Red Sox: Five things to know
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Nobody's saying Doug Mirabelli would be pumping gas right now, or pouring your coffee at, say, Starbucks, if not for the fact that Tim Wakefield is back for a 35th consecutive season in Boston (OK, so it's only his 14th).
Nobody's saying that Mirabelli would be sitting in the easy chair of retirement, or catching in, say, Pittsburgh without Wakefield's presence.
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| It's Doug Mirabelli's catching, not his hitting, that keeps him in Boston. (Getty Images) |
At least, that last part.
"Obviously, we're tied together here," Mirabelli says. "I know without Wakey here, I'm probably not here. I'm somewhere else.
"But when you have a starting pitcher who's won 17 games, it makes sense to bring him back."
And a Mendoza Line-challenging backup catcher as an accessory in the deal?
The world champion Red Sox are preparing for what they hope is a third World Series title in five seasons. They have done a marvelous job of fertilizing their farm system and developing a pipeline to supplement their big-ticket items such as David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and J.D. Drew.
And while everyone is buzzing about second baseman Dustin Pedroia's smash-hit of a rookie season, Jacoby Ellsbury being on the verge of supplanting veteran Coco Crisp in center field and Clay (No-Hit) Buchholz's chances to win a rotation spot, over there in the shadows, incredibly, is Mirabelli, still hanging around.
Boston's knuckleball insurance policy.
About the only thing Wakefield, 41, doesn't do at contract time is negotiate a clause guaranteeing Mirabelli a spot on the Red Sox roster.
"I wish I could do that," the pitcher says. "I'm sure the business side (of the organization) wouldn't allow that."
The Red Sox picked up Wakefield's 2008 option on Nov. 2.
Little more than two months later, on Jan. 11, they re-signed Mirabelli as a free agent.
Of course they did.
Even though Mirabelli batted a lowly .202 with a .278 on-base percentage last season.
And despite the fact that he hit .193 with a .261 on-base percentage the year before, and that he's a .231 career hitter.
As long as Wakefield is around, it's like Mirabelli's on scholarship. He's the only active player in the game who has more invested in another player's career than he does his own.
Mirabelli came to Boston in 2001, acquired from the Texas Rangers in the wake -- so to speak -- of an emergency. Regular catcher Jason Varitek had a broken elbow. Two weeks later in Toronto, Mirabelli caught Wakefield for the first time.
"It's amazing where I've come from to be his personal guy," Mirabelli says. "That first time in Toronto, it was not fun.
"I remember going, 'God, someone else can catch him.' I think I had four or five passed balls that day. And even when I caught him, I wasn't comfortable. It was very mentally stressful."
Somehow -- survival is as good an explanation as any -- he learned over the next few years to relax when the games got crazy and the knuckler was floating away ... and away ... and aw ... a ... y ...
He still misses balls from time to time. But at 37, and with seven or so years in catching Wakefield's knuckler, he knows stuff happens. Nobody is going to block every knuckleball.
"It's not fun running to the backstop," he says.
But it was pretty cool in 2006 when the Red Sox, after they first tried to separate themselves from Mirabelli, realized their mistake too late and re-acquired him from San Diego ... and ordered a private jet followed by a police escort from Boston Logan Airport to get him to that night's game against the Yankees on time.
And it's pretty cool to still be employed in a place he loves, on a team full of friends.
It isn't only on the field when he and Wakefield are paired like a left and right shoe. A couple of days ago, they went hog hunting in LaBelle, Fla. -- about 40 miles east of Fort Myers. Sometimes they go quail hunting over by Lake Okeechobee, a couple of hours east of Fort Myers. One winter, they met in Arkansas for a duck hunting vacation.
On road trips during the season, they eat lunch together nearly every day.
"It helps develop a tighter relationship," Mirabelli says. "So that when we need to talk about something during games, he understands where I'm coming from."
While you hear all sorts of stories from the football world about running backs giving expensive watches and other extravagant gifts to their offensive linemen, Wakefield has done no such thing for his baseball caddy.
"Not yet," Wakefield says.
"I don't think I ever pay for a lunch or dinner," Mirabelli says.
While Wakefield will earn $4 million this summer, the Red Sox chopped Mirabelli's base salary by $200,000, to $550,000. It does include $275,000 in incentive clauses, which will give him the chance to get close to last year's pay.
There's plenty of incentive for the Red Sox to make this work, too, because as deep as the organization is, they're like everybody else at catcher. There just aren't enough to go around. After Varitek, who will turn 36 in April, and Mirabelli, the organizational options are Dusty Brown, a catch-and-throw guy who can't hit much, and George Kottaras, who isn't strong behind the plate. Kevin Cash, who filled in when Mirabelli was hurt for a time last year, is in camp as a non-roster player.
One more time, though, it's up to baseball's odd couple to make it work -- Wakefield thrilled in the same paternal way that a college coach tries to take care of his assistants, and Mirabelli with the same fierce sense of ownership as a student charged with a special assignment.
"Obviously, I've got a history of success with him," Wakefield says. "The experiment of working without him has been tried before, and it hasn't panned out too well in the past."
"In my head, re-signing me made sense," Mirabelli says. "And maybe it will always make sense, even on the day when it doesn't work out any longer."
