TAMPA – This is where it really began for David Price, seven months ago, inside this sprawling complex off Dale Mabry Highway formerly known as Legends Field. It was a sleepy Saturday in March when Price walked to the mound to pitch the seventh inning of an exhibition game against the Yankees.
Inside the visitors clubhouse, his veteran teammates hustled out of saunas and showers and gathered around a television monitor to watch, because they’d already heard so much about the No. 1 pick of the 2007 draft. And Price was every bit the equal of the hype.
After hitting the leadoff hitter, Francisco Cervelli (who two innings later would have bigger problems when he was run over in a home-plate collision), the show officially began.
First up: Shelley Duncan, who stared at a 99 mph fastball for strike three. Next: Jason Lane, who swung at a pitch clocked at 100 and fanned on one that slowed down to 98. Lastly: Wilson Betemit, swinging, 99 mph.
Inside the Rays clubhouse, Cliff Floyd said, “That is [bleeping] sick,” and Carl Crawford yelped, “Get outta the man’s way!” and Carlos Pena marveled, “That’s unfair, just unfair,” and for everyone outside that locker room, the afternoon was quickly forgotten.
Except yesterday, it was impossible to forget, especially as a gaggle of Rays, less than 12 hours after being crowned American League champions, reconvened at this building now known as George M. Steinbrenner Field and as the kid with the most ballyhooed left arm in baseball who’d announced his presence on these same grounds took a microphone and announced someone else.
That would be Barack Obama, who took the mike and blared, “I am a unity candidate. So when you see a White Sox fan showing love to the Rays, and you see Rays fans showing love right back, you know we’re onto something here.”
And regardless of your political stripe or ideological leaning, you have to concede this much: that is one hell of a ride for young Mr. Price to have gone on only to wind up in the exact same place.
“Public speaking isn’t my strong suit,” he would concede later. “I’d much rather face the bases loaded in a baseball game.”
He is the sudden star of this postseason. Yes, Price wasn’t exactly a low-profile name, having been the first one called in the 2007 draft. His left arm will be worth nine figures to someone some day.
Right now, it is worth 10 times that much to the Rays, who entrusted a two-run lead and a bases-loaded jam to him in the bottom of the eighth inning on Sunday, who wouldn’t officially declare him their new closer for the World Series but certainly aren’t dumb enough to rule it out, either. Not when you have nerves like Price has nerves.
“I walked out to center field and he could just as easily have been wearing one of his old Vanderbilt uniforms,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “Once I saw that, I knew we could ask this kid to do just about anything. And we did.”
Price acknowledged that he didn’t feel even a twinge of nerves on Sunday, which he credited to his experience in college, where he also learned how fragile success can be. In the 2007 College World Series against Michigan, he came out of the pen to blow away three straight Wolverines in the ninth inning – then allowed a game-winning, season-ending home run to a freshman named Alan Oakes, who was hitting all of .188 at the time.
Fourteen months later, he was throwing strike three past J.D. Drew, he was drowning in champagne baths, and he was introducing a man running for President of the United States, proof that Price’s fastball isn’t the only thing that can hit 100 mph. So can life.