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Finality of immortality: a brother’s emotional journey

EDITOR’S NOTE: Mark Mussina is the brother of Montoursville native and Hall of Fame pitcher Mike Mussina.

Before I start, let me say that I understand the contradictory nature of the words finality and immortality. One means “coming to an end” while the other means, “living forever,” but to me, my brother’s induction into baseball’s Hall of Fame brings both of those words into the same sentence. Mike is now immortalized with the legends of the game. His career and accomplishments will forever be displayed, as future generations will come to know him as one of the best players to ever put on a uniform.

For me, however, Mike’s enshrinement comes with a cost. I have now lost something that has been a constant part of my life since I was 5 years old. From Little League, high school, Stanford, the Orioles and finally the Yankees, I have rooted, watched, obsessed and rooted some more.

Even after he retired, not only did I track every Hall of Fame vote with who got in and who was still in consideration, but I also followed the guys who were still pitching. Who was winning, who was climbing the all-time charts and most importantly, who was getting close to Mike?

Even through last summer, 10 years after Mike threw his final pitch, there were still many nights I laid in bed hitting refresh on my phone to see if certain pitchers held on for a win, earned a loss, had his bullpen blow it or had his offense bail him out.

I was convinced it was important that Mike’s winning percentage remained better than Justin Verlander’s (it is: .638 to .620) and his career ERA stayed lower than C.C. Sabathia’s (it is: 3.68 compared to 3.70). When it came to every Hall of Fame vote, statistics like these had to matter to the voters. Even if they didn’t, they still mattered to me.

Now, all of the sudden, that doesn’t matter at all. For 42 years I’ve been rooting for Mike and his baseball career. Now that he’s in the Hall of Fame, I have nothing left to root for. And that makes me sad.

The really bizarre thing is I’m not even euphoric that he got in. I’m relieved because I thought he deserved it and I would have spent the rest of my life perturbed if he never got inducted. Since the day he retired, I’ve always believed Mike had the numbers. Many people recite the typical ones — 270 wins, 2,813 strikeouts, five all-star appearances and seven Gold Gloves — but it’s some of his other stats I find even more remarkable and the names with whom he’s associated which simply ring of baseball royalty.

Mike is one of only 16 pitchers in the modern era to end his career with at least one hundred more wins than losses. He’s also one of 15 pitchers to strikeout at least 2,000 more hitters than he walked. He’s one of only five pitchers to win at least 10 games a season for 17 straight seasons and Mike is the only one to do it entirely in the American League.

Mike is also one of only two pitchers to retire after a 20-win season. The other is Sandy Koufax. Baseball people will tell you, whenever there’s a pitching stat that only two people fall into — and one is Koufax — that’s tough to beat.

Any sports fan knows the passions with which they watch their team play. When you’re watching your brother pitch in the big leagues, the passion is even more extreme: waiting all day in anticipation of game time, and then the tension of the first inning. I’ve heard of famous athletes who had relatives who would get so nervous they couldn’t watch.

Not me, I had to watch. Sure, I was nervous, but I couldn’t miss it. To me there was nothing like it.

Don’t get me wrong, with all the thrills and successes of Mike’s career, there were certainly some challenges to it as well. I remember one game in Baltimore when Mike was really struggling, and he gave up a double in the gap to the Yankees’ No. 9 hitter Mike Gallego. There were two old guys sitting right in front of me, and the one looked at the other and said “I agree with Earl Weaver. All pitchers are dumb.”

I almost punched the guy in the back of his head.

Then there was another time, when I was listening to sports-talk radio during the 2000 season when Mike was in a contract dispute with the Orioles. It was an off night for the team, so this show was going to run from 6 to 10 p.m. I happened to be in the car when the show started, and the first few calls were all about Mike.

When I got to my apartment, I sat in the car and continued to listen until a commercial break. I ran inside, plugged in a radio and listened to the rest of the show. In the entire four hours, there were only two calls that were not about Mike. Some people defended him, but others bashed him, saying he was overrated and greedy. A few calls even made personal attacks, saying he was soft and couldn’t pitch in big games because he was a coward.

