Late Boomer

After a rocky start, Wells has built an impressive career

Yankees left-handed pitcher David Wells stood at his locker late Monday night and talked about two round numbers right around the corner: 40 and 200. His 40th birthday was only hours away. His 200th victory, thanks to a 7-2 win over Boston, was brought further within reach. He's only nine wins away. But the clock on his career is ticking.

Of turning 40, Wells, who had actually celebrated the occasion a few days earlier with friends at a Saturday Night Live taping, said, "It's a good number. You're only as young as you feel. [Monday] I felt young."

As for 200 victories, only 101 pitchers in baseball history have reached that plateau. Wells has the inside track to be next among four pitchers who have had remarkably similar careers: Wells, David Cone (who is on the disabled list), Mike Mussina and Kevin Brown. Check out the statistical similarities among the four bearing down on 200:

Pitcher	W-L	ERA	GS	CG	IP	SO
Cone	194-126	3.46	419	56	2,896.2	2,668
Wells	191-122	4.03	365	50	2,681	1,809
Mussina	189-104	3.51	364	51	2,519	2,002
Brown	187-123	3.21	418	72	2,897.1	2,125

"Ah, Moose has another seven to eight years left," Wells said of his 34-year-old teammate. "He never sweats. He's never sore. He makes the game look easy."

Still, given the train-wreck start to Wells' career, it seems shocking that he finds himself in the company of Cone, Mussina (for now) and Brown, all of whom had early success. Wells, who made his major league debut on June 30, 1987, did not win a game as a starter until he was 27. He was only 47-37 overall at age 29, whereupon the Blue Jays -- who had shuttled him between the bullpen and rotation -- cut Wells, a shocking move considering he was young, left-handed and threw hard. The Blue Jays were the two-time world champions and a model organization, but they had had enough of his immaturity. Wells, however, remembers it differently.

When asked if he regretted that the early portion of his career had cost him more victories -- if things had gone differently he'd be gunning for 250 career wins, or, as one reporter asked him, even 300? -- Wells showed no remorse, instead putting the blame on Toronto.

"I wanted to be a starter," he said. "I was young. I decided to pop off. I told them, 'You have two options. I don't want to be a puppet. It's either one or the other: stop [it] or get rid of me.' That's their fault, not mine."

Wells bounced from Toronto to Detroit to Cincinnati to Baltimore until he finally found his true baseball home in New York in 1996. He was 90-75 and 33 years old, a classic journeyman left-hander at the time. Since that season, when he won 16 games, Wells is 101-47, a .682 winning percentage. That run includes a 59-22 record as a Yankee, giving him the highest winning percentage (.728) in franchise history among pitchers with at least 50 starts. The signing of Wells twice as a free agent rank among George Steinbrenner's best buys in his 30 years of ownership of the Yankees.

Wells has been remarkably sharp and consistent this season. On Monday he walked only his third batter of the year -- as compared to 37 strikeouts. He has thrown between 90 and 107 pitches in every start and at least seven innings in every start but one. He ended the Yanks' losing streak at three games Monday, tossing 6 2/3 efficient innings and leaving with a 5-1 lead.

"He may be 40," catcher Jorge Posada said, "but I don't think his left arm is. He has the arm of a much younger man. Put it this way: his arm is not going to be the reason he stops playing baseball."

Said Wells, "I never thought I'd be pitching at this age. The Good Man Upstairs blessed me with longevity. It's something I dig a lot."

The Yankees hold an option on his contract for next season. Wells, though, said it's likely they shouldn't bother picking it up.

"Flip a coin," he said. "There's a 90 percent chance this is it."

A minute or two later, Wells said, "I'm almost sure, but nothing is 100 percent. It's 95 percent. If I feel good enough to go through another spring training, then I'll think about it."

As teammate Roger Clemens zeroes in on 300 victories, Brown, Wells, Mussina and Cone are demonstrating just how difficult achieving 200 victories is in this era. Wells had the talent to win 250 games or more, but his focus and maturity were questionable at an early age.

However, if Wells' career is less than what it should be, the Blue Jays are partially to blame. Wells spent 5 1/2 years in the minor leagues. When he was only 20 years old and barely a year out of high school, Toronto increased his innings from 64 1/3 to 157, an astounding leap for such a young player. The next year Wells blew out his elbow, causing him to miss 1 1/2 seasons.

There is simply no way of knowing yet if Wells will pitch next year. Much will depend on how his body feels at the end of this season. Despite his heft, Wells is a good, loose-limbed athlete with impressive flexibility. He is at his best when challenged, which is why he has a reputation as a premier big-game pitcher. (He is 8-2 in 20 postseason games.) He has the gift of a rubber arm. You get the idea he could awake in his pajamas on New Year's Day when he's 50 and throw 88 mph lasers, such is the resiliency of his arm.

It has been an impressive career for Wells, one that has placed him among the best pitchers of his generation this side of Cooperstown. Two hundred wins does not ensure enshrinement. But these days that milestone may be even more difficult to obtain than 400 home runs. Back in 1996, the idea that Wells might wind up with a better career than Cone would have seemed absurd. But here he is, still going strong, and that possibility is real.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci covers baseball for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com. Click here to send a question to his Mailbag.

 

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