Lightning Rod

Sporting News, The, March 28, 1994 by Susan Fornoff

Ervin and Shirley Beck didn't quite understand their younger son's fascination with the ball. They had come from sprawling North Dakota farming families who were too busy milking cows and driving combines to play sports. Their first child, Rick, dabbled in electronics.

But now that they had moved to Van Nuys, Calif., where Ervin became a motion-picture camera crane mechanic and Shirley went to work in an elementary school cafeteria, their infant son could find nothing more thrilling than crawling around on the floor chasing a ball. When he was 8, he begged them to let him play Little League baseball.

"Why not join the Cub Scouts, son?" said Ervin, thinking the boy was too small for sports.

But little Rodney Beck politely and firmly told his father, "I want to play baseball."

With those words still echoing 17 years later, the child has become a hero with the Giants -- still the child who wants the baseball, now the hero whose unwavering desire to play the game transcends modern values (long-term contracts be damned!) so much that his employers worry only that Rod Beck's zest to play today may sideline him tomorrow.

"He is probably the most dangerous of players because he is the consummate warrior who will go out there at all cost," says Giants trainer Mark Letendre, who fretted over Beck's 1993 National League-leading 76 appearances.

Says Beck, "If I can throw it out there, I don't care if I am hurt. Roll me out there in a wheelchair, stand me up and I'll throw. You only get to play for so long, you might as well play as much as you can."

The numbers -- 48 saves, the 2.16 earned-run average -- ranked Beck, 25, among N.L. relief leaders Randy Myers and Bryan Harvey. But for Giants players, coaches and fans, the image of Beck soaking his entire body in ice baths and then dragging his right arm to the mound eight times in nine of the 1993 pennant race's final insomnia-provoking days endures beyond his eye-opening statistics and awe-inspiring presence.

In Beck's final appearance, he came into a bases-loaded, two-out situation in the eighth inning October 2 and retired Dave Hansen on a fly ball hit so deep in Dodger Stadium that right fielder Dave Martinez could feel the fans at his back. Beck, who pitched a perfect ninth to preserve a 5-3 victory and the Giants' pennant chances, could only stand there and pray as he watched Martinez make the catch because prayer is all he had left from the normal rigors of a six-month season.

Yet, he was ready to pitch once more, in the season's final game -- the ninth time in 10 days -- if only the Giants could have created a save opportunity against the Dodgers that day.

"He was dragging, but he's never said no, he's never said he couldn't do it," pitching coach Dick Pole says. "And if we asked him to do it again right now, he wouldn't (say no). He gives you what he's got every day when he comes to the ballpark.

"He's got guts enough for three people."

Once evry few years, a child is born to play the game. These are not usually pitchers, the greatest of whom feel perfectly comfortable participating in one game in five. They are the Pete Roses, the John Kruks -- fellows who, were they not playing for a living, would work for a living and play on the local softball team for fun.

Beck is one of those guys. Babe Ruth League coach Dave Kramer describes the essence of a teen-aged Beck this way: "He missed two practices in three years."

His father says, "It meant everything to him. I couldn't even get him to mow the lawn."

He couldn't persuade his son to get a haircut, either, despite threats to shear off the long locks as he slept. Oh, there were a few times when Rodney would come home with a military flat top, but that actually tickled Ervin -- until Rodney had his Grant High School No. 18 carved into the side of his head.

"Then I got the idea to let it grow long in the back, because I've always liked long hair," Beck says. "So I've had the flat top and the long hair since I was in 10th grade. A lot of people say, 'You're trying to imitate so-and-so,' but I've had the mustache since 11th grade. To high school hitters, that's pretty intimidating."

En route to 6 feet 1 and 230 to 250 pounds (What day is it? What month is it? What meal is it?), a teen-aged Beck intimidated at the plate, too, taking up residence in the Hall of Fame's Babe Ruth League corner by hitting .667 in the 1984 World Series in Michigan. The Van Nuys team lost to Talahassee, Fla., but Beck still shares two Series records: two home runs in a game and seven RBIs in a game.

A few years later, Beck ran across one of the Tallahassee players in a minor league game.

"How are you hitting?" asked Dean Palmer, who plays third base for the Rangers.

"Hitting? I'm a pitcher now," Beck said.

Beck was only 17 when the A's selected him as a pitcher in the 13th round of the June 1986 draft. Under age, he again had to persuade his parents to let him play baseball.

"I'll go to college if you insist," he said. "But I'll only keep my grades up enough to play ball."