I’ve heard all the explanations, like the fans buy their tickets so they can say whatever they want. I understand that. I’ve also heard people say “public criticism comes with the job. After a while, you should get used to used it.” What I’ve told them is you do get used to it, but you never get numb to it.

There were some scary times.

I was in the crowd in 1993 when Bill Hassleman charged the mound and Mike was at the bottom of the dog pile from the bench clearing brawl. I was also the only family member in attendance when Sandy Alomar lined one off of Mike’s forehead in 1998. I sat with him in the hospital while the plastic surgeon stitched him up, then I drove him around for a few days until the swelling subsided and he could drive himself.

Moments like these reminded me of what I already knew: in his world it could all be over in a moment. Whether the remote chance of a ferocious line drive or the very real chance of a torn shoulder tendon, there was always that possibility that each game could be his last.

But don’t get me wrong. The joys and thrills from Mike’s career far outweighed the negatives. Once he made the majors, from April through late fall, the world came to a stop for three hours every fifth day. I don’t know what it would have been like had he been a position player and played each night. For 18 years, when it was his day to pitch, very few other things mattered. The stories I can tell seem endless.

When he first broke into the big leagues, I can remember an entire summer of driving down to Baltimore in the afternoon, watching him pitch, and then driving back home in the middle of the night.

I remember sitting in my car with a friend in the church parking lot outside of a wedding, listening to the Orioles’ bullpen squander much of Mike’s 6-1 lead, and telling my buddy, “if they blow Mike’s win, I’m going home.” The bullpen ultimately held on, Mike got the win and we made it inside on time, although we were the last two to arrive. We actually had to scoot around the bridesmaids, who were already lined up in the aisle.

I also remember a family trip to England to see my mother-in-law. That week, Mike was scheduled to pitch in Texas, so my brother-in-law subscribed to a free, one week trial of the MLB online package so I could see the game.

The problem was, a 7:05 p.m. start in Texas is 1:05 a.m. in London. I went to bed early, got back up and watched Mike throw eight shutout innings against the Rangers on a laptop at the kitchen table in the dark.

When I watched, I was highly focused, but I was not nearly a crazed, mad man. At home I never threw or broke anything. At the ballpark I didn’t scream and yell. I just wanted to watch the game and if someone wanted to talk about the game, that was fine. So whenever you hear stories that I was a lunatic while Mike pitched, those stories are false. I was intense, but I was calm and polite (with minor exceptions).

In the first round of the 1997 playoffs, Mike was facing Randy Johnson and Seattle in Game 4 with the Orioles up, 2-1. I got stuck sitting next to this sweet old lady who started up a random conversation in the top of the first inning. I pointed to the field, and said, “the game’s on. There will be no aimless babble during the game.”

She laughed, waved her hand and said “you must have never sat by me before. I talk through the whole game.”

I turned, looked her in the eye and said, “not today you don’t.”

That story is true.

There is another story from about 10 days later during Game 6 of the ALCS against Cleveland. A buddy of mine was sitting next to me and stood up in the middle of the fifth inning. I looked up at him and asked where he was going.

He said he was going to go to the bathroom and then grabbing a drink.

“Mike’s throwing a one-hit shutout. You’ll sit your ass back down,” I said.

My friend looked past me to my mother, hoping for support. She said, ever so apologetically, “I don’t think Mark’s going to let you go.”

That story is true, too.

There was nothing like being in the ballpark when Mike pitched at home, but I barely traveled with him when he went on the road. In fact, people are shocked when they hear how many places I didn’t go during Mike’s career. Besides New York and Baltimore, I only saw Mike pitch in Boston, Tampa, Anaheim, Pittsburgh and Toronto. That’s it.

The reality is, I could just see it better on TV. For home games, the family seats were behind home plate. On the road, the seats were never behind home plate and I couldn’t see well.

When people would ask don’t you want to go see a new ballpark and a new city, I would say no. I just want to watch my brother pitch, and when he’s pitching, I need to see the strike zone.

The other thing about watching on TV meant the mystical world of superstitions came fully into play. I know normal people will think it’s absurd, but sports fans understand. At the ballpark, they were more subtle. I would never change my seat during a game.

