DATE: Saturday, September 13, 1997          TAG: 9709130652

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Tom Robinson

                                            LENGTH:   96 lines

ANDERSON MOURNS FATHER WHO PUSHED HIM SO HARD

Jim Anderson, his family tells you, had a temper on him. And, yes, there were times on the baseball field when he made his points so vehemently to his son that the boy became embarrassed, truly humbled by throwing a curveball where a fastball was needed.

There were times when other parents, including the boy's mother, looked on silently, in disapproval but in deference to the tie between the two; the son, full of ability and desire to become a major league baseball player; the father, burning to make it happen.

Some say it was a classic case of a father living life through his child, taking the son's joys and frustrations intensely upon himself, never satisfied, always demanding more.

But young Jimmy Anderson Jr. listened. Responded. Rarely blocked out the noise, because he knew, even if it could hurt to be Jim Anderson's son, that they were in this together. And that his father could help.

``He was hard to talk to sometimes,'' says Jimmy Anderson, home in Chesapeake after his fourth season of pitching in the minor leagues for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

``He had his opinions, and he was kind of stubborn. Sometimes that bothered me. But I knew he wasn't going to do anything to hurt me. Now, I'm glad he did it. ... I loved him to death.''

Jim Anderson, 44, a long-time smoker who, according to his ex-wife, had been treated for high blood pressure, died suddenly Aug. 10 on a golfing trip to Burlington, N.C.

A massive heart attack killed him, so great that ``the doctors said even if they had been right there, there was nothing they could've done,'' Jimmy Anderson says.

Anderson, a 21-year-old lefthanded pitcher from Western Branch High School, was in Calgary, Alberta when it happened. He was near the end of his first Triple-A season in a fast-track career that has whisked him from the ninth round of the 1994 draft to the cusp of the major leagues.

He was the youngest player in the Pacific Coast League, a single kid on a team of married men, farther away from home for as long a time as he'd ever been. Also, he was struggling on the field, vexed by Calgary's cold, the June games postponed by snow, and frustrated by the Coast League's light air and small ballparks.

Then this. A phone message at the ballpark from his step-mother. His manager breaking the horrible news. Numbness.

``There was nothing wrong with him,'' says Anderson, who had talked with his father Thursday, the day after his previous start. ``Same old Pops.''

Usually, he called his dad, a Norfolk shipyard foreman and former youth league coach, immediately after his games, often from the clubhouse. A couple of time zones away, Anderson had his dad's blessing to wake him up.

His other seasons, when Anderson played in Lynchburg or Zebulon, N.C., calls weren't necessary. His father and mother, married for 16 years and divorced in 1992, attended his every home start, sitting apart and greeting their son separately afterwards.

``He coached me my whole life,'' Anderson says. ``He was real hard on me, easily tougher on me than any of the other kids. But every day when he came home from work, I'd be outside waiting for him, ready to play.''

To play, says Jimmy Anderson's mother, Florence, was her son's wish first.

``I was always a little more practical,'' says Florence Anderson, 52. ``I'd ask him to make another career choice, just in case, and his answer was always, `I'm gonna play baseball, mom. I'm gonna play ball.'

``He'll make it, too. I'm sorry that his father passed away, but I don't think Jimmy's going to let that stop him from reaching his goal. He's grown up a lot, having to live on his own. I'm real proud of him, and not just for baseball.''

For once, baseball disappointed him this season. Anderson started twice in his first big league training camp, then began the season at Double-A Carolina. In late April, he joined Calgary, dropping by to see his father for the last time en route.

He started poorly and, in a league in which the leading earned-run average was 3.88, spent the year trying to keep his ERA below 6.00

Battling control trouble, Anderson finished with a 7-6 record and a 5.60 ERA in 106 innings. He was second on the team with 75 strikeouts, but led the Cannons with 64 walks and nine wild pitches.

Anderson came home for nine days when his dad died, but returned to Calgary on the promise that a September callup was pending. None came, but Anderson says the Pirates have assured him he will not exposed to this winter's expansion draft.

Until spring training, it's a winter Anderson will spend working out at Old Dominion, playing golf and basketball and remembering his father's endless lessons, most preaching physical and mental toughness.

``The kids who go away and aren't mentally strong,'' Anderson says, ``they're the ones who don't make it.''

Now the tough thing is, when Anderson makes it, he'll do it alone.

Or maybe not.

``I talk to him when I go see him. Even at home,'' Anderson says.

``The worst part of this is, his dream was to see me pitch in the major leagues. But he's with me. I feel like he'll be with me till I get there. Then he can go on up.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

MOTOYA NAKAMURA/The Virginian-Pilot

Jimmy Anderson says he's glad his father, Jim Anderson Sr., pushed

him to become a better pitcher.

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