Free Byrd

Beating Randy Johnson and the Trouble with David Once upon a Monday night in August, I accidentally got to pitch in the big leagues. I buttoned up a red pin-striped jersey and threw a baseball for the Philadelphia Phillies. I was playing for the Braves Triple-A team at the time, and the Phillies purchased my contract off the waiver wire. I was supposed to be sent to Philadelphia's Triple-A team, but some crazy rule in the wavier process forced Ed Wade, the Phillies' general manager, to send me to the major leagues for at least a day. Because the Atlanta Braves minor league system had seen enough of my act the previous two years, they peacefully let me go with a handshake. I will never forget that call. After a few days of hanging out in limbo and holding hands with my overly calm wife in our cozy Richmond, Virginia, apartment, Mr. Wade called and said, "One of our pitchers got hurt yesterday. Congratulations, you're going to the big leagues." Then he chuckled and followed with, "You're going to get one start on Monday night against the Houston Astros and Randy Johnson. After that we have no idea what's going to happen." I was in shock. My wife, Kym, was in shock. And as my two toddling boys, Grayson and Colby, pulled at my blue-jeaned pant legs, I realized that I had just gotten called up to the big leagues by some cosmic mishap -- and in three days I was going to have a gun-slinging showdown with one of the greatest pitchers of all time. Confusion, joy, fear, thankfulness, anxiety, and all sorts of other claustrophobic emotional nouns seemed to take turns licking my brain senseless. Part of me wanted to compete and immediately grab a ball and hit the catcher's mitt to take down Randy Johnson and the Astros -- and the other side of me wondered if this is what a man on death row feels like days before he's going to be executed. On Monday, before I arrived at the stadium, Terry Francona, my new manager, asked a few players in the locker room what he should expect from me, but to his disappointment none of the hitters remembered facing some guy named Byrd. Nevertheless, Terry still decided to give me one start for my new team in hopes of seeing what I could do. My entire career was on the line that night and I tried to stay positive. I continued to fight back against the creeping feelings of fear and possible failure. The fact that I had to face Randy Johnson only made me take longer and deeper breaths. Randy is a giant of a man who over the years has earned the nickname "the Big Unit." He stands about six foot ten with gangly arms and long legs that come flying at the hitter as his pitches sometimes reach the strike zone at around one hundred miles an hour. He is so tall that his body cuts down the distance to home plate giving his pitches the effect of a greater velocity than the simple numbered score of a radar gun. I had never seen a major league hitter literally fear a pitcher until the 1993 All-Star Game when John Kruk, a Phillies hitter, stepped out of the batter's box after one of Randy's pitches went sailing over his head. Kruk smiled a sigh of relief that the pitch didn't hit him and after a few more tense moments was happy to strike out and walk back to the dugout unharmed. In 1998 the Big Unit began a four-and-a-half-year stretch of total dominance over the National League that the modern era of baseball had never seen before. He crushed and chewed up big-league hitters like a dog inhales treats. I sometimes wonder if he even tasted them. During this time, he amassed 91 wins, 1,533 strikeouts, a minuscule ERA, tons of innings, and a World Championship. Every possible statistical column that had to do with pitching was jaw dropping. So in 1998, when the Phillies claimed me off waivers and gave me that fateful start in Veterans Stadium, not one single sportswriter gave me a chance to beat Randy Johnson. And they shouldn't have. To be honest, I was just happy that theyByrd, Paul is the author of 'Free Byrd' with ISBN 9781416587231 and ISBN 1416587233.