Breaking pitch

Sporting News, The, Feb 5, 1996 by Mark Newman

Everyone has potential, but every now and then it is the other way around. is the case with Ben McDonald. Potential has him the way he used to stronghold those gators back in the bayou. He will report to Arizona this month with the Brewers' pitchers and catchers, bringing more major league innings pitched and victories than their other starters combined, and people still will wonder what happened.

It is a loose end that might one day go away, but for now it curiously dangles like the trademark untied string on the side of McDonald's mitt. After all, no one expected him to be the next Jim Slaton. They expected him to be the next Jim Palmer.

For all the fanciful changes in the majors this offseason -- the A's becoming the Cardinals; the Marlins passing the Rockies; the Yankees dismantling a contender; and the Mets hurrying their wild-card schedule nothing has been so interesting as the Orioles giving up on McDonald and him giving up on them. His free-agent signing with Milwaukee was not just another numbing transaction; this is a player who shaped a market ushering in an era of big-bonus, hardball-negotiating draft prizes.

Had the 28-year-old righthander agreed to his old club's offer of $2.8 million for this season, it would have meant a $1.7-million cut from his 1995 arbitration award -- but his best chance yet to become a premier pitcher. McDonald would have had the best middle infield behind him in Cal Ripken and Roberto Alomar. He would have had Randy Myers as his closer. He would have had Davey Johnson as a manager. He could have had his first postseason experience. He could have proved to the Orioles his shoulder is sound after a 3-6, injury-plagued 1995 season.

With the Brewers, McDonald instead has an incentive-laden contract that will pay at least $5.75 million over two years and could max out at $13.3 million over three years. He also will have a middle infield of Jose Valentin and Fernando Vina. McDonald never has been a cold-weather pitcher and has joined a marginal team that doesn't figure to carry him if he struggles. None of the Brewers regular starters finished the 1995 season with a .500 record, although Sid Roberson did have a 6-4 mark sputting time between the bullpen and rotation On the plus side, McDonald, a notorious gopher-ball pitcher, will be in a big park.

It is all worthwhile from McDonald's perspective. Go ahead and project him as the Brewers' Opening Day starter, a 20-game winner, a centerpiece for the club's proposed 1999 ballpark. Remind him that the last time Milwaukee threw big bucks at a pitcher was the disastrous four-year, $13-million contract for free agent Teddy Higuera after the 1990 season. Surely he can hack this. "I went through that when I came to Baltimore and made it to the major leagues at 21 years old," McDonald says. "There were enormous expectations and pressure. It was like the first year I had to win 20 ballgames in order for the Orioles to do anything. That bothered me a lot when I was young, but I learned over the years how to deal with that."

It always goes back to 1989. McDonald grew up in Denham Springs, La., 12 miles from Louisiana State. He enrolled there on a basketball scholarship, and not until his junior year did the 6-foot-7 McDonald finally convince Tigers basketball Coach Dale Brown he was a pitcher instead of a center. McDonald already had led the 1988 U.S. Olympic baseball team to the gold medal in Seoul, and that junior year he threw 44 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings and led LSU to the College World Series. No pitcher had been rated higher by the Major League Scouting Bureau.

Baltimore had the first overall draft pick because it had lost 107 games in 1988, but now it held the distinction of being the first team to draft No. 1 while leading a division. As anticipated, the Orioles picked McDonald, who was expected to be part of the pennant race and make an immediate impact It was a Ben-addiction. The public salivated over his mid-90s heat. One columnist called him "young Walter Seaver Koufax." All be needed to do was sign the contract.

What no one seemed to count on was a bitter, two-month negotiation. McDonald was represented by agent Scott Boras, who angered secretive Orioles officials with his brash, high-profile approach to the negotiations. Boras was seeking $1 million, and the club offered $700,000. Some saw it as a squabble; the Orioles didn't want to upset owners by making a rookie a millionaire, and they didn't want to disrupt their clubhouse. During the ordeal, the McDonald camp said it had a $2-million guaranteed offer from a proposed rival league backed by Donald Trump. (Warning to reader: Agent Dick Moss was organizer of that phantom league, as well as the phantom United League that was announced during the last work stoppage. The next time you read about a Dick Moss upstart league, think "union bargaining tool" and turn the page.) The Orioles gave up at that point, but under mounting public pressure they agreed to a compromise that guaranteed a whopping $925,000 plus incentives.