Crim Pitches to Relieve Sting of ‘Nightmare’ Year

MILWAUKEE — The phone call startled Angel reliever Chuck Crim. He kept trying to listen, but his senses were numbed by confusion. It wasn’t until after he hung up, minutes later, that his mood turned to anger.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Crim said. “I could not believe this was happening. I made so many plans, and now I felt like I was going to get cheated.”

The caller a few weeks ago was a friend from California, telling Crim that he read in the newspapers that the Angels were trying to trade him. There was even speculation that if they were unsuccessful, the Angels might release him.

Crim winced as though someone elbowed him in the gut. This wasn’t about money. He was going to be paid every two weeks the rest of the season, no matter what transpired. The Angels still owe him $1.1 million as part of a two-year, $2.2 million guaranteed contract he signed before last season.

No, he said, this was about pride.

“I spent the whole winter thinking about this season,” Crim said. “I tore apart my garage, put in exercise equipment, and worked out every day. I mean, that’s all I thought about.

“I approached this year like somebody was going to pay for what happened last year. I felt I owed it to the organization for them to get their money’s worth out of me this year. . . .”

Crim stopped speaking, looked around at his teammates in the visiting Milwaukee clubhouse, and said almost in a whisper: “I just want a chance, because if I’m going to do down, I want to go down fighting.”

Crim, who opened the season with the Angels simply because they could find no takers, just might be converting a few of the Angel skeptics into believers. He was tossed into consecutive games last weekend against the Detroit Tigers, and was virtually flawless. He won one game, and kept the Angels close in another, pitching 3 1/3 innings without giving up an earned run.

“I was so happy for him,” reliever Steve Frey said, “because of what happened to him last year. He has set pretty high standards for himself, and last year was tough to take.

“You’re talking about a guy who was the premier setup man in baseball, and nobody last year got to see the real Chuck Crim.”

Crim, who led the American League two consecutive years in appearances and was invaluable as Dan Plesac’s setup man for five years in Milwaukee, didn’t resemble that pitcher last year. He opened the season by surrendering 10 earned runs and had a 5.09 earned-run average in the month of April. He finished the season with a 5.17 ERA and allowed 100 hits 87 innings.

“It was an absolute nightmare,” said Crim, who was traded before the 1992 season for pitchers Mike Fetters and Glenn Carter. “Everything went wrong. I couldn’t even stand the thought of coming to the ballpark.”

Crim, 31, born and raised in Van Nuys, found himself being booed by hometown fans. He wanted to impress the Angels and his friends who had supported him, but instead Crim felt as if he was embarrassing them.

His ERA had soared to 6.80 the first week of July, and the Angels were afraid to use him. If not for his two-year, guaranteed contract, he would have been released. It was that bad.

“My mechanics were so messed up last year,” Crim said, “I don’t even know what I was doing. We had a new pitching coach in Milwaukee, Larry Haney, and he got me all screwed up. He was a nice man, but he just wasn’t qualified for that job.

“I paid the price.”

Baseball scouts contend the Brewers might have been responsible for Crim’s downfall long before the 1991 season. Crim pitched an outrageous 130 innings during his 1987 rookie season, once pitching three consecutive days for three innings apiece. Crim said there were fewer than 10 games the entire season that he wasn’t either warming up or pitching.

Yet, no one seemed to notice. It was the year the Brewers won their first 13 games, Juan Nieves pitched a no-hitter, Paul Molitor compiled a 39-game hitting streak and the Brewers stayed in the race.

Veteran pitchers persuaded Crim to tell Manager Tom Trebelhorn that he was too sore to pitch some games, but Crim refused to listen. Crim, who pitched in a league-high 70 games in 1988 and 76 games in 1989, never refused the ball.

“I guess I was a rock head,” Crim said. “Guys were telling me to take a day off, but I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t care about the consequences.

“I pitched more in my first five years than anybody in baseball, and I was proud of it.”

The repercussions, scouts say, are that Crim’s fastball has slowed to about 80 m.p.h., his breaking balls are not nearly as sharp and he tends leave the ball up in the strike zone.

Crim, realizing he doesn’t possess the fastball he once did, says his weaknesses can be compensated by savvy. He knows he must hit the corners now, and he can ill afford to fall behind in the count. He yielded a .362 batting average in those situations a year ago.

“I’m not going to come out and say that I’m going to throw the cover off the ball,” Crim said, “but I know what it takes to be successful. The biggest adjustment is to pitch without your good stuff, and I learned a lot from last year.

“More than anything, I just want to stay here and pitch for these guys. I feel I owe them something.

“I just hope they give me the chance to pay them back.”