By Alex Speier
FORT MYERS, Fla. – One down, two to go.
Red Sox camp opened with highly regarded veterans John Flaherty, Josh Bard and Ken Huckaby competing for the often thankless and always arduous task of catching Tim Wakefield’s Wiffle balls. Two innings and several drops and misses into the competition, the 38-year-old Flaherty found peace in the notion of retirement.
“[Flaherty] knew that was how he was going to make the team, by catching Wakefield,” noted Sox infielder Tony Graffanino. “That one game we played at Minnesota, he struggled a little bit. He wasn’t real happy or comfortable, didn’t really feel like that would be a good situation for him all year.”
In many ways, it’s difficult to blame Flaherty for reaching such a conclusion. As Wakefield’s primary catcher since the middle of the 2001 season, Doug Mirabelli proved so effective that the difficulty of his task merited little attention. Now, the role the backup played is coming to the foreground.
Wakefield and Mirabelli achieved a distinct compatibility, evidenced by the knuckleballer’s 16-8 record and 3.66 ERA last season with Mirabelli that contrasted with an 0-4 mark and 8.86 ERA without his regular catcher. Those results reflected Mirabelli’s excellent hands, his acclimation to the whims of the Wiffle ball and his sense of when to call for something other than his pitcher’s signature pitch. The rapport built between catcher and pitcher over the last few years was undeniable.
“Doug and I worked well together. He knew when I could throw fastballs in certain situations and when to call breaking balls,” Wakefield observed. “It’s just a comfort level of working with someone for a long time, like Doug and I did. You get to learn a guy’s idiosyncrasies.”
Both Bard, the 28-year-old who spent parts of the last four seasons as the Indians backup, and Huckaby, who at 35 has spent segments of the last five years in the majors, acknowledge the daunting challenge before them. In some ways, the responsibility represents the catcher’s equivalent of entering “The Matrix,” a warped reality that defies the logic of a lifetime behind the plate.
“There’s going to be times when [the knuckleball] does things you’ve never seen before,” noted Bard, who will catch Wakefield . “You’re seeing the ball do something that, from the time you were four years old all the way up, you’ve never seen it do. Your eyes kind of play tricks on you.”
“Everything else is straight or sinking, curving or cutting,” added Huckaby, who is currently sidelined with a sore knee. “You’re used to all that stuff. You’re not used to something that goes five different directions before it gets to you, and then trying to snatch it with tweezers.”
The unique movement of the pitch mandates that catchers change the way they perform their task. Since they cannot anticipate how the ball will move, they cannot reach until the ball is nearly in the glove (largely explaining why it is so difficult for knuckleballers to hold baserunners). Wakefield’s batterymates must instead remain relaxed, concentrating intently on the pitch from the time it leaves Wakefield’s hand until it ends up in their mitts . . . assuming, of course, that all goes well. Just as often, however, the theory of catching the fluttering orb proves impossible to execute.
Minor leaguer Alberto Concepcion received dramatic visual evidence of that phenomenon in a bullpen session with Sox minor-league knuckleballer Charlie Zink.
“I tried to catch it, it didn’t drop like I thought, and it squared me up in the mask,” Concepcion recalled. “You start thinking, ‘I gotta catch it. I gotta catch it.’ That’s when you’re in trouble.”
Yet even if Huckaby or Bard—who were teammates on the U.S. entry in the 2001 World Cup, a team managed by current Sox skipper Terry Francona — masters the knuckler, it might not prove sufficient to secure a roster spot. Francona has pointed out on multiple occasions that the Sox backup catcher must prove capable of handling a larger role if Jason Varitek misses a stretch due to injury or any other cause.
“You can’t just take a guy who can catch Wake,” Francona noted. “He’s got to be able to do other things.”
Still, no task is likely to prove as important to Bard or Huckaby as their ability to work with Wakefield. Excellence in that undertaking will likely only arrive after moments of infamy or embarrassment.
“It is what it is. Wake’s a great pitcher. There’s going to be times when you look stupid,” conceded Bard. “You’ve got to lose your ego to do well catching him.”
