It would have been easy to use this space to rip Major League Baseball and the Players Association for their ridiculous negotiations that have threatened the future of the game we all love, but I figured there’s enough negativity out there for you to consume and decided to write about something that might be inspiring at a time when we all need some inspiration instead.
No, this story won’t put an end to a global pandemic, fix the injustices that have caused widespread unrest throughout America or even get baseball closer to being played this year. But it’s still one of hope, and that should be worth something at a time like this.
Daniel Bard, the former Red Sox reliever who all but forgot how to throw strikes and spent five years toiling in the minors before retiring in 2017, is in the midst of the unlikeliest of comeback attempts with the Rockies. Now 34, Bard has only thrown one inning in the majors since 2012 (in Sept. 2013) and had spent two years as a mental skills coach with the Diamondbacks before deciding to give pitching one last shot last winter.
Bard recently told the story of what inspired his comeback attempt on MassLive’s “The Fenway Rundown” podcast. It turns out it began with an innocuous game of catch with some Diamondbacks teammates last season.
Bard, who spent the 2018 season working as a player mentor for Diamondbacks minor leaguers, spent time with the big-league team in 2019 and sometimes brought his glove to the ballpark to shag fly balls during batting practice and play catch with pitchers. Midway through last season, he was throwing before a game when some of Arizona’s pitchers began telling him how impressed they were with his throws.
Bard, who had no intention of ever pitching again, laughed off the suggestion and told the players they wouldn’t feel the same way if they knew how bad his yips had been before he retired. When they responded that he had clearly figured something out, he told them that playing catch without any pressure was much different than pitching off the mound to a hitter.
The pitchers asked Bard if he knew for sure that he wouldn’t feel as good throwing off a mound.
“(They were) right,” Bard said. “I don’t know. But I know I tried for five years and I had days when I felt great playing catch and they put me on the mound with a hitter and all those same feelings would come back.”
After the season, Bard started realizing he couldn’t ignore how good he was feeling, both physically and mentally. After building up arm strength by tossing into a net in his backyard, he decided to try throwing off a mound for the first time in late December. The success of that session prompted another. The second session was good enough for Bard to launch his comeback bid in earnest.
“The way I threw the ball, it would have been impossible for me to say, ‘Well, that was fun. It’s nice to feel good again. I’m going to go back and do my other job,’” Bard said. “I would have been thinking about it nonstop -- the what-if. I made the decision. Screw it. I played probably four years too long the first time and I never felt this good. If I could have taken this feeling and given it to myself back then, what would I have done with it? No question, I had to give it a shot.”
In mid-January, Bard informed the Diamondbacks that he was quitting his coaching job to try pitching again. Considering all that he was giving up -- a steady paycheck, a gig he loved and family time with his wife, Adair, and three kids -- the decision wasn’t one he took lightly.
“The way I feel now trumps anything I felt from 2012 to 2017 when I retired,” Bard said. “It’s hard to describe. It just feels -- throwing and pitching feels natural. It feels fun. Body feels free and easy. That’s not to say there’s not still challenges. I have some good days and some not-so-good days. But at the same time, the overall feeling is just like, ‘This is what throwing a baseball is meant to feel like.’ It’s the way I felt for my first three years in Boston. It’s the way I felt in college and coming up through the minor leagues for the first part. When I stumbled onto that feeling, I couldn’t deny it.”
Bard threw eight or nine bullpen sessions before setting up a tryout for interested teams on a high school field in Scottsdale, Arizona. As spring training camps were opening, Bard was looking for an invitation. Representatives from at least fifteen teams showed up to watch him pitch.
Entering the tryout, Bard worried that the “yippy” feeling -- where he’d lose all control of his pitches -- would come back once the pressure was on. But after going through a specific mental routine that was not too different from techniques he had been teaching members of the Diamondbacks organization a few months earlier, Bard found himself to be calm and controlled once he stepped onto the mound.
“I remember laughing when I got on the mound,” Bard said, “Just because I thought, ‘Man, this is ridiculous. I’m 34 years old. Haven’t pitched in three years and here I am on a high school mound throwing to a bunch of radar guns.’ Same thing I was doing at 18 years old trying to get drafted. Nothing had changed, 16 years later.”
Even though the session went exceptionally well, Bard still doubted that teams would want to sign him. He was ready to go to independent ball or minor league camp, if necessary. When the Rockies and some other clubs called with invitations to major league spring training, Bard was shocked.
