2C z THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019 z USA TODAY E3 SPORTS
“I still can’t believe it,” says Flaherty,
who still has pictures of himself and
Skaggs pinned to his Twitter account. “I
don’t know what happened. All I know
is that he meant the world to me. I’ll re-
member him forever.
“I want to carry on his legacy.”
He’ll be pitching in honor of one of his
mentors, Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, who
left his name and phone number in Fla-
herty’s locker last year to call whenever
he needed. Now, on the 60th anniversa-
ry of his debut season, Gibson is battling
pancreatic cancer.
“He has meant so much to me and
has been such an inspiration,” Flaherty
said. “He’s a legend. I continue to pray
for him every day.”
He’ll be pitching for his mother, Ei-
leen, who adopted him at 3 weeks old
and who will be in the stands watching
him in Game 2 of the National League
Division Series against the Braves in At-
lanta.
“She’s my rock,” he says, “she’s my
hero. Really, she’s the strongest person I
know.”
And he’ll be pitching for all of his
friends back home in Los Angeles, par-
ticularly at Harvard-Westlake High
School, where he was only the third-
best pitcher on his team.
Let’s see, one his former teammates,
Max Fried of Atlanta, won 17 games and
could start Game 4. The other is Lucas
Giolito, ace of the White Sox. The trio
combined to win 42 games this season.
“We always keep in touch,” Flaherty
said. “It’s pretty special.”
For a young man at the age of 23, with
just two full seasons in the big leagues,
Flaherty sure will have a plethora of
thoughts on his mind when he makes
his postseason debut.
“I always treat every game like it’s the
biggest one of the year,” Flaherty quietly
says, “but this one, nothing will com-
pare to this feeling. Nothing. Here we go.
Now it all starts.”
Flaherty is the reason the Cardinals
are even standing. He went 11-8 with a
2.75 ERA, striking out 231 batters, the
most by any Cardinals pitcher not
named Gibson. He became the third-
youngest pitcher in baseball history to
strike out at least 230 and walk 55 or
fewer with a 2.75 ERA or lower.
The Cardinals, just a .500 ballclub at
the All-Star break, jumped on his back,
and he carried them, yielding a 0.91 ERA
in the second half. Flaherty made 14
starts this season in which he yielded
three or fewer hits, and 17 starts permit-
ting no more than four hits.
“What we saw the second half is un-
like anything I’ve ever seen,” said Cardi-
nals veteran Adam Wainwright, 38, who
made his first pro start when Flaherty
was 4. “It’s incredible what he’s done.
We’re not in the playoffs without him.”
Flaherty was the one who pitched the
first game of the critical four-game se-
ries in late September at Wrigley Field in
Chicago, setting the tone by yielding
three hits in eight innings, leading the
Cardinals to a four-game sweep over the
Cubs. He was the one who rescued them
on the final day Sunday, pitching a two-
hitter over seven innings to beat the
Cubs again, clinching the NL Central.
Now, here he is, the most-feared
pitcher in the NL, who the Cardinals will
be relying on in their first step to bring
the World Series back to St. Louis.
Why, with all of the talk of Justin Ver-
lander and Gerrit Cole, who’ll finish 1-
in the Cy Young balloting in the Amer-
ican League, Flaherty made a major
league-leading 14 starts this seasonyielding three or fewer hits while pitch-
ing at least six innings. Verlander was
next with 12 starts; Cole had 11.
Remarkably, Flaherty did not give up
a run in 12 of his 33 starts this season.
Says 34-year-old Cardinals pitcher
Andrew Miller: “I mean, you think about
it, he should be just getting out of college
now, and here he is, dominating the
league. His talent is outrageous.”
How good will he be?
“It’s not a question of whether he’ll
win a Cy Young award one day,” Cardi-
nals starter Michael Wacha says, “but
just how many.”
Flaherty – one of the finest athletes
in baseball, who can dunk a basketball
from a standstill – led the team with
nine sacrifice bunts, doubled in three
consecutive games, had seven pinch-
running appearances and permitted
just one stolen base. He is almost ob-
sessed to be the best.
