NEW YORK — Measured against the New York Mets’ staff of flamethrowers, Chris Young’s fastball can be timed with a sundial.
His fastball is soooo slow, Kansas City infielders often excuse themselves for dinner as he winds up and then return to their positions before the ball crosses the plate.
His fastball is soooo slow, it makes Kansas City’s award-winning, slow-cooked barbecue seem like fast food—the ribs smoking in so much less time than Young’s non-smoking “heater” moves.
His fastball is soooo slow, rumor has it that manager Ned Yost does his taxes in the Royals dugout while everyone waits for the ball to get to the batter.
Listen. Don’t mention any of this to the man himself. The velocity topic grows old with Young, and you can’t blame him.
Because here he is again, ready to start Game 4 Saturday as the Kansas City Royals look to re-establish their momentum in this World Series, and there is so much more to the man than his 6’10” height and pedestrian fastball jokes.
In making his first World Series start at age 36, Young will pitch with his father in his heart and his college coach in the stands.
He will pitch after missing the entire 2013 season, part of a three-year battle to overcome shoulder problems.
He will pitch seven seasons after an Albert Pujols line drive drilled him square in the face, which sent him toward surgery and an uncertain future.
And he will pitch, as always, with the smarts and determination that have allowed him to throw that fastball right by the skeptics for most of his career.
“It’s very cool to be here,” Young told Bleacher Report during a conversation in the Royals dugout recently. “It’s very rewarding.”
It also is bittersweet, finally stepping into a World Series for the first time in his 11-year career. Because his father, Charles, 70, passed away in late September from multiple myeloma.
Charles always was Chris’ biggest fan, and this summer he loved watching the Royals. They are the best team Chris ever played on. The two talked often, and his father was excited over what October would bring.
Now, Chris will take the ball for Game 4, just as he did for three shutout innings of relief while earning the win in Game 1, feeling his dad’s presence even closer than usual.
“I like to think that he’s here,” Young said. “It’s life. He took so much enjoyment watching our team play. He will be in the stadium.
“It’s just different.”
The relief outing the other night to finish a wild, 14-inning Game 1 makes your blood run cold just thinking about it. A couple of hours before the game, Kansas City manager Ned Yost quietly approached Young and told him he may need the right-hander to make an emergency start.
There’s a personal situation with Edinson Volquez, Yost told Young.
Volquez’s father had died earlier that day, at home in the Dominican Republic. His wife had asked the Royals to hold the news from Edinson until after he made his start. Yost honored that request, though with today’s social media, you never know. That’s why Yost put Young on notice. Had Volquez somehow found out and not been in an emotional state to pitch that night…
“I know the pain he’s going through right now,” Young said that night after working three scoreless relief innings in a 5-4 victory that Volquez did start. “It’s hard. It’s really hard.
“I feel his pain.”
That Young is even here on baseball’s biggest stage is one of those remarkable hardball stories that the game keeps delivering. The Pujols line drive, in May 2008, was gut-wrenching to watch. As Young was helped off of the field, blood gushed from his nose. The ball struck him on the bridge of the nose up toward the forehead, fracturing his skull.
He came back. But then came the shoulder problems.
It took three years before doctors finally zeroed in on the cause: thoracic outlet syndrome, a condition in which a rib pinches off a nerve running to the shoulder. So he underwent surgery to remove part of the rib, missed all of 2013 and then went 12-9 with a 3.65 ERA in 30 games (29 starts) for Seattle in 2014.
Still, he went unsigned as a free agent this spring until early March, when the only interested team, the Royals, called.
What most clubs didn’t know was that Young, for the first time in years, finally was able to spend an entire winter focusing on his workouts instead of his rehab.
When Royals general manager Dayton Moore approached Yost with the idea of signing Young after spring training started, the manager couldn’t believe the pitcher was still available.
“At that point, I liked the starting pitching we had,” Yost said. “But I remember Bobby Cox saying in Atlanta, you can never have too much starting pitching. Get as much as you can, because over the course of the year you’re going to need it.”
Along with Kendrys Morales, Alex Rios and even pitcher Franklin Morales, Yost said Young “was one of the great signs we had.”
Young worked both out of the rotation and as a reliever for the Royals this year, going 11-6 with a 3.06 ERA in 34 appearances (18 starts). Among pitchers who worked at least 100 innings, he handcuffed opposing hitters to the lowest batting average (.202) in the American League and the fourth-lowest in the majors.
Also among pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched, Young allowed the fourth-fewest hits per nine innings (6.64) in the majors.
“Gosh, it’s hard to say what he’s meant to us,” Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland said. “He’s been worth his weight in gold.
“There are a lot of reasons we won the division and we’re here today, and one big reason is Chris.”
All of this with a fastball this season that averaged 86.4 mph and a slider that he mixes in with the sneakiness of a cat burglar.
“This is a guy who, more than anybody I’ve ever been around, trusts his stuff and throws every pitch with conviction,” Eiland said. “He thinks he can get an out with every pitch.”
“Thinks” is the key word in that last sentence. Young earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in politics at Princeton University, graduating in four years despite playing both baseball and basketball. His senior thesis was a study of the impact of Jackie Robinson on racial stereotypes in the realm of media.
While Young doesn’t throw lightning bolts like the Mets staff, he is aces at outfoxing hitters and nailing specific locations. Plus, the fact that he’s 6’10″—tied for the second-tallest player in MLB history (behind only Jon Rauch, 6’11”)—leads to much deception as he delivers the ball. From the perspective of hitters, the ball is released closer to the plate than they are accustomed to and from different angles.
“The way he throws, I think he hides the ball very well,” Mets shortstop Wilmer Flores said. “That’s why he gets outs.”
On Saturday, while he will feel the power of his father’s presence in the stadium, Young also will have a rooting section in the seats: his wife, Liz, the granddaughter of Lester Patrick, namesake of the NHL’s Patrick Division and the Lester Patrick trophy, and their three children, Cate (seven), Scott (five) and Grant (three). His college coach at Princeton, former big leaguer Scott Bradley, also will be there.
In fact, Bradley, whose nine-year MLB career spanned from 1984 to 1992, flew to Kansas City for Games 1 and 2 at Young’s request.
“Oh, man, he’s so positive and optimistic,” Young said. “He was a great fit both for my basketball and academics. He accommodated me any way he could.”
How much does Bradley mean to Young? Seventeen years after recruiting him, the pitcher’s middle son is named, in part, for the Princeton coach.
Now here he is, forever Young, a great fit with the Royals.
“In spring training what really stood out was the focus and determination,” Young said of his teammates. “These guys had a hunger I didn’t quite expect. I thought these guys went to the World Series last year and maybe they’re going to rest on their laurels a little bit, and it was the exact opposite.
“I came in and said, ‘Whoa. These guys want to win the World Series.’ And they expect to and believe they can. It had a different feel than any spring training I had been at with any other club. It was evident from day one to me.”
Just like Young, they are not waiting around. They are looking to make something happen.
Just don’t ask about his velocity. He’s heard it all before.
“I could care less about velocity,” said that man who could author the book on it. “I care about results.”
Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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