It's a nice night in the Northwest where I am watching the Mariners show signs of having an offense.
I watched Jake Peavy throw another amazing ballgame tonight. He's one of my heroes and someone, as I have mentioned before, that I look to for inspiration as I recover. Though he didn't have my surgery, he did tear his latissimus muscle nearly off and made it back fom that. That's a worth a lot of respect in my book.
So, on to Jamie Moyer. Forget about the "oldest guy to win a game" stuff for a second. Think more about 49 year old guy coming back from major surgery who pitched his way onto a major league team and continues to keep his spot by having outings like last night: Throwing a strong 7 innings...even though it was against my Padres.
I started watching Jamie when he pitched here in Seattle and admired how he continued to get batters out despite having lower velocity. He was really using that natural movement and making smart decisions on the mound. He became one of my favorites after a while. I continued to follow him when he left for Philadelphia and eventually the MLB network which is where I thought he would settle in once the UCL news came down.
He swore he would come back and pitch after Tommy John. He knew he could do it. He told everyone he was doing it. I'm pretty sure everyone nodded with a smarmy "Yeah, right".
But here he is back on the mound and beating my Padres. He's 49. He doesn't hit hit 80mph on the radar gun. He is coming back from Tommy John surgery. Think about all of those factors for a second. Any one of those could (and in some cases should) preclude you from pitching in the majors.
But there's Jamie...winning ballgames.
I hope to meet him one of these days and let him know that he's one of my heroes.
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