When Cole Hamels was a high school sophomore in the middle of an 11-1 season, he was pitching for Ranch Bernardo High School in 2001 and heard a pop as he delivered a pitch. They’d heard that pop before, in San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium, when big league pitcher Tom Browning had broken his humerus bone. They said the sound could be heard through the stadium, like a “limb of a tree had been snapped,” said one writer. Browning howled in pain and never pitched again.
The same thing had ended the careers of pitchers like Dave Dravecky and Tony Saunders. And now it had just happened to teenager Cole Hamels. Read the North County Times: “No pitcher has made it back from this injury.”
The difference was, the kid was exactly that: a kid. He still had growth plates that would help the bone heal, and actually be stronger than it was before. He wore a cast for two months, he wore a sling for two months, and the whole time, his doctors were thinking about him out in the world, where there were people and cars and telephone polls to walk into. That’s all it could take to disrupt his elbow bones from realigning into the right spots, and folks, life isn’t “Rookie of the Year.” You can’t become a pitching superhero by snapping your arm. Usually you just can’t play anymore.
But Hamels did. He took it slow, he used patience, and by the time the MLB amateur draft rolled around, the whole thing worked out for him, but more so for the Phillies, who nabbed a coveted starting pitching prospect with the 17th pick, thanks to lingering concerns over his injury from other clubs.
The pain wasn’t over for Hamels. He pulled a muscle in his right shoulder in 2003 and missed pitching for Team USA; strained a tricep trying to pitch through discomfort in 2004 and missed the season; got in a bar fight in Clearwater and broke his hand in early 2005.
Tonight, Hamels will officially retire as a World Series champion and MVP, an NLCS MVP, a four-time all-star, and most importantly, as a Phillie—in the company of old friends like Joe Blanton, Rich Dubee, Tom “Flash” Gordon, Charlie Manuel, Jamie Moyer, Roy Oswalt and Carlos Ruiz. So obviously things turned out all right.
But before the curtain dropped, there was a debut. It was on May 12, 2006, against the Cincinnati Reds. The pressure was on a promising Phillies team to not lose a bunch of winnable games early in the season. They weren’t nailing it. And by the end of the month, the Inquirer would characterize them as “driving fast in reverse.” That didn’t mean they couldn’t send out a rookie to try and clean things up!
Phillies brass went back and forth between staring out the window at night, hoping the lefty with the killer change-up nearing the majors wouldn’t find another way to hurt himself and dreaming about moving him up to the big time. Finally, they pulled the trigger and Hamels was facing a Reds lineup full of guys he’d spend the next decade striking out, like Brandon Phillips, Adam Dunn, and Edwin Encarnacion.
It also had a guy from his bedroom wall.
No matter if he was flanked by hyper-vibrant 90s backdrops, swirling, stylized versions of his uniform number, or telling you to drink your milk, every young baseball fan had a Ken Griffey, Jr. poster on their wall or baseball card in their collection. The art may have changed, but the pose was always the same: Griffey, just finishing that smooth, perfect swing, watching a ball become a dot on the horizon. It was a pose all of baseball knew painfully well.
Griffey’s best days were behind him as his injury-muddled career had reached its final phase in Cincinnati. He was just coming back from some missed time with an inflamed tendon in his knee. But Griffey was still a legend with a bat in his hands, and now Cole Hamels was the 22-year-old who had to get him out.
Doing his best not to call the batter “sir,” Hamels didn’t have to wait long to do so. Griffey stepped up to the plate in the first inning with two outs.
Hamels had gotten the Reds’ lead-off hitter to ground out and logged his first big league strikeout when he mowed down the second batsman swinging. Plowing through milestones, he was now face to face with a future Hall of Famer.
Hamels went to his bag. We know now he was a pitcher who put a lot of pressure on himself to try and be perfect; to not just wind up throwing a no-hitter, but to actually plan to throw one, to receive accolades, to reach the elite level of the sport and stay there. He said once that it was his goal to stay in that “top echelon of guys.” Hamels planned to be great.
But the best plans have a way of falling apart. There are plenty of times the people of this city shook their heads and cursed his name because of a couple of tough starts in a row. Then, they’d bring out all the meaningless critiques about his mental toughness or whether or not he was playing in the right town. Funny how those complaints would disappear when he was erasing hitters with an untouchable circle change.
Pitching in the majors requires the ability to adapt, but it also takes a certain amount of stubbornness in the face of reality: I am going to get this guy out. I am going to win this game. I am going to be the best. Many pitchers think this, or force themselves to. And many of them are proven wrong. Perfection is, of course, impossible. But you don’t need to be perfect to get one out. Even if it’s off Ken Griffey, Jr.
Hamels did it anyway.
The rookie cut down the legend, his third strike drifting in at a smooth 82 mph — a change-up that alighted softly into the mitt of Carlos Ruiz and caught The Kid looking on three pitches. The Phillies won 8-4, as their offense set high expectations for Cole Hamels’ run support with home runs from Ryan Howard and Shane Victorino. It was a bar they would not often meet in the years to come.
Regardless, it was the beginning of a wonderful career in Philadelphia full of ups and downs, hittable fastballs and unhittable change-ups, playoff runs and a couple of walks. On Friday at Citizens Bank Park, Hamels will return home to where he first struck out Ken Griffey, Jr. almost twenty years ago, and the cheers will be just as loud.