Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 2, 1995 TAG: 9507040013
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But this went from annoying to scary.
One minute, Nelson Metheney was standing back-to-back with a Spartanburg Phillies teammate and turning his torso to pass him a medicine ball, the next, he was on the disabled list with a sore back and returning home to Salem.
That was with a month remaining in the 1994 baseball season. Metheney, a right-handed pitcher, began to worry.
``I didn't know if I'd be able to pitch [in 1995] or not,'' he said.
The future didn't look much clearer as winter progressed but relief did not come.
``I did everything after I got home,'' Metheney said. ``I had an MRI [magnetic resonance imaging exam], I took shots, I had physical therapy. Finally, I went to a chiropractor.
``Nothing worked.''
The pain was such that Metheney could manage only four innings of work during spring training. Frustration consumed him as he began sessions with Hap Hudson, a rehabilitation specialist with the Phillies.
``He had me start doing some exercises, and suddenly the pain just quit,'' Metheney said. ``I don't know what happened. It just quit.''
Just in time, too. Metheney was being assigned to Clearwater of the Florida State League, where he had started the 1994 season. He arrived with a new job description. The Phillies were putting him in the bullpen.
``At first, I wasn't too happy with the situation,'' he said. ``I'd been a starter my whole life. That's what I was used to.''
Metheney did not want to come across as a grumbler, but still went to his superiors.
``After talking to some coaches, I changed my mind,'' he said. ``I'd thought that if I were a starter, that I'd move along through the organization and on to the next level. But they said that no matter where I pitch, if I pitch well, I'll move along to the next level.''
Actually, Metheney found a lot to like about his new role.
``I've pitched in 35 or 40 games already,'' he said. ``As a starter, you only get into 25 or 30 games the entire year. I'm getting to pitch more and that's keeping me sharper.''
Metheney has gone 3-2 with a 2.48 earned run average while serving as Clearwater's setup man. He usually pitches in the seventh and eighth innings to help hold a lead in a close game before the short reliever comes on in the ninth to finish it. In games that are out of hand, he stays on the bench.
``You have to come to the ballpark ready to throw every day,'' Metheney said.
He started the 1994 season with Clearwater before being sent to Spartanburg, S.C., of the South Atlantic League to make room for a pitcher demoted from Class AA Reading, Pa.
``It was explained to me that I was not being demoted but that I was in a numbers game and I was the young guy on the block,'' he said. ``The only thing you can do is what they tell you. Then, you just pitch as best you can.''
UNSETTLING CONCLUSION: George G. Daly, the dean of New York University's Stern School of Business, has written recently about major-league baseball's labor problems and his conclusions should be jarring for players and management alike.
Daly writes in the magazine Stern Business that if a new labor agreement is to be a success, it must include fundamental elements that he says underlie any professional sports league. Among them: competitive balance based on reasonable equality of player expenditures; franchise continuity; and predictable and controllable costs.
To secure these ends, Daly says he believes the salary determination process, especially arbitration, will have to be modified; player expenditures will have to be limited by some means; and revenue sharing among teams must be enhanced.
Perhaps the most remarkable point about baseball's labor troubles, in Daly's view, is the degree to which they obscure problems that in the long run could be more serious for the game. Included is the declining value of the game as a television attraction, expanding seasons in rival leagues, and the internationalization of the market for spectator sports.
``Intractable labor difficulties have led to a gradual decline of a number of industries in America and elsewhere ,'' Daly writes. ``Baseball has long since ceased to be America's national pastime. Players have brief careers. Tax laws encourage owners to take a short-term stake.
``Baseball's most serious challenges begin, not end, with the conclusion of the strike.''
by CNB