Sports: In Lost and Found, a potential starter

In Lost and Found, a potential starter

Paul Wilson pitching well after injury-plagued 3 years.

By MARC TOPKIN

ST. PETERSBURG -- It was bad enough that people around baseball were beginning to forget who Paul Wilson was during his three-year odyssey rehabilitating shoulder and elbow injuries.

Even worse was that he was beginning to lose track himself.

"I didn't take it for granted, but I never realized how important baseball was to my life," Wilson said. "I didn't know who I was. I always knew I was a baseball player and for a while I wasn't sure what I was doing in my life. I wasn't sure what was goingon ... "I didn't play baseball. I was a rehab guy. What do you do for a living? Well, I rehab."

For hours, for days, for months, for years. Eventually, the hard work paid off. He got back to the majors in July after being traded from the Mets to the Rays, and began to re-establish himself as an effective starting pitcher.

But even with time as a buffer, the details still are heartbreaking.

The No. 1 pick in the 1994 draft out of Florida State, Wilson earned a spot in the Mets rotation in 1996. Midseason discomfort in his right shoulder revealed a torn labrum, leading to November surgery. Two years of rehab and minor-league appearances had him primed for a potential 1999 return. Instead, the cruelest blow -- a torn ligament in his right elbow that required April surgery and forced him to miss the entire season.

He'd spend the mornings rehabbing his arm, then the afternoon working on his head. He'd run miles to take his mind off things. He'd take out his 18-foot boat for the same reason, maybe casting a few lines left-handed. He'd swim and snorkel. Anything, he said, to get out on the water. Metaphorically speaking, it seemed a battle to keep his dreams afloat.

"I had good people around me, my wife, my family, the training staff of the Mets, good people that believed in me," said Wilson, who will be 28 on March 28. "I was out but I was still getting paid so it wasn't like I had to go out and get a job. It wasn't complete misery. I understood my situation and I understood that if I focused on my rehab and what I had to do it was possible, very possible, for me to come back. I never really let myself get that far down."

Wilson did all he could, working his way last spring from Class A St. Lucie to the Triple-A Norfolk rotation, pitching effectively. The Mets, running out of patience if not hope, responded by trading him to the Rays, packaging Wilson and Jason Tyner in a late July deal for Rick White and Bubba Trammell, whom they since shipped to San Diego.

"There's a lot of people in that organization I owe a lot of thanks to, but I think the people that make the decisions gave up on me for sure," Wilson said.

Trades are usually made to help both teams, but the biggest winner in this deal may have been Wilson, who starts today against the Yankees. The Rays brought him back to the majors and let him pitch, and he couldn't have felt much better, physically or mentally.

"They believe in me," he said. "They feel I can help this ballclub. That does wonders for your confidence and competitiveness, knowing these guys believe I can go out there and get the job done."

Wilson pitched in 11 games for the Rays, and his seven-inning shutout performance on Sept. 25 at Toronto gave him his first big-league win in a span of 1,465 days. His only frustration were the pitch-count limits the Rays put on him, but manager Larry Rothschild said that was a necessary step in getting Wilson through what turned out to be a 160-inning season healthy.

And that, Wilson said, should be proof enough that he's fully recovered.

"After last season, getting all those innings, I think he feels he's past all that. Probably, to a certain degree, he's right," Rothschild said.

"If he didn't have the work ethic he has, I doubt he'd be at the point he is right now. The way he works, he's tenacious when he's doing anything. And his pitching is the same way. I think that's why he's been able to come back to the extent he has right now."

"I don't think there's anyone who wants it more than he does," added Bill Pulsipher, a former Mets and current Rays teammate.

Rothschild says Wilson might be a better pitcher now than he was pre-surgeries, that "he developed a real good changeup and he's probably gotten a better feel for pitching because he's had to pitch with less stuff."

Wilson knows he has plenty to prove on the mound. He'd just like a little less focus on whether he'll be out there. More than anything, he wants to be treated like everyone else, just a regular guy getting ready for the season.

"Any questions to me should be about what do we need to do to get the breaking ball better or what do we need to do to step up the fastball, not what do we need to do to keep him out there," Wilson said. "And I think we're going there."