“Teams are either quick to forget or willing to overlook (the struggles) if you’re producing now,” he said. “I think that’s the way it is. I think that’s the way the game has moved. They don’t care what you’ve done in the past. If you can put up good Trackman numbers and go find a way to get outs, they’ll sign you.”
Bard arrived in camp with the Rockies in late February and made three appearances in big league spring training games before everything shut down. If baseball is played this year, rosters are likely to expand and teams are likely going to have to get creative with their pitching staffs. That means it’s possible that Bard, who has been working out in Greenville and throwing at Fluour Field (where the Red Sox’ Single-A affiliate plays), could find his way into the mix for Colorado once things start up again.
I did an extensive interview with Bard for SB Nation in late 2017 about how he was coming to terms with his decision to retire. This quote, from back then, is even more meaningful now.
“Everyone who was part of that journey can say that Daniel Bard never made it back to where he wanted to be, but to hell if he didn’t give it everything he had,” Bard said then.
Now, more than two year later, he’s giving it another shot.
“I’m doing this with the right intentions and the right mindset,” Bard said. “Let’s have some fun and see what happens.”
***
One leftover thought on Bard: He is destined to end up in a coaching or front office job when his playing career ends. Shortly after retiring (the first time), he joined Arizona to help continue the process of understanding the mental side of the game that had largely contributed to the premature end of his career.
“I felt like a lot of people I had worked with had reached a dead end,” he said. “They said, ‘Well, it’s the yips. If it’s a bad enough case, you don’t come back.’ I wasn’t satisfied with that, so even though my career had ended, I wanted to keep on that journey to try to help address this thing that people have not fully been able to figure out.”
Bard still doesn’t know exactly what causes the yips, though the assumption is that the issue is caused by a combination of physiological and psychological factors.
“You know when it’s there,” he said. “That’s the thing. You know the feeling. Anyone who has ever felt it, you make a throw, or if you’re a golfer, you take a swing and make a put, and you know whether that feeling is there or not. I just know I don’t feel it now. I can’t give you one reason why but there’s probably 50 I can give you that contributed to getting to the point where I’m at now. It’s been a wild ride.”
***
10 observations from the last week in baseball
1. Understandable that Red Sox employees are reportedly “livid” about the pay cuts being instituted at the beginning of June, not only because of the value of the organization but also because furloughs (which allow unemployment benefits to be collected) would have been a more fair course of action.
2. David Price left Boston with a less-than-stellar reputation, but he’s universally revered by anyone who has ever played with him. His gift of $1,000 to each of the 220+ minor-leaguers in the Dodgers’ system is an incredible gesture.
3. I’ll say there’s a 40% chance there’s a baseball season. I was at 70/30 before seeing MLB’s asinine revised proposal the other day.
4. I ran the numbers on what Red Sox players would make under the proposed sliding scale. Chris Sale would get $4.97 million, J.D. Martinez would get $4.34 million, Xander Bogaerts would receive $3.96 million and Rafael Devers would get $304,000. Oh, and Rusney Castillo would be paid $3.09 million as the fifth-highest paid player on the team.
5. That exercise made me remember (how could I have forgotten?) that three of the highest-paid players on the Red Sox in 2020 are unlikely to play a single game for the team. Sale (out for the year with Tommy John surgery), Castillo (banished to Pawtucket) andDustin Pedroia (unlikely to ever play again due to knee issues) are first, fifth and sixth on the list.
6. The MLB draft (which is being held June 10-11) will be shown on both ESPN and MLB Network. Wonder if people will be interested.
7. Interesting Twitter poll from 98.5′s Tony Massarotti last week, asking fans if they wanted baseball to come back in 2020. The result, out of 13,522 votes: 41.4% said yes and 58.6% said no.
8. Like many other baseball writers, sad to see Foley’s closing in New York. Was a must-visit (even in the wee hours of the morning after 4+ hour games) on every New York trip. I wonder how MLB.com’s Ian Browne (perhaps the bar’s biggest fan) is taking it.
9. Best wishes to Fenway Park official scorer Mike Shalin, who is recovering in the hospital after brain surgery. When WBZ’s Jonny Miller was recovering after suffering a stroke during the 2018 World Series, Mike visited him almost every day at Spaulding Rehab.
10. Stay safe and stay hopeful. Hope is all we’ve got.
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Daniel Bard, former Boston Red Sox reliever, has nothing to lose in comeback attempt at age 34: ‘This is what - masslive.com
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