Pena and Lima article

[Rob E Dangerously 0]

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/s...rts/6342735.htm

 

Pena and Lima have Royals singing and dancing

By JOE POSNANSKI

Columnist

 

They first met years ago in the Dominican Republic. Jose Lima was 17. He was pitching for Aguilas, the great Dominican team. Tony Pena was catching. At one point, Pena walked to the mound and leaned in close.

 

"You're going to pitch in the major leagues someday," Pena said.

 

"How do you know?" Lima asked.

 

Pena pointed at Lima's heart and went back behind the plate.

 

Who could have guessed that, 13 years later, these two men would get back together for summer dance. These two men, Pena and Lima, are the story of baseball. Tony Pena, against ridiculous odds, has his team in first place. And Jose Lima, against even more ridiculous odds, hasn't lost a game.

 

"We're for real," Lima says.

 

How are the Royals doing it? They lost 100 games last year. They cut payroll. They started rookies. Half the team is in traction. The Royals have blown a lead in the ninth a heart-wrenching six times, including Friday when Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki hit a grand slam off closer Mike MacDougal.

 

Saturday afternoon, though, Pena was happy, peppy, joking around, slapping guys on the back. He took time to talk to MacDougal. "You are my man," Pena whispered. "Do you hear me? Everybody has a bad day. But YOU ARE MY MAN!"

 

Across the way, in the dugout, Lima was singing his own song.

 

"Beautiful day," he sang. "Winning day."

 

Then, the Royals went out against a terrific Seattle team in front of a packed house, Carlos Beltran climbed the wall and stole a home run, Darrell May pitched brilliantly, and the Royals won 5-1.

 

How do the Royals do it?

 

"Let me tell you something about the Dominican people," Pena said. "We may be crying on the inside. We may be bleeding on the inside. But on the outside, we're singing. We're dancing. Why? Because we will keep going no matter what. That's what this team is about."

 

III

 

The day Jose Lima arrived in Kansas City, the Royals were 32-32. They were drifting. The Royals had gotten off to an impossibly great start -- they won their first nine games, won their first 11 at home -- but everybody knew that couldn't last. Even Tony Pena, in private moments, understood that.

 

"We're not this good," he said. "We're good. But not this good."

 

They were not that good. And they were not lucky either. They had injuries. They lost some heartbreaking games. Pena remained positive, of course, because that's Pena.

 

"The most positive person I've ever met," Royals first baseman Mike Sweeney says.

 

It's worth retelling the now-famous stereo incident. It was late April, and the Royals blew a seven-run lead to Toronto. After that game, the Royals players looked utterly broken. Up to then, they felt magical. But that loss snapped them out of the dream. Everybody wondered whether the clock had struck midnight.

 

Pena walked into the clubhouse, and he saw how his players looked. The clubhouse felt like all the air had been sucked out. Pena walked slowly to the stereo. He pumped up the volume as loud as it would go.

 

And he started to dance.

 

"It's just one loss, boys," Pena yelled. "Nobody died."

 

Everybody broke up. And the players kept on believing.

 

Funny, people keep asking Pena what is his secret. And he just laughs. How can he tell them that his secret is to be upbeat every single minute, to be a little crazy, to have your players respect you enough to play their hearts out, but love you enough to throw you into the hotel pool?

 

"Nobody can have my personality," he says. "Believe me."

 

"After losses, he comes in with his great accent," Sweeney says, "And he goes, `It's OK, boys. I believe in you. Don't worry about it. We'll get them tomorrow. Don't worry.' ... Who else could do that?"

 

Pena has done the job like no other manager. He convinced this team that they could win. But there's only so much a manager can do. By the middle of June, the injuries were piling up, the schedule was relentless, and the Royals were fading.

 

Something big had to happen.

 

Nobody, least of all Pena, expected that something to be Jose Lima.

 

III

 

The Lima story is ridiculous. It makes "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" look like a documentary. Do you know how many times the Royals scouted Lima before signing him? Try zero. Never even looked at him.

 

So how did they get him? Art Stewart, the Royals' scout emeritus, called friends around baseball in a rather desperate stab to find a starting pitcher. He called every Independent League and came up empty. Finally, he called his source in something called the Atlantic League.

 

The guy offered up Jose Lima, who was pitching well in Newark.

 

"Lima?" Stewart said. "Aw geez, I haven't thought of that guy in years."

