Rays/MLB

Arm, not heart, failed bonus baby

By JOHN ROMANO
Published July 26, 2006

The truth is, Matt White ceased being a big-league prospect long ago. It just took a while for his heart to grow as weary as his shoulder.

The end, such as it was, came quietly a few days ago. He had no grand farewell. No final moment of glory. Just a six-hour bus ride overnight from a minor-league park in Jackson, Tenn., to another in Montgomery, Ala., where he cleaned out his locker and drove away from the only job he ever wanted.

Why is this so important? Why does it matter that a 27-year-old who never threw a pitch as a major-leaguer is finally retiring?

It is news, of course, because of the $10.2-million signing bonus the Devil Rays gave White almost 10 years ago. It made him the Gucci of all bonus babies and immediately stamped him as the early face of the franchise.

But there is more to the story than the money, and there is far more to the legacy of White than some stereotype of unfulfilled promise.

It has been more than three years since he threw a meaningful pitch. It has been nearly four years since he won his last minor-league game. It has been, it seems, a lifetime since he was the hottest teenaged pitcher in the land.

And, yet, he continued to show up. Maybe it was stubbornness. Maybe it was pride. Maybe, and he acknowledges this, it was a strong sense of obligation to the team that threw its hopes and money at him so long ago.

It was blessed talent that made White so valuable to a baseball team a decade ago, but it was personal integrity that made him so honorable on his way out the door.

"He felt he owed it to himself, and to the organization, to give this every opportunity," said Rays bench coach Bill Evers. "I don't want to put words in his mouth, but he didn't want to be remembered as a guy who stole money.

"Being who he was, the great kid he is, you just had to pull for him. Everyone wanted to see him make it back."

It has been a long time since anyone stopped and marveled at the wonder that used to be White's right arm. The 95-mph fastballs disappeared long ago, replaced by three shoulder surgeries and one knee operation.

White missed three seasons entirely and parts of several others. Think of it this way: He met his wife Kristin nearly five years ago, yet she knows of his pitching promise only through videotape and gossip.

Opening days, All-Star breaks and offseasons blended together. He moved from forgettable minor-league stops to minor-league stops he wished he could forget. He tried every exercise and rehab routine imaginable. A doctor in Texas, a therapist in Alabama and trainers in every city along the way.

Always with the hope that someday it might click. That one morning he would wake up and it would be 1999 again. This is the life he has been living for six years.

"The hardest part is it doesn't seem like there's an end in sight," White said. "You work hard, you listen to rehab coordinators and you don't see the progress. You have a lot of down time, and that gives you a lot of time to think. At times, you get angry.

"(Aubrey Huff) was on the disabled list for the first time this year, and he was miserable. He said, 'I don't know how you do this, Whitey. This is ridiculous. Why don't you just retire?' "

He could have retired sooner. Certainly, no one would have blamed him. Somewhere between hospitals and ice packs, between faith and doubt, White could have picked up a phone and told the Rays he could do no more.

In some circles, he'd already become a rumor. Younger players arriving in Tampa Bay these days may have heard the story of a phenom gone bad, but they had no idea it was the tall, friendly guy at the spring training complex.

They would have no way of knowing that in 1996, White was the talk of baseball. He was a schoolboy legend in Pennsylvania and one of the hottest prospects in that summer's draft. The Giants selected him with the seventh pick, but a contractual loophole turned him into a free agent.

Long before Larry Rothschild was named manager, before Wade Boggs came home, even before the Rays were voted into the American League, the team gave White the largest contract ever awarded an amateur player.

"I asked our guys who he reminds them of," Rays owner Vince Naimoli said at the time, "and they say Roger Clemens."

For a short time, the comparison did not seem like such a joke. He was the top pitching prospect in the New York-Penn League in 1998 and again in the South Atlantic League a year later. By '99, he was pitching in Fenway Park in the first Futures All-Star Game.

He reached Triple A in 2000 before being named to the U.S. Olympic team for the Summer Games in Sydney.

There, in the land down under, his world turned upside down. Pitching in a pre-tournament game, White felt a tug on his shoulder. He got out of the inning, but the shoulder was shot.

"At the time, I thought I was invincible," White said.

It has since been an endless stream of stops and starts. White would pitch in 31 more games in the next six seasons.

"You do wonder if it's really worth it, but I could never ask him to come home," said his wife Kristin. "It would have been easy for me, and it was tempting at times, but I didn't want him to have any regrets 10 or 20 years later."

When his shoulder began hurting again recently, White figured his time was up. An MRI exam revealed more damage, and doctors suggested he stop throwing for several months. They could not rule out the possibility of further surgery, and they also warned that he might possibly damage the shoulder permanently.

Having invested his signing bonus wisely, White will be comfortable financially for the rest of his life. He's halfway to a degree in fish and wildlife management, and he has thought about coaching. So the decision became personal. Was he ready to give up? Could he walk away satisfied?

"All this time, I think the money has been a factor. The Rays made an investment in him and he wanted to prove he was worth it," his mother Betty said. "He's seen what's been written. He knows people have called him a bust. But he knows now that it's not true.

"He came early and stayed late. He did everything they asked. It just wasn't meant to be."

Years from now, they'll still be talking about the money. The $10-million wasted by a foolish expansion team.

They may even talk about the arm. An appendage so rare, it caused a commotion throughout a sport and across a country.

I just hope they remember Matt White's heart. Turns out, it was his best feature.

[Last modified July 26, 2006, 05:53:57]