At home, however, the superstitions were more elaborate. First, I had my pitch charts, which I started keeping in 1994 and did so throughout the rest of his career. Pitch charts meant I needed my lucky pen and highlighter. I had my lucky bat: a black Louisville slugger with Mike’s name engraved on it. Also, it mattered what television I was watching.

When I was at my mom’s house, I would watch Mike pitch in one room, but I would watch the Yankees or Orioles bat on the little kitchen TV. My mom knew that the “runs were in the kitchen,” so we moved back and forth every half inning.

Throughout the years I wore a different assortment of lucky outfits. Before the days of caller ID, I wouldn’t answer the phone during the game. One time, I shaved right before Mike pitched and he got pounded, so from then on out, I made sure I was never cleanly shaven when he took the mound. And I’m telling you, he did better.

I didn’t buy into every superstition. For those familiar with Bull Durham, you’ll be disappointed to hear I never wore women’s undergarments and I never learned to breathe through of my eyelids, but if there was any way I could give Mike an edge through the cosmic world of good luck and positive energy, I tried to do it.

I remember a weekday afternoon game in Minnesota when I was a student at Susquehanna. I was trying to listen to the game on my dorm radio, but the reception was static-filled. I got in my car and started driving around. Mike was throwing well, so I kept driving.

For over two and half hours, I drove laps around Selinsgrove while Mike worked on a shutout. In one of the late innings when I decided Mike had everything under control, I went back to my dorm and turned on my bad radio. Mike started the next inning by giving up two straight hits. I sprinted out the dorm and got in my car. As I started driving things settled down, so I kept driving for the rest of the game. Mike worked out of that jam and completed the shutout.

Another example came during Mike’s final season. He started out 1-3 and his spot in the rotation was in jeopardy. In his fifth start in Chicago, he needed a good outing and he threw an absolute gem. I knew how big this win was for him, and while I gushed with excitement, I brainstormed as to what I had done differently.

Had I done anything that may have changed his luck?

I realized I had gone jogging the day before. I was never a runner, per se, but for a few years, I ran semi-regularly. I’d also found it was a great way to burn off energy after Mike pitched. I would either be stoked because he won, or angry because he lost.

Either way, the best remedy to get myself back to a normal state was to throw on sneakers and jog around town. Even when he pitched on the West Coast with 10 p.m. start times here, there I’d be at 1:30 a.m. jogging around Montoursville, either reveling in victory or sulking in defeat.

Since then, I’d had knee surgery and my doctor advised against running on hard surfaces. I tried to run on grass and on treadmills, but it just wasn’t for me. I was a street runner and if I couldn’t do that, I would find other ways to exercise.

Why I decided to run on that night in late April of 2008, I have no idea, but I did and the next day Mike pitched well. From then on, I needed to run the day before he pitched. I did and he went on a streak where he won eight out of his next nine starts.

The problem was, as the season rolled on, my knee got worse. By late summer, the swelling would last for days. It finally got to a point when I said to myself “what are you doing? You know this isn’t helping him pitch better.” So I stopped.

A month later, with the season almost over, Mike had 17 wins and three starts left. If he won them, he’d have his 20-win season. I bought a new knee brace and ran three more times. Over those last three starts, Mike threw 17 innings, gave up just one run and won all three games to earn his 20-win season. I’ve never jogged since.

It’ll be fun to see where this goes from here. I kind of see Mike now in an ambassador type of role; a baseball dignitary if you will. Sure people will still hold debates because that’s what sports fans do. They’ll discuss Mike’s legacy and where he ranks among the pitchers already inducted, but for all intents and purposes, those debates will be irrelevant. The rest of his baseball life will be a proverbial victory lap, as he forever carries the title Hall of Famer.

As I now make plans for a July trip to upstate New York, I can’t help but smile. I smile because I know the event will be fun. I smile because I’ll be proud. I smile because pomp and celebration are so not Mike’s style. And I smile because once again we will return to our old, familiar roles. Mike takes center stage, and I’m there cheering him on.

Just a boy, rooting for his big brother.

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