Kennedy's debut smells of hope for Rays' future

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By GARY SHELTON

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 8, 2001

The wind drifts in gently from the north. It is cool, it is clean, and it carries the scent of lilacs.

If you did not know better, you would swear it smells like ... hope.

The air is better today. Can't you feel it? One kid pitcher, one five-inning stint, and you can breathe again. There is something in the air, and darned if it isn't Joe Kennedy's curveball.

This is what they mean by an air freshener. For a long time now, the atmosphere around the Rays has been foul, so foul you half expected to see squiggly cartoon lines eminating from the top of Tropicana Field every time you passed by. There is nothing so malodorous as maladroits, and every day, it seemed, the stench deepened.

Then Kennedy breezed past the Toronto Blue Jays, and an entire organization felt the gust.

In other places, on other teams, this would have been a nice little night but not a lot more. A kid from nowhere had an impressive debut, and his team won, and everyone was happy.

Around here, where winning happens less, a night such as Kennedy's means more. It means that something different, something better might be on its way. It means that perhaps more gold is in the mine. It means that for at least one night, you could pay attention to Kennedy instead of the Bay of Pigs. It means, well, everything.

For the Rays, there is only one happy ending possible. For any measure of success, they have to spit out prospects like an assembly line. They have to grow young, talented, hungry kids who will appeal to a market that has been slow to accept other team's castoffs and hope the winning percentage and the attendance grow together.

This was more than No. 58 in a 162-game series. This was Kennedy looking back at the rest of the Rays prospects and waving them forward.

Ask Chuck LaMar, the Rays' general manager. He was busy Wednesday. His daughter Sarah was graduating from high school, and there were dinner plans. But he listened to the first inning on the car radio, and he watched the second at home. When he arrived to dine at Island Way, he talked the owner into turning his television on to the game.

"I kept saying "Sarah, I'm sorry, but I have to see Joe Kennedy pitch,' " LaMar said, laughing. "Sarah would have thought something was wrong if I hadn't watched."

Soon afterward, LaMar was standing beside Jim Krivacs, the agent for Fred McGriff, in front of the television. By then, he said, he wasn't a general manager. He was a fan, pulling for the kid to do well for the home team.

"As bad as we have struggled, we all need some new leases on life," LaMar said. "We all need some hope, and that includes our players."

Ask Dan Jennings, the director of scouting. Jennings was at Tropicana Field with "seven or eight" scouts. The draft had gone well, so Jennings had ordered pizza, and the crew sat around to watch the game, living each pitch, talking about its pace and its location. They watched the curveball snap as it took out Shannon Stewart to start the game. They watched Carlos Delgado wave at a curveball for the final out in the fifth.

It is fair to say there was some hooping, and there might have been a holler.

"We were pulling like hell for him," Jennings said. "I thought he showed a lot of composure. It's a heck of a place to have to learn on the job."

Perhaps pulling the hardest was Craig Weissmann, the scout who signed Kennedy. Scouts are that way. Their prospects are like their own. So Weissmann tried to play it cool, but his co-workers noticed that when he reached for a slice of pizza, his hand shook from nervousness.

"The kids are coming," Jennings said. "We just have to get through the ugly. Right now, we're deep in the ugly."

The worse things are today, the more people look forward to tomorrow. Still, it has been tough. Ryan Rupe has had his struggles. Matt White had arm surgery. Josh Hamilton's back hurts. And the waiting is the hardest part.

Then came Kennedy, the sleepy-eyed pitcher whom no one had heard of before this season. How unexpected was this? Last off-season, minor-league pitching instructor Chuck Hernandez told Kennedy that if he really, really worked hard, if he shed some fat and put on some muscle, he could make it all the way up to Class AA this year. Wowee.

Instead, Kennedy has reached the majors by early June, and the only thing that has gone wrong has been his inability to sing on the bus when commanded. His teammates showered him with beer after Wednesday night's game, and his family and friends toasted his success, and he squirreled away a game ball and cap to remember a wonderful game. He is the talk of the organization. He has given enthusiasm to the veterans, hope to the unknown players on the farm, motivation to the more heralded prospects he passed on the track.

Oh, and he gave Delgado a curveball.

Let's not fool ourselves. There are tough times ahead. Kennedy still isn't as polished as he could be. Of course he could have used more time in the minors. That said, the franchise likes his makeup. They think he has the resiliency to learn on the job, to not let the bad times get in the way of the good.

"In my heart, I feel good about the future," Kennedy said.

Around here, you learn to be wary of success. It comes so infrequently, and it never seems to stay. Kennedy's was not the first impressive performance by a young pitcher we have seen. Yes, there is room for doubt. It was only one game. It was only 15 outs. It was the first time a major-league team got a look at him.

On the other hand, it was a start.

Who knows? By the time the veterans ask Kennedy to sing again, maybe the song will be something from Camelot.

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