 

Nobody had. Lima was one of those guys in sports you did not think about until you ran across his name in a "Where are they now?" column. He had once been a great story. He grew up in the Dominican Republic, of course, where he wanted to be a mambo singer. He had won some sort of "Dominican Idol" contest outside Santiago when he was 13. He thought he would be a star.

 

It was his father, Francisco Rodriguez -- a longtime catcher for a local team -- who asked Jose to consider baseball. And it turned out that the young Lima had a devastating change-up.

 

So, it was baseball. But Lima never really stopped wanting to be a mambo king. He won 21 games in Houston in 1999. But what everybody remembered was they way he danced on the mound. He talked to himself. He gyrated after strikeouts. Opposing players wanted to hit him in the head with a bat. And after games, he sang even more to the newspapers.

 

"If you don't like it," he said, "hit the ball out. Then you can dance around the bases."

 

Fate was not kind to Jose Lima. The very next year, the Astros moved into their new ballpark, which was about the size of your average Border's bookstore. And batters started hitting home runs off him like it was batting practice.

 

In 2000, he gave up 48 home runs, more than any other National League pitcher ever. The next year, he was traded to Detroit, and that was a fiasco, and then he was gone, pitching in obscurity, which apparently is in Jersey.

 

"I never thought about him," Royals general manager Allard Baird said. "Not even once. He never crossed my mind."

 

"I just lost confidence in myself," Lima said. "That was one thing I always had. I always had confidence. ... It was crushing to my ego to go to the Independent League. But you know what? It was the best thing that could have happened to me. I learned how to be humble."

 

Stewart heard from his people that Lima was throwing a good fastball again. When Lima's fastball was good, his change-up was even better. Stewart told Baird the Royals should sign him and sign him quickly. Baird, desperate to find a pitcher in case of emergency, agreed.

 

"I remember telling Tony that we had signed Lima," Baird said. "And he looked at me and said `Lima?' Then he smiled -- you know Tony -- and said `OK, I can make him win again.' "

 

The Royals certainly didn't think it would come to that. They wanted Lima to go to Omaha and stay there, behind the "Break in case of emergency" glass. But an emergency happened immediately. Kyle Snyder got hurt. The Royals had no choice. They pitched Lima against the San Francisco Giants. They had not seen him pitch even one time since his bad days in Detroit.

 

And the Royals won.

 

Lima's next time, the Royals won again. The next time? Another win. And it just kept going. Lima learned a new slider and two-seam fastball from pitching coach John Cumberland ("I credit Mr. Cumberland for everything I have done," Lima says), and he kept the ball down. He kept winning. Lima did not even dance so much on the mound. OK, maybe a little. But he was humbled.

 

"I'm a better pitcher now," he said. "I'm not jumping up and down on the mound now. I've been to the bottom. I know how that feels. And that has made me stronger. That has made me better."

 

Lima has made this team better. He dances with Angel Berroa after home runs. He hugs Jeremy Affeldt after a blister pops. He runs sprints with Runelvys Hernandez. Saturday, after Carlos Beltran made the catch that saved the game, the whole team waited to congratulate him. Jose Lima was in front.

 

"You know what?" Mike Sweeney said, "he's kind of like a young Tony Pena."

 

III

 

So, you ask, how are the Royals in first place by 61/2 games?

 

Answer: It's music.

 

Tony Pena told you it would be the music. The very first thing he said when he was hired to manage the Royals: "I'm the DJ, and I play the music. Everybody's going to dance. If you can't dance, get off the dance floor."

 

People thought Pena was being cute. But, no. This was his plan all along. He wanted a team that would dance through the season. Someone goes down? Fine, someone else dances in his place. The song ends? Another begins. People laugh? The Royals can't hear them over the music.

 

"No matter what happens, you've just got to keep dancing," Pena said. And sure enough, while he was talking, Jose Lima was actually dancing in the outfield. Pena shook his head and smiled.

 

"Let me tell you about Lima," Pena said. "That man is crazy."

 

There's just something that seems odd, in the scene of Pena dancing. But, he has done a great job here.

 

Keep on Dancin!

 

As for Lima, I think I found one of his mambo songs. It's not too bad.

 

[Guest alkeiper]

Good article. Posnanski is one of the best baseball writers around.

[Guest Vern Gagne]

Big 2 game series between KC-Minnesota. Minnesota needs a sweep. They've played since the break and I'm looking at jumping back on the bandwagon, if they continue to win games.