He’s 23 going on 43. He carefully
monitors what he eats. He’s vigilant
about his sleep habits. He’s a maniac inthe weight room.
Hey, if you’ve got the talent, why
wait? Go ahead and flaunt it.
“We don’t see any 4-year-olds run-
ning the Kentucky Derby, do we?” Car-
dinals pitching coach Mike Maddux
said. “He’s a rare breed, a championship
breed.
“He believes in himself and knows
his stuff plays. Wait until you see him go
through the school of hard knocks, and
then you’re really going to see some-
thing.”
Flaherty, who won the National
League Pitcher of the Month award in
August and September, knows he’s
good. Real good.
But he wants to be great.
“You could tell right away when we
signed him he was very driven,” said
Cardinals president John Mozeliak, who
gave Flaherty a $2 million signing bonus
as the 34th pick in the draft to keep him
from going to North Carolina on a base-
ball and academic scholarship. “He
wasn’t going to simply do this to get a
signing bonus and to see where it took
him.
“He was all business from Day 1. He’s
very focused on what he has to do to be
great.”
Flaherty looks chill walking into the
clubhouse each day, taking pride in his
fashion, but when he steps on the
mound, it’s as if his entire body goes
into a different zone.
He wants to beat you on every pitch
he throws. He generated a staggering
30.7% swings-and-misses this year, the
most by any Cardinals’ pitcher in at
least 30 years when they started record-
ing the stat. Just 15.1% of his pitches
were even put in play.
“You can’t put in words what he
means to us,” Cardinals infielder Matt
Carpenter says.
“And if you’re going to win in October,
you need a guy on the mound who’s go-
ing to dominate. You need a guy who’s
not afraid. This guy, I’m telling you, is as
tough as they come.”
But if they only knew the pain. The
anguish hearing that one of your best
friends is dead. The heartache of won-
dering if your mentor will beat cancer.
The anxiety for your mom trying to raise
two sons by herself.
“That’s why this means everything to
me to be with these guys,” Flaherty says.
“You see the love we have for each other.
You see the joy we bring to each other. I
want to bring that same joy to everyone
in my life.
“To do that, and to be the best, you
have to work hard. That’s what I want.”
Flaherty pauses, takes a deep breath,
and slowly says, “More than you possi-
bly know.”Nightengale
Continued from Page 1C
Cardinals starting pitcher Jack Flaherty did not give up a run in 12 of his 33
starts this season. JOE NICHOLSON/USA TODAY SPORTSsult of fines and suspensions, according
to spotrac.com. (He also has earned
more than $33 million in salary and bo-
nuses.)
“He’s never worried about losing
money,” said Darryl Jones, Burfict’s un-
cle. “He’s not worried about (penalty)
flags. He just goes out there to play.”
The NFL suspensions began in 2016,
when Burfict was benched for three
games for repeated violations of player
safety rules.
He was suspended for another three
games in 2017 for a blindside block.
In 2018, he was suspended for four
games for violating the league’s policy
on performance-enhancing drugs.
And now this — suspended for the re-
mainder of the season as a result of his
hit on Doyle in Sunday’s 31-24 victory
for the Raiders.
Scoffing at the latest suspension,
Lane said her son learned how to play
the game “when they were playing foot-
ball. Now they play foosball.”
She also said genetics probably are a
factor. It turns out Burfict’s father, Von-
taze Sr., played football.
“And he was a beast, too,” Lane said.
“Yes, he was crazy.”
Vontaze Burfict Sr. was convicted of
cocaine possession with intent to dis-
tribute, according to records. He was in-
carcerated by the time Vontaze Burfict
Jr. was born Sept. 24, 1990, in south Los
Angeles and served about 25 years in
prison, according to Lane.
Lane also said both she and Vontaze
Sr. were gang members before she gave
birth to Vontaze Burfict Jr., who, unlike
his father, has avoided any serious trou-
ble off the football field.
