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Exploited, not appreciated.

I asked McDowell if he had ever chewed out a reporter after a story was printed. He said no, because "what's done is done," but that he had felt "exploited, not appreciated" at times during his career by the media. Knowing that McDowell would always give straight-talk and not "Bull Durham answers," the press would approach him right after events to get their stories filled. I said, "I've read that you have 'disdain' for the media. Is that right?" He says that it's basically right, but that it's a part of the job that has to be done whether he likes it or not, or trusts any given reporter.

Out of curiosity I asked him what he got out of his education at Stanford, where he majored in communication, something that is a little-known fact about him. The answer is immediate: "A love of editing. Came in big with my music. I put that into the music." He pauses just as suddenly. "That's probably it."

If you didn't know, McDowell had a band called Stickfigure that he played in both during his player career and after, and he would take at least one tour a year every year from 1992 onwards. He had to give it up after a back surgery made it difficult to tour, and now the project is largely done with. It's difficult to do with his coaching gig and his family, and it's difficult to do as a matter of logistics.

"There are no more small scenes. There was a time when you could always find a place to play, but people aren't at clubs as often anymore and you don't see that like you used to. I never tried to be a superstar. It was just about the music."

I sidestep the subject now -- not wishing to talk about the music too much as it is not my forte or my focus and, I am disappointed to hear that the project is likely over -- and ask about the national championship he won at Stanford, and more specifically, I ask him if that is the most meaningful thing that happened during his broad playing career. "Yeah. Easily. If you win a championship you could not have had a better year. At the end of the season you're out there alone and on top. Individual awards can be bettered. But if you're on top, you're on top, and there's no one else there."

I stretched this to ask if he truly would rather win a title with a team while going 10-10 with a 4.50 ERA rather than ending the season at home but being recognized as the best pitcher in the league. He stands by that. Easy for a Cy Young Award winner and national champion to say.

A man without regrets

I have often wondered whether or not Barry Zito feels shame over winning the Cy Young Award over Pedro Martinez when he clearly did not deserve to in 2003, and I wish that someone could ask him whether or not he feels he deserved it over Martinez. I have heard people argue in the past that Jack McDowell did not deserve the Cy Young in 1993 over Randy Johnson, and I wondered whether he had ever given thought to the subject. So I ask him explicitly whether he thinks he earned it over Johnson fair and square. "I think I deserved the Cy Young Award," he says without any conflict in his voice. "If you look at Randy Johnson, we had similar teams in the same division that year. He had more strikeouts but I had more of everything else."

"You should ask Dennis Eckersley if he deserved the Cy Young Award the year before when I came second. No relief pitcher should ever beat a 20-win pitcher. Closers only get into the game if it's opportune. The starter has to get him there. Being a closer is like being a pinch-hitter who only pinch-hits with runners on second and third and no-outs. Now granted, Dennis Eckersley was a stud," he says, and I offer to keep Eckersley off the record but he doesn't mind if I write his comments down. I, too, find it easy to speak my mind when I'm right, so I sympathize.

As we go deeper into his playing career, I ask him if he has any regrets, and I was specifically thinking of the fact that his career ended prematurely, largely as a result of injuries. McDowell does say that he wishes he hadn't lost out on the "second half of his career," that he wishes he could still be out there like Glavine, Maddux, Smoltz and Johnson. Not just for his own glory and statistics, but to be a mentor to younger players. "I lost the part of being the super-veteran pitcher. Early in my career I had Carlton Fisk, and those guys are the best coaches. Now I coach my kids, but it's not the same as what you can accomplish at the big-league level."

That leads to a question many people ask about McDowell: "Why haven't you become a full-time coach yet?" He says he won't do it until his kids are grown, and that'll be a few more years. I wonder if anyone has ever formally approached him about coaching and he says that he has been approached about his interest, but that he always says the time isn't right in his life right now.

"I assume you don't broadcast for the same reasons?"

"Yeah." But he makes it clear that he isn't all that enthused about broadcasting. "If I'm going to go down on the road, it'll be in the dugout." I ask him if he thinks he could ever be a full-time broadcaster. "I don't think so. I am first interested in being on the field. It's fun to do a spot gig here and there when someone asks you to because someone's sick or whatever, but it's not something I'd really want to do full-time."

I keep with the line of questioning, about his future, and ask why he doesn't coach at a college. The answer is, at first, that it is too much of a time commitment, and he does not want to leave his family at this point. But then he adds this: "I like it here because it's just about baseball. There's no recruiting. Just baseball." It is an admirable sentiment, in line with his purist attitude. At this point, I notice that the balls his players are using have been scuffed with dirt, and I recount the Mike Mussina anecdote from Living on the Black to him about how Mussina shows the ball to young players and tells them that a dirty baseball is a gift from God to be protected and used. McDowell never liked to do that because he liked to have some control over where the ball was going and didn't feel comfortable just throwing it down the middle and hoping that it moves to the corners, "which is what those guys do."

I decided to come at him from left field and ask if he regrets flipping off the fans at Yankee Stadium.

"Not really. Everyone's known for a few things in life, and I guess that's one of them for me. But the funny part about that is that it was a Tuesday before old-timer's game, and a bunch of old Yankees were in town and we were talking about it. They had stories about everyone getting on the fans. Guidry had some great stories. And I wasn't the first. The fans understood it." Everyone with whom I've shared that anecdote has reveled in it: how appropriate for fans to embrace him after he gave them the bird!

McDowell says he has no regrets, only disappointments. He wishes he could've done better against Toronto, that he'd won a World Series and lasted longer, but regret is not doing something you could've done and there were always circumstances that he had no control over but wishes he had. It's not an excuse; just an explanation. And when you're a pitcher, you come to understand that sometimes you do all you can and it's up to everyone else to carry the day for you.

Catch!

Near the end of our interview I ask him if he would mind having a catch with me as we talk. "I know it's not conventional for an interview, but..."

"Sure, I think we can do that," he says and goes into his truck to find two gloves. He puts on a catcher's mitt and lets me use a glove he used in the major leagues. We go over into the outfield, outside the foul lines, and start to toss the ball around. As he winds up to throw to me and I wind up to throw it back, I feel the oddest sensation. I'm playing catch with a Cy Young Award winner. He's a good guy. He tells me stories about pitchers yelling at umpires for not calling strikes, and when he gets animated, he spreads his arms out to illustrate his point. We're just talking now, not strictly for an interview but because we share a love of baseball. I ask him if he thinks divisional play and the Wild Card have "cheapened" the World Series. He says no, that it's great especially with all these teams because it gives more good teams a chance to compete. We talk about a few other things and round out the session.

We don't throw for a terribly long time, but it is enough to satisfy me that I have just had a special moment in my life. It is 3:30 when he has to go, as he has numerous kids coming in to collect a binder full of workout information he's prepared for them so that their bodies can be prepared for pitching. He gives me the ball we caught with and takes a picture with me, and then I am on my way home after thanking him. As I walk away, my mind turns to the first thing I said to Jack McDowell after I introduced myself. "So, on the way here, I was thinking about our meeting and how demonstrative I think it is of who we are. You've been retired since 1999 and I've been 'retired' in my own way since last summer, but you're coaching a baseball team and I am making time on a trip across the west coast that is not really for baseball consumption to interview a ballplayer. It always comes back to baseball for men like us, doesn't it?"

Gregory Pratt is a political science and history double-major at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His political commentary can be found at the Office of the Independent Blogger, and he can be reached at gregory@baseballevolution.com.