Contrite Beimel wants to mend shattered hearts

By Bill Plaschke

Nov. 15, 2006 12 AM PT

Any day now, the tattoo will be carefully needled into his upper right arm.

Don’t tell Joe Beimel he’s crazy, because he’s not changing his mind. Of all the strange things that have happened to him in the last couple of months, nothing makes more sense.

That tattoo will be there if he’s ever again tempted to use that arm to pick up a glass filled with beer.

The tattoo will be there if he’s ever again tempted to use that arm to open a barroom door at 2 a.m. on the day before a playoff game.

What happened to him in New York in the early morning of Oct. 3, he hopes everyone will eventually forget. But he knows he can never forget.

“It’s a tattoo of a heart,” Beimel said in a recent phone interview. “The heart is broken in two.”

Broken hearts, busted Octobers.

That’s exactly what this left-handed reliever did to Dodgers fans when he cut his left hand on a shattered glass at a Manhattan bar on the day before the playoffs.

It’s also what he did to the organization when he initially lied about it, saying he cut his hand in his hotel room.

He was physically unable to pitch against a heavily left-handed-hitting New York Mets team. The Dodgers bullpen, and the team’s hopes, disintegrated without him. He instantly became a Dodgers villain the size of Barry Bonds.

He was openly ripped. He was privately shredded. His monetary playoff share was challenged. His future as a Dodger was questioned.

And that was only his teammates.

Club officials grumbled in anger. Fans chanted his name and booed his image. After the Mets finished a three-game sweep, one man walked out of the stadium shouting, “Beimel is Satan.”

From hero to hell in one quick drink.

“It was like I shot somebody,” Beimel said.

In an interview conducted while he was driving away from a winter workout at a Pittsburgh YMCA, Beimel finally offered some responses.

No more drinking.

“I have not touched a beer since that night, and I don’t plan on drinking alcohol again,” he said.

No more excuses.

“If fans want to be mad at me and let me have it, I don’t blame them, I’m just as mad at myself,” he said.

One simple apology.

“I’m sorry to everyone for doing something that was really, really stupid,” he said.

And, oh yeah, one red ink broken heart.

“That night is the whole reason for the tattoo,” he said. “That night is something that changed me.”

It was a Monday night. The playoff opener was Wednesday. He thought, what was the big deal?

In a journeyman career that had touched 11 cities in nine pro seasons, Beimel had never qualified for the playoffs at any level.

“So I just didn’t get it,” he said. “I looked at Tuesday as a day off. I didn’t think about getting my rest for the series.”

So he stepped off the plane and hit the streets and, about 2 a.m., after watching “Monday Night Football,” he found himself trying to catch a beer glass as it slipped from his hand.

The glass hit a post. The glass cut through skin underneath his left pinkie finger. He didn’t know it then, but his season had just been shattered.

After he couldn’t stop the bleeding, he phoned assistant trainer Matt Wilson with the news. Well, his version of the news, anyway.

He told Wilson he had hurt his hand on a glass in his room.

“I was scared,” Beimel said. “I knew I had done something really dumb, and I was scared.”

That fear oozed out of his left hand the next morning during a throwing session when the 10 emergency stitches couldn’t hold.

“There was blood everywhere,” he said. “I wasn’t in any pain, but I couldn’t keep the blood off the ball.”

At that moment, when it was decided that he could not pitch against the Mets, the Dodgers blood was also figuratively on his hands.

“I won’t lie to you, losing him for that series was a big deal,” Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti said.

Beimel had a 2.34 earned-run average against left-handed hitters. He had a 2.68 ERA after the All-Star break. When the going got tough, he became nearly unhittable, with a 1.42 ERA in September.

“In my mind, Joe definitely could have pitched in the first three games,” Colletti said. “If he was available, he might have also pitched in Game 4 and Game 5.”

Colletti’s mistake was intentional. No, there was not a Game 4 or 5, because the Dodgers were swept in three. But if Beimel had been there, well, now you know how the boss feels.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to watch,” said Beimel, who viewed the games on his apartment television, praying for wins so he could use his healed hand in the National League Championship Series. “I wasn’t sleeping. I couldn’t think of anything else. It was a wild time.”

Early in the series, Beimel finally called Colletti with the truth about the bar.

Colletti waited a day before calling him back.

When his teammates returned to Los Angeles after losing the first two games, Beimel faced them in the clubhouse.

“I said that if any of them wanted to rip me, do it now, to my face, because I deserved it,” Beimel said. “Nobody said anything.”

Not publicly, anyway. But privately, teammates had long been concerned about Beimel’s late hours on the road. His bedtime could never be proved to affect his pitching, so nobody ever did anything about it.

“I never thought I had a problem in that area, it was never a big deal,” Beimel said. “But now I know. Drinking is not worth it. It’s not worth putting my career at risk.”

The question now is, considering the pain he inflicted on the team, how can he come back? After weeks of reflection, considering the Dodgers’ need for a solid left-handed relief, we’ll ask another question.

How can he not come back?

“He’s contrite, he’s accepted responsibility, he’s making changes, so what happened with him is not going to change any of our off-season plans,” Colletti said. “The world is full of people getting second chances.”

Beimel is now officially one of them. He’ll be booed in his first spring training work. He’ll be booed in his first Dodgers appearance. But he says he’ll be ready for the abuse, eager to repay the faith, newly tattooed for the occasion, and eager for a new postgame celebration.

“Diet Coke or Red Bull,” he said.

Great, as long as that’s no bull.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.