28 Batters Later: The Dontrelle Willis Epidemic
7/28/03
The camera fades in on an eerily quiet laboratory. Your eyes immediately focus on one corner, where there are four TV monitors lined up side by side. The first one has grainy footage of Sandy Koufax in his heyday at Dodger Stadium, hurling the ball towards the plate as if it were a ball of fire. Next to that is a screen showing Fernando Valenzuela and his bizarre glance up to the sky before every pitch. The third screen: Dwight Gooden circa 1984, snapping off that insane curveball. The fourth monitor shows Vida Blue, resplendent in the A's green and yellow; a regal, commanding presence on the mound.
In front of the TV screens is Florida Marlins' pitcher Dontrelle Willis, who is being forced to watch all four monitors at once in some strange form of torture...
Okay, hold on just a second. If you haven't seen the movie 28 Days Later, you don't have the foggiest clue what I'm talking about, and, if you have seen it, you're probably still wondering what I'm getting at. Regardless, all you need to know is this: as a movie about the outbreak of disease, 28 Days Later follows a formula and contains several distinct stages that you will certainly recognize if you've watched any movies about disease, pestilence or widespread panic. Interestingly enough, the story of Florida Marlins' pitcher Dontrelle Willis, something of an outbreak in the baseball world, mimics these stages of disease almost perfectly. The TV screens play an important part, but we'll get back to those later. The story actually starts right here:
Stage 1: The Transaction (a.k.a. The Fatal Mistake)
You know this part of the story well, even if you haven't seen 28 Days Later. This is the part of the story where the scientist decides it's a good idea to bring home the strange monkey or spider he found in the rainforest only to have it wreak untold devastation on his homeland. That scientist, often forgotten later in the movie, is a crucial character. He is the catalyst who sets everything in motion.
In the Dontrelle Willis saga, the scientist brought home the spider on March 27, 2002, but it could have been any day in modern baseball: a franchise struggling to control its payroll (Florida) unloads talented and proven players (Antonio Alfonseca and Matt Clement) in exchange for mostly minor leaguers. The scientist in this case: Cubs general manager Jim Hendry, the man who orchestrated the trade.
At the time, the trade looked like a huge coup for the Cubs. The AP's headline that day made no mention of Willis: "Marlins send Alfonseca, Clement to Cubs for Tavarez."
In explaining the trade, the AP's story reads, "The Chicago Cubs got a much-needed closer in Antonio Alfonseca. The Florida Marlins got some much-wanted payroll flexibility." Then, "Florida got pitcher Julian Tavarez and three minor leaguers -- pitchers Jose Cueto and Dontrelle Willis and catcher Ryan Jorgensen."
It's the only mention of Willis' name in the entire article, and we all glanced right past it. Not only that, but Dontrelle appeared to take a backseat to the more important factor in the deal, "payroll flexibility." It was a little over a year later that we realized Hendry had made a colossal mistake.
Stage 2: The Virus is Born (First Signs of Outbreak)
June 16, 2003 -- There had been signs before this night of a budding epidemic, but no one seemed to be taking it seriously. May 25: Willis throws 8 scoreless innings with 9 k's against the Reds (in the movie world, a seemingly healthy middle-aged man drops dead while mowing his front lawn). May 31: Willis throws 7 scoreless innings against Oakland (two people in the same neighborhood report that their dogs went crazy, collapsed and then died "must have been the heat," hypothesizes one perplexed dog owner).
Then, on June 16, it happened. Marlins vs. Mets in Miami. It was just the rookie's eighth career start, but there was something of a buzz about this kid already. Having seen just a few scattered highlights, there seemed to be an intangible excitement about him, something dynamic and indescribable that you simply felt you had to see. So much so that you may have gone out of your way to watch the Marlins play the Mets on this particular night.
If you did, you were no doubt blown away by what you saw. Willis, from the opening pitch, looked like something otherworldly: a twisting piston whose windup and release were so fast and violent it seemed to be a miracle when the ball arrived perfectly on target. Which it did almost the whole night.
From the opening batter (Tsuyoshi Shinjo, swinging), Willis tore through the Mets' lineup with the same awe-inspiring mantra: You can't hit this.
It was as simple as that, and they couldn't. Batter after batter, Willis pounded the strike zone with a riding sidearm heater and a slider that dove away from left-handed hitters. In the first, he walked Ty Wigginton but then got Cliff Floyd swinging to end the inning. Not a peep from the Mets until the top of fourth, when Wigginton lined a clean single to left. No worries, though. Floyd went down swinging again and Jason Phillips popped out. End of fourth, end of threat.
