing
their game. We’re playing ours.
The world cares about their final
score. But, like anybody in any
job, we care about how we
perform.
By this (personal) standard,
my favorite Series game was in
1982, Brewers vs. Cardinals. I
don’t remember which game or
who won. But I remember that,
in an auxiliary press box with a
couple of dozen writers, my
computer ate my story just
before deadline. In that era,
irretrievable.
“%$#@!” I exploded.you wrote.
In 2002, I finished a “Giants
win first World Series in 48
years” column. Then the Angels
rallied to win Games 6 and 7. A
friend, a Giants fan who had
never seen his team win a title,
called me. “I bet you wrote a
‘Giants win’ column,” he said.
“Can you send a copy, so I can
frame it?”
In 2017, after an extra-innings
Dodgers-Astros marathon, I
bumped into a baseball scribe as
we headed to the same plane.
Sleep? “An hour,” I said. “None,”
he said, adding, “I’m too old for
this s---.”
I resisted my senior-citizen
prerogative to say, “Wait and see
how it feels in another 20 years.”
What is so fun about covering
the playoffs and World Series
that you don’t much care about
those drawbacks anyway? Why
would anybody keep doing this
for so long?
Because there’s nothing like it.
You can’t plan out World Series
stories ahead of time. You can do
homework to prep, can come up
with story ideas or themes. But
baseball usually blows them up.
World Series reality makes
surrealism seem boring.
You’re left with adrenaline
(which you may need for five
hours straight), fear of failure,
the power of the game itself and
the hope that — one more time,
please, just one more time —
your fingers will start flying. The
ideas and insights will rush faster
than you can type, and you will
suddenly be in a place that you
have never reached in any other
way.
You will be inspired. You don’t
know where the words you are
writing are coming from or what
will come next. You give yourself
over totally to the moment and to
blind trust — what’s the
alternative? — in yourself. You
reach the final paragraph, the
conclusion, the kicker, often with
no idea what it’ll be. And
suddenly, it jumps straight onto
the page, a thing your mind was
composing behind the scenes.
Sometimes, the writers next to
you will tell you that you were
chuckling aloud as you wrote.
Sometimes, you’ll finish with
tears on your face.
That may sound romantic. It is
romantic. You may say, “It’s only
baseball,” and you’d be right. ButBOSWELL FROM D1THOMAS BOSWELLAfter 44 World Series and 252 games, a streak is coming to an endJONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST
A t Nationals Park during last year’s World Series, Thomas Boswell is bottom row, center, in a ball cap.“They welcomed me with open
arms. They let me be myself. They
let me have the freedom to be out
there and be the player I want to
be.”
Before this run, while Tampa
Bay was building the AL’s best
record, Arozarena toiled at the
team’s alternate training site in
Port Charlotte, Fla. He had been a
fringe outfielder with the Cardi-
nals. At first, he had to make the
Rays. Then they had a roster spot
after sending Martínez — yes, the
same José Martínez — to the
Chicago Cubs on Aug. 30 near the
trade deadline. Arozarena wasgiven a shot.
And when that happened,
Misha Dworken had a prediction.
Dworken, one of the club’s bull-
pen catchers, told reliever John
Curtiss that recalling Arozarena
was the best deadline acquisition
in baseball. Curtiss, in truth,
knew little about Arozarena. Nei-
ther did most of the Rays. He
flashed talent in spring training
before a four-month break amid
the novel coronavirus pandemic.
How he got to the majors, let
alone how he got to the country,
was lost on most of his new
teammates.In 2015, Arozarena defected
from Cuba on a small boat bound
for Mexico. Cuba was where he
grew up, where his family lived,
where at age 8 he went from being
a soccer player to loving baseball.
But he always felt there was bet-
ter opportunity in America. He
wanted to provide more for his
mother and siblings after his fa-
ther died when he was a teenager.
He left at age 19, chasing a dream.
“It was very scary,” Arozarena
said recently. “It’s something I
hope I won’t have to experience
anymore. It was about eight
hours of risking my life, notJOHN G. MABANGLO/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK
R ays outfielder Randy Arozarena was the ALCS MVP after hitting four home runs against the Astros.