He is the father of two daughters,
ages 4 and 2, and in July got engaged to
his girlfriend, Brandie LeBomme.
“This man is so soft spoken and
sweet and thoughtful and a great, great
kid,” Lane said.
Yet Burfict has been fined or sus-
pended by the NFL for at least 17 on-field
infractions — including hitting a player
in the groin, kicking a player and twist-
ing the ankle of not just one but two
players — and shown little remorse.
Ejected from the Raiders’ game
against the Colts after his helmet-to-
helmet hit, Burfict was seen smiling and
blowing kisses to the crowd as he left
the field. Yet Jones, Burfict’s uncle, said
Burfict was crying when he called him
by phone from the locker room.
“We both cried on the phone togeth-
er,” Jones said. “Of course he’s taking it
hard. He’s almost lost his right to play.
He did tell me if they suspended him he
didn’t know if he would come back and
play again.”
With Burfict’s father in prison, it was
Jones, 43, who emerged as a mentor. He
said he helped organize football games
in which Tez — Burfict’s nickname —
began to make a name for himself.
“He had to play a little rougher in or-
der to keep up with us,” Jones said. “He
was the smallest one of the group. So
whether it was basketball, football,
baseball, he had to play up to the level
that we were playing on.
“In turn, when he played against peo-
ple that were his age, he was always
dominant because he was ready for the
older, bigger guys.”
Because of Burfict’s poor grades, his
mother did not let him play organized
football until he was a freshman at Cen-
tennial High School in Corona.
“When he got moved to varsity, he
was like the scout-team quarterback
running over everybody,” said Brandon
Magee, who played with Burfict at Cen-
tennial and later Arizona State. “And
then he got switched to linebacker.”
Havoc ensued.
“There were other teams that said,
‘He’s too hard,’ or ‘He’s coming in with
illegal hits,’ ” recalled Jones, Burfict’s
uncle. “But back in high school, helmet-
to-helmet wasn’t seen like it is now. So
he was able to get away with that stuff in
high school. ... His coaches didn’t say,
like, ‘Vontaze, you shouldn’t hit like
that.’ ”
Far from it.
“I love Tez,” Matt Logan, who
coached Burfict at Centennial High
School, told USA TODAY Sports by text
message. “Tez is the most competitiveplayer I’ve ever coached. He absolutely
hates losing and plays as hard as he pos-
sibly can on every play.”
The Tez-manian Devil.
Burfict took that approach with him
to Arizona State, where he played for
Dennis Erickson, the Hall of Fame col-
lege football coach.
“He got carried away,” Erickson told
The Arizona Republic during the 2009
season after Burfict drew three personal
fouls in a game against Washington as a
freshman. “That’s how he is, but he’s got
to control it.”
The next season, Erickson benched
Burfict because of his high number of
personal fouls. Erickson did not reply to
voicemails and text messages seeking
comment on Tuesday.
But Magee, who played alongside
Burfict after their time together at Cen-
tennial High, said Burfict made histeammates better.
“He knows his X’s and O’s,” Magee
said. “It’s not just the big hits that every-
one wants to talk about.”
What Burfict’s mother wanted to talk
about for a moment was how this
whole story started — meaning, in the
delivery room at a hospital in south Los
Angeles.
“They told me that Vontaze was going
to be a girl and I had all pink stuff for
him,” Lane said. “They had drugged me
up so bad because he was 10 pounds and
they said, ‘Oh, it’s a 10-pound little boy.’
“I looked at my mom and I said, ‘Oh,
my God. Someone had a 10-pound boy.’
She said, ‘That’s your boy!’ ”
Lane noted something else about her
boy who now ranks among the most no-
torious players in the NFL.
“He wore pink for like the first three
months of his life,” she said.Burfict
Continued from Page 1C
Vontaze Burfict was called for three personal fouls in a game during his freshman
year at Arizona State. 2011 PHOTO BY JENNIFER HILDERBRAND/USA TODAY SPORTS