Ex-Dodger Catcher Will Call Pitches for Talented Young Staff : Mariners Hand Ball to Yeager

TEMPE, Ariz. —  It is the hope of the Seattle Mariners that the acquisition of Steve Yeager will help a touted young pitching staff cure a case of shakes.

The issue here isn’t jittery nerves.

The issue seems to be a lack of confidence by the Mariners’ staff in the pitch selection of Bob Kearney, the first-string catcher each of the last two years.

The feeling seems to be that Yeager, with his 14 years of major league experience, with his reputation as one of baseball’s best defensive catchers creating instant respect, will accelerate the development of a staff that openly questioned Kearney’s calls last year.

“A good catcher takes half the pressure off you,” Ed Vande Berg said from Vero Beach the other day. Vande Berg is the left-handed relief pitcher who was traded to the Dodgers for Yeager in December.

“The Mariners have lots of good young arms,” he said. “They needed a guy who’s caught a staff that led the league in ERA and is used to being with a winner.

“One of the smartest things they could have done was to bring in Yeager.

’ I mean, Kearney’s a good catcher who throws people out well, but he only has two years (three, really) of major league experience.

“It’s nice to come to a team where the catcher is player rep.”

Vande Berg alluded to Mike Scioscia and the fact that a degree of intelligence is a requisite for the union job. It seemed to be a knock at Kearney.

“Normally, you go with what the catcher calls,” Vande Berg said.

This wasn’t the case with Kearney?

“With Kearney I would start to shake him off but he was so rock-headed about it that he would come back with the same signal,” Vande Berg said.

Then what?

“I’d just stand out there and shake my head until he’d change,” Vande Berg said.

Said Matt Young, the former UCLA left-hander who is preparing for his fourth year with the Mariners: “I’m excited. I feel a lot more confident already. A guy who has caught as many good pitchers as Yeager figures to know something about the game. I have the feeling you could sit there and pick his brain for a year and barely tap the knowledge.”

Young was an eighth grader in La Canada when Yeager made his 1972 debut with the Dodgers.

This goes beyond a respect for his elders, however.

Said Young: “It’s hard enough to concentrate on mechanics without having to say to yourself, ‘Gosh, should I throw a slider here, should I pitch in or out, what if I make a mistake with it?’ There’ll still be times when I’ll throw the pitch I want to when I want to, but with a guy of Steve’s experience you can rely on the catcher. There was quite a bit of second guessing (on pitch selection) last year. Steve figures to stop that. The confidence factor alone will improve.”

This is what Seattle Manager Chuck Cottier had in mind when he said at the time of the trade that Yeager will have an impact simply walking into the clubhouse.

Now Yeager shares the euphoria, saying he feels 27 instead of 37, that he feels reborn.

“How could I be anything but happy and excited,” he said in the wake of a recent workout. “I’m getting a second shot in a business that gives most people only one. I feel like a kid again knowing I’m going to play.

“That’s not to say I couldn’t have contributed to the other club (the Dodgers), but I’m not in a backup position here. I’m not just an insurance policy anymore. I’m not just going to play against running teams.

“The Mariners want me to play between 90 and 120 games, and I’ll give them whatever they ask. I’m accepting all challenges.”

Only once in the last five years has Yeager played more than 82 games, appearing in 113 in 1983. A series of major injuries and the development of Scioscia reduced Yeager’s role.

--He was playing regularly and hitting .326 in late May of 1982 when he suffered a knee injury, had arthroscopic surgery in July and appeared in only 82 games.

--He appeared in 113 a year later, but only after suffering a fractured right wrist when hit by a pitch in late July.

--He was making only his 74th appearance on Sept. 14, 1984 when he suffered a fractured tibia near his left knee in a home plate collision with Cincinnati’s Dave Concepcion.

Yeager spent four months on crutches during the offseason and appeared in only 53 games last year, batting .207.

The chronology seems to indicate that a 37-year-old Yeager represents something of a gamble for a team 1) hoping to have him catch 90 to 120 games and 2) willing to part with one of the sport’s rarest commodities, a proven left-handed relief pitcher.

Seattle management contends that the need for an experienced, defensive catcher with leadership quality was imperative, and that they were satisfied by an investigation into Yeager’s physical status.

“You have to give up quality to get quality,” Cottier said the other day.

“Vande Berg’s best success has been as a set-up man. That’s not to say he can’t close it (get the final outs with the game on the line in the ninth inning), but if we had considered him a closer we would have been more hesitant to make the trade.”

Yeager heard about the trade while on a Caribbean cruise with former teammate Rick Monday, who was the first to hear about it. Monday learned about it from a jeweler in St. Thomas, who told him he heard it on the radio. Monday told Yeager, who didn’t believe it.

“How can you believe Monday the way he jokes around?” Yeager said the other day. “Then I had just signed a contract (with the Dodgers) a month earlier. There are always (trade) rumors, but if you pay attention to them you end up beating your brains out. I mean, Seattle came as a surprise. I didn’t believe it until I got a call on the ship the next day.”

Yeager said he has since lost 10 pounds, down to about 200. He recently had two screws removed from his left knee. A boulevardier, he claims to have stopped drinking.

“If I was going to have a problem, I would have already had it because I’ve done more on it than I did all of last year,” he said of the knee.

“I mean, it wasn’t every-day injuries that kept me out. It wasn’t that I couldn’t catch or didn’t want to catch,” he said of the last few years. “It was a situation where I didn’t make out the lineup.

“I was either unable to catch or wasn’t asked to catch. Scioscia did most of it. I caught every 16 days. It was difficult to accept because I’ve always said I’d rather be a guy who wanted to play than a guy who could sit and take it.

“I was unhappy about it because there was no way to contribute, but I didn’t moan and groan, and I’m not now. I’m taking my same determination out of a Dodger uniform and putting it into a Seattle uniform. I only know one way to play, and that’s to bust my butt.”

Yeager will now do more than play. He will be something of a coach without portfolio.

Young, at 27, is the oldest member of a projected rotation of Mike Moore, 26, Mike Morgan, 26, Mark Langston, 25, and Bill Swift, 24.

The Mariners, who also boast some of the game’s top young hitters in left fielder Phil Bradley, first baseman Alvin Davis and third baseman Jim Presley, periodically lost seven of their initial 10 pitchers to injuries last year but still flirted with .500 before finishing 74-88.

Healthy, the hopes are high.

“After one week, I believe what I’ve heard and read,” Yeager said. “This staff has some great arms. One guy throws harder than the next.”

Yeager said he will work within a framework established by Cottier and pitching coach Phil Regan. A meeting of pitchers and catchers (including Kearney, who is vying with Dave Valle and Donnie Scott for the backup position) is scheduled before Saturday’s exhibition opener.

Yeager said he hopes to talk concept, philosophy and situation baseball, developing a rapport and understanding that will carry through the season.

“Hopefully, we’ll have nobody jumping on anybody else’s butt this year,” he said.

It is a new year, a new life. There are no ill feelings when Yeager looks back.

“It’s hard to think negatively about an organization that I spent 19 years with,” he said. “The Dodgers gave me the opportunity to play in four World Series and one All-Star game. They gave me my chance in the big leagues. I learned a lot of baseball from a lot of exciting people . . . Walt Alston, Tommy Lasorda, Danny Ozark, Monte Basgall, Jim Gilliam, Ron Perranoski, Joe Amalfitano.

“I have a lifetime of memories in me.

“I know what Lasorda means because part of my heart has Dodger written on it, too.”