Living an Inning at a Time
For 12 years, veteran right-hander Mike MacDougal has been making his living an inning or two at a time. Of 407 major league games between the Royals, White Sox, Nationals, Cardinals and Dodgers, the slender flamethrower has appeared as a reliever in 404 of them, plus another 169 games out of the pen in the minors.
His late inning success has brought him four career 20-save seasons and a trip to the 2003 All-Star game.
He wasn't always a reliever. In fact he was quite a prospect as a starter, ranked No. 3 and No. 4, respectively, in the Royals organization in 2000 and 2001. He even started his first three games as a late call up for Kansas City during that 2001 season. He never started again in the major leagues.
His path from a starting pitching prospect to a shutdown reliever was an unconventional one. It was one that took him through injury and through the lowest levels of the minors before he rose back up to become one of the league's most dependable relievers.
It was the last day of the season, Oct. 4, 2001-the day after his third and final start in 2001, and to this point his last major league start ever.
The Royals were playing host to the Cleveland Indians. Carlos Beltran was up to bat, while MacDougal and starting pitcher Chris Wilson stood up by the screen in the dugout, chatting.
"I was sitting down on the bench," MacDougal recalled. "I had just pitched the night before, started, and just as soon as I walked up to the gate, I just looked over at my buddy, because he's on the screen and I said 'hey.' And it was just that perfect timing. He pulled me down to get underneath the screen, and I didn't quite make it."
Beltran had let go of his bat. MacDougal did not see it, and Wilson could not pull him away in time.
"It came around and hit me on the left side of my head," MacDougal said. "It didn't knock me out but it knocked me to the ground. I couldn't talk and then I had no feeling in my right arm."
He lay on the ground, awake, but unable to speak or move his right arm or leg.
"I was pretty nervous about it," MacDougal said. "It took me a while to be able to get a couple words out and finally when I got that out I was like 'geez, ok that's good' and I started moving my body a little bit and my arm was just kind of flopping. It just totally numbed my right arm."
MacDougal was taken to the hospital, and upon arrival there had been no improvement in feeling or motion in his right arm.
"When I went to the hospital they had me fill out a form and I couldn't even hold a pen," MacDougal said. "It just kept falling out of my hand, I just had no feeling in my hand anymore."
MacDougal spent the night in the hospital, with what was a fractured skull, concussion and some level of nerve damage that caused the immobility of his arm. Gradually, over the following day, MacDougal's feeling started to come back, first in his upper arm, and then slowly down to his wrist. But his hand was still numb when they released him from the hospital the following day.
The doctors told him he would be able to come back and pitch, but MacDougal was still worried.
"I definitely thought about it [ending my career]," MacDougal said.
His fears grew worse on his way home from the hospital.
"I went back to Arizona with my dad," MacDougal said. "I think we drove back, and I was like 'Dad let me throw this ball to you real quick.' So I picked up a ball and I threw it and I just held on to it and threw it straight downwards, and at that point I was like 'shoot, this could be a tough one.'"
It was a tough winter for the 24-year-old MacDougal. His rehab consisted of waiting each day for the feeling to slowly return to his hand, which took several months. Even then it still was not perfect.
"Eventually it got a little better and better and it came to where I could get that release point I could just kind of fake it. I wasn't getting that real great feeling on the ball or anything."
The feeling, or lack thereof, continued into spring training in 2002. By then, MacDougal was trying to get by on smoke and mirrors while hoping his right hand would return to normal. He said nothing to his coaches. He just continued to go out and pitch as if nothing was wrong.
"I went to Spring Training the next year and it was a cluster, it was a mess. I was throwing everywhere; I just didn't have very good feeling. I was throwing the ball all over the place and they sent me to Triple-A. I probably should have just shut down and rehabbed, but I wanted to play so bad I just kind of kept to myself and just tried to play. I was trying not to let people know about it because I didn't want to stop playing."
Triple-A did not treat the injured MacDougal very well.
"I was throwing the ball everywhere," MacDougal said. "They sent me to Double-A to work with a pitching coach down there and my numbers were okay but I was [still] throwing the ball all over the place. I was a mess. So, I knew the coach in Double-A, [and] he's like 'You need to go rehab,' so I went back to the Florida and I just shut it down for like a couple weeks and just started playing catch again. Then I kind of got in a little more of a groove and when I was able to pitch I went to A ball, Double-A maybe, Triple-A for a day or so and then back to the big leagues."
But he went back to the big leagues a different pitcher than when he started his last game before that fateful Oct. 4. He still threw in the high 90s or even harder, but he was a closer now.
"I think [the injury] had everything to do with it," MacDougal said. "When they shut me down, I went back to the spring training complex. When I eventually got healthy and started coming back, I was on a pitch count so when I went to A ball, I'd come in throw an inning maybe two, so I didn't throw that much, I wasn't starting. Then eventually I went back to the big leagues in September. I was coming out and throwing real hard and just coming in late in the games. They liked what they saw so I went to Puerto Rico next year and learned how to close."
He appeared in only six games and tossed nine innings for the Royals in 2002, the year after the injury. But after learning to close games in Puerto Rico, MacDougal stormed onto the scene in Kansas City in 2003.
He went 3-3 with a 2.59 ERA and 24 saves in the first half of the year. It was enough to earn him a spot on the American league All-Star team. MacDougal's career as a reliever took off, and as late as 2011, at age 34, he pitched in 69 games for the Dodgers and led all Dodgers pitchers with a 2.05 ERA.
To this day he still wears a reminder of his career changing injury on his right hand.
"Its just, like, slight," MacDougal said. "Like I have a latex glove, but I still have that fine feeling I used to have."
But despite it all, he has no regrets-neither about his injury, nor about not telling anyone about the residual effects.
If I were smart maybe I would have got a whole year of service, I don't know," MacDougal said. "I wanted to play, I don't have any regrets about it…I wouldn't change anything. It's hard to look like that. I'm happy with my career. I think it's been good and hopefully it continues. I'm enjoying it."
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