8702280803
DETROIT FREE PRESS
871209
Wednesday, December 09, 1987
METRO FINAL
1E
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1987, Detroit Free Press
AS TIGERS' MR. NICE GUY, PETRY WAS ALWAYS AN ANGEL
Baseball players can make you feel small. They see you walking around the
clubhouse, asking questions, and they act like kings -- they ignore you. Do
not speak unless spoken to. "You know," some are fond of telling reporters,
"I never even read the newspapers."
Dan Petry never said that. He always admitted he read the newspaper, this
newspaper, every morning, and when an article caught his attention he would
mention it. "That was pretty funny," he would comment. Or, "I didn't know that
about. . . ." He never felt he was giving something up by doing that. People
all around him were saying, "Nice effort," for his baseball. He just figured,
why not say it back? That's the way he is.
Bye-bye, Mr. Nice Guy. A colleague of mine has this theory: "The good ones
get traded." It's not always true. It's true about Petry. Detroit sent him
to the California Angels Saturday for an outfielder named Gary Pettis. For the
first time in his 12 professional years, Petry would be working for someone
other than the Tigers.
He stayed up late that night, talking with his wife about where they
would live and how it would affect their young son, Matthew.
"It's not so much the scenery in Michigan that we'll miss," Petry said a
few days later, "but, well, I became an adult here, you know? Gosh, all our
greatest memories of life are here. . . . "
Self-confidence suffered
By now most of us know Petry's story. Went from young pitcher to
starting pitcher to great pitcher. Won 15, 19, 18 and 15 games in consecutive
seasons. Helped the Tigers win a World Series. He even made it to an
All-Star Game -- he walked three batters. But that's OK. Petry was never
good at glitz. He is more like the perfect next-door neighbor, seeking nothing
more than a friendly hello, and the chance to lend you a rake.
Which is what made 1987 so hard. Petry slumped. Then he unraveled. Not
pitching well and not knowing why led him to not pitching well and not knowing
why. His record fell. He went into the bullpen. In a sport full of
overstuffed egos, Dan Petry suffered an affliction more familiar to common
folk: a lack of self-confidence.
"It got to the point when I felt like an outsider in the clubhouse. I even
shied away when reporters would come in. I kind of felt everybody was talking
about me, maybe in the press box, saying, 'Holy smokes, what's with this guy?'
"
Nobody said that. Actually, what they said was: "Geez, I hope he does well
tonight." That's about the highest compliment I can think of for Petry,
because sports writers don't often root for guys they cover. Why are so many
people in town going on about his departure? Why has every TV sportscaster
used the word "class," every radio guy said, "Sad to see him go"? Dan Petry
never bought us presents. He never drove us home.
He treated people with respect. Anyone. He would chat up the janitor, if
that was who was around. Dan Petry looked like a golf pro, he dressed in
greens and yellows and pinks, but he never -- and I can attest to this --
never behaved like a prima donna. I remember when he came back from elbow
surgery, and he had in a small glass jar the little bone chips they had
removed.
"What are you gonna do with those?" I asked.
"I dunno. Maybe put 'em on my fireplace."
He laughed. He was trying his best to get back to form. At one point, he
had even told GM Bill Lajoie he would "do anything he needed" to try to
make up for being injured.
"Like what?" I asked him Monday.
"Anything. Shuffle papers. Whatever."
Sadness in celebration
There's a park near Petry's home in Grosse Pointe. Petry would take his
son there on the off-days during the season. "It just hit me that I won't be
going there anymore," Petry said, sadly.
Bye-bye, Mr. Nice Guy. Petry hails from Southern California, yet chose
the snow of Michigan for his off-season home. He loved carpooling to games
with fellow pitcher Walt Terrell. (I remember writing once how Terrell's
favorite pose was with a beer can and a chicken wing. When I came in the
clubhouse, Petry grabbed me and laughed like a kid. "You got him, all right!
That's Walt!")
But there was a moment this year when the Tigers poured champagne, they
had won the AL East, and I remember seeing Petry drenched, looking happy, but
distant. He hadn't contributed much. You could tell that bothered him.
Somehow, right then, I sensed he wouldn't be back.
And now he's gone. At age 29. Ready to begin a new phase. And this city,
which has always loved the regular guy, says so long like a Mom putting her
kid on the camp bus. "I'm kind of embarrassed by all the attention. I mean,
I'm not some Hall of Famer leaving town," he said.
Maybe not. But sometime this morning, Petry's wife, Chris, is due to give
birth to their second child. And because this newspaper will be lying on the
doorstep, I think the baby ought to know, right from the start, what kind of
household it's getting into: The news, kid, is that Daddy is an Angel.
The truth is, a lot of us knew that already.
DAN PETRY;DTIGERS;COLUMN;Detroit Tigers