End of game. Willis didn't allow another baserunner the whole night. In fact, from the 4th inning on, only three balls even left the infield. The game started with Shinjo going down swinging and, 28 batters later, Vance Wilson grounded out to short. Willis leapt into catcher Ivan Rodriguez's arms. His final line: 9 innings, 1 hit, 0 runs, 1 walk, 8 k's.
It was all over the news the next day.
Stage 3: Denial
This is the part of the film where very few people believe that the outbreak could really be happening. Fingers are pointed, names are called (the word "heretic" is no doubt bandied about). There's probably even a heated meeting between city officials and a frantic scientist who comes running in from the lab to try to get the mayor to quarantine one infected part of the city.
Naturally, the mayor doesn't listen.
In the Dontrelle Willis story, it was evident from the moment he officially burst onto the scene (the night he shut out the Mets) that Da Nile was not just a river in Egypt. No one wanted to accept that a 21-year-old could seemingly come out of nowhere and be this good.
More than anything, people called him gimmicky. Jeromy Burnitz, after going 0 for 3 against Willis, spoke of his "funky delivery." In baseball speak, to credit someone's delivery after your team has just been completely shut down is code for, "He fooled us tonight, but next time we see him pitch we're going to pound him."
All around the baseball globe, it was the same way. Seemingly no one could talk or write about Willis without first mentioning his "electric delivery," as if that was the primary reason for his success.
There were also whispers that Willis not only would get figured out, but that, as a 21-year-old pitcher, the workload would catch up to him and he would break down in the second half of the season. Cubs' manager Dusty Baker, in charge of choosing the reserves for the All-Star team, chimed in with his own form of disrespect, leaving Willis off the All-Star roster, saying, "I've never seen him pitch." This slight was later rectified as Willis was added to the team, but it's hard to believe that Baker hadn't seen Willis pitch. It's easier to believe that Baker didn't believe he was the real thing.
Stage 4: Full Blown (It's Too Late Now)
Late July of 2003, and Dontrellemania is in full force. While only about 10,000 people saw him dominate the Mets in Florida, just over two weeks later he drew 30,624 to Miami, a number that signifies full-scale mayhem in attendance-starved Florida.
From May 25 to June 26, Willis made 7 starts, and won every single one of them. More incredibly, he only gave up 5 earned runs during that stretch, posting an outrageous 0.90 ERA. His first start in July, he shut down the vaunted Atlanta Braves and followed that up with 5 2/3 scoreless innings against the Cubs, running his ERA for a 9 game period to an insane 0.85.
At this point in the movie, people are running around in the streets screaming. There's looting in the town square, as if having a new stereo matters when the world is going to end. The scientist who started all of this madness has long ago succumbed to the disease.
In the real world, Cubs' GM Jim Hendry must be succumbing to a profound strain of regret. While Alfonseca and Clement, the two players thought to originally have been heisted away from the Marlins, have struggled to 5.31 and 4.37 ERAs respectively this season, Willis has been an All Star and looks like a sure bet for Rookie of the Year.
After 15 starts, Willis has arrived. He is 9-2 with a 2.59 ERA. Including his three minor league seasons, he's 32-7 overall. This is not a gimmick, and this is not something that can be stopped.
Stage 5: Epilogue (Back to the TVs)
If there is a prototype or a blueprint somewhere for pitching, Dontrelle Willis has to fit it perfectly. He is athletic and powerful, dynamic yet completely in control at the same time.
In 28 Days Later, it is suggested that the disease that infected humanity, called "Rage," began somewhere in a laboratory as a result of prolonged exposure to human violence on TV screens.
The four TV monitors described earlier, if you'll recall, showed four different pitchers, all equally dynamic, even somehow magical in their time: Valenzuela, Koufax, Gooden and Blue.
It's virtually impossible that Willis, as a 21-year-old, spent any amount of time watching those four pitchers in their prime, but watch him pitch and:
Wasn't that Valenzuela's glance up to the clouds before the pitch?
Wasn't there something Koufaxian about the way Willis unleashed the ball with such arm speed, force and accuracy?
Wasn't that a fastball/curve combo so explosive and powerful (forget radar guns, you saw the pitch) that it harkens back to Doc Gooden's glory days?
Doesn't Willis show the same arrogance and dignity, the same mound presence and splendor of a Vida Blue?
Willis is not any of these pitchers, but his pitching seems to be a tribute, whether intentional or not, to all of them. The past, present and future of pitching have arrived. This is an epidemic that needs no cure.
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