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This column is not really about Girardi, but I started it off with the above paragraph to prove a point. Two full years before Girardi played here, a fellow named Jamie Moyer was pitching in Winston for the Spirits. And, like Girardi, Moyer was a college guy, having been drafted out of St. Joseph’s in 1984. Unlike Girardi, however, Moyer is still an active big league ballplayer. No wonder Moyer, who turned 45 last Nov. 18, is the oldest player in baseball. Furthermore, the southpaw is still a starting pitcher. In his third year with the Philadelphia Phillies, his 22nd in the big leagues and his 25th in professional baseball, Moyer is 1-0, 5.52, after three starts.
What really amazes me about Moyer’s longevity is that I can remember when Moyer’s career looked like it was over. After the Cubs traded him to the Texas Rangers, Moyer developed elbow problems and missed most of the 1989 season. After a poor season in 1990, Texas released the left-hander at the age of 27. St. Louis tried him in ‘91 and gave him a release after another unproductive year. Then the Cubs took him back, but at the end of spring training they told him his pitching career was over and offered him a job as a minor league coach.
Moyer turned that down and kept pitching, but continued to bounce around as a struggling journeyman He spent the 1992 season with the Toledo Mud Hens, as a minor leaguer in the Detroit Tigers farm system As a minor league free agent he signed with the Rochester Red Wings in 1992. If anyone had told you at the time that Moyer would be pitching in the majors long after Girardi had retired, you would have laughed at them.
That turned out, however, to be the low point of Moyer’s extraordinary career. After eight fine starts in 1993, Moyer was promoted to the Baltimore Orioles. After three respectable seasons with them, Moyer signed with the Boston Red Sox. Moyer was 7-1 with the Red Sox on July 30 that year when they had a chance to trade him to the Seattle Mainers for a young up-and-coming outfielder named Darren Bragg. The Red Sox probably figured the trade was a steal, and it was — for the Mariners. Moyer won 139 games for them during his 10 years in Seattle. Twice he has won at least 20 games. Bragg was finished after 2004.
There’s a good chance, Moyer will face Tony Gwynn Jr. of the Milwaukee Brewers this year. Is so, that will be a father-son combination that he has pitched against because the left-hander has had many mound-plate confrontations with the elder Gwynn, who is now in the Hall of Fame. Of course, this would be nothing new to Moyer. He has already pitched against Buddy and David Bell, Ken Griffey and Ken Griffey Jr., Jesse and Josh Barfield, Bob, Aaron and Brett Boone, Jose Cruz and Jose Cruz Jr. and Cecil and Prince Fielder.
In 12 starts, 23 years ago, Moyer went 8-2, 2.30, with the Spirits, but by the time they won the 1985 Carolina League Championship, the then young Pennsylvania native was long gone from Ernie Shore Field (or Ernie Shore Stadium as the Spirits owner was calling it in those days.) He finished the season in Double-A and reached Chicago the next year.
But after Moyer’s struggles it looked like he would be best known for being the son-in-law of Digger Phelps, the basketball commentator and former Notre Dame coach. I guess it’s fair now to say that Jamie Moyer, with 231 wins under his belt, has made a name for himself.
Staff Writer Kevin Reid can be reached at 472-9500, ext. 230, or at reid@tvilletimes.com.