from Part 7 | ALL GOOD THINGS MUST END (1987)

We went down to Atlanta, where I beat the Braves, to stretch my winning streak to eight in a row. As good as it felt to win, that game had a worrisome side to it, because by that time I was pitching in some pain. I had succumbed to the injury bug. The trouble started with my knee, not my arm. On our first trip into Houston earlier that year I’d popped a little bit of cartilage. I hadn’t been paying too much attention to it, but during the game in Atlanta that knee really got to hurting. We went on down to Houston, and it got worse. I guess all good things must end sometime: the baseball gods had given me about as much of a run as I was going to get.

Maybe I should have gone on the DL a lot sooner, only I was winning, and I just couldn’t quit. I felt like the good Lord was letting me have my little fling, I wanted to see it through. I tried to pitch through the pain but it got worse and worse. Pretty soon things got to where I couldn’t push off any more when I was pitching. Then when I got back home at the All-Star break I found I couldn’t get in and out of my car. I had to pick my leg up with my hands to move it.

There’s that old saying, Once your legs go, your arm goes. It’s a very true saying. People suppose that you throw a baseball with your arm, but you don’t. You actually throw a baseball with your whole body. You use your legs to generate your velocity. When your legs quit working and you try to make your arm take over, you won’t last very long. That’s what I tried to do, and that’s what happened to me.

I lost all my velocity. Finally it got to where I’ll bet you I wasn’t throwing 77 miles an hour. I was having a hard time even getting the ball to go over the plate. I’d have to stay inside on the right-handed hitters. For me to bring the ball outside on them for even one pitch, that would take the energy of throwing five pitches. Just to pull that pitch out there real hard, it was a serious chore.

This wasn’t working. I had to tell Davey I didn’t think I could go any more. We were at the point where use was turning to abuse. He put me on the disabled list for fifteen days, to rest me up.

Davey was managing the National League All-Stars that year, and so he was picking the All-Star pitching staff. I was 8-0 at that point, but of course he knew I was hurting and he wanted to give me that time off. My one chance in my life to be an All-Star, and I had to miss it. The game was out in Oakland. My agent went out there for it. Later on he asked me if I’d hired a couple of people to be there. I said, "No, why?" He said there were these two guys walking around the Oakland Coliseum with a big sign the size of a bed-sheet. That sign said, "WHERE THE HELL IS LEACH?"

After the break I came back, but I wasn’t the same. Still, I did get to start a few more games. The first day they activated me, they pitched me in relief in St. Louis. Then we went on up to Montreal, and I started against the Expos. I guess I really had that team’s number, because I beat them again that night, and then beat them a third time two weeks later back home at Shea.

I stood 10-0 at that point, one beautiful line of black ink in that morning paper. I could treasure my good luck all the more because I knew it wasn’t going to last much longer. We went out to Chicago and on the 15th of August my run came to an end with a 7-3 loss to the Cubs. By that time I was almost relieved the undefeated streak was over, because I was pretty wobbly out there. I was hurting and about worn out.

After the loss to the Cubs, Davey put me back in the bullpen. He told me to stop throwing between games. "If I warm you up, you’re going in," he told me. "That’s the only time you’re going to be throwing." No more abusing now -- the idea was, I’d give my arm a little rest. I’d work out on the stationary bike, get my knee to feeling better. My arm would get the benefit. Constant use had just worn it out.

Cutting back on my throwing like that seemed to work. At any rate I made it to the end of the season somehow. Frankly I probably shouldn’t have been playing at all, but we were still in contention. I was needed. Even when I was back in the bullpen, I didn’t know but what I might have to come out and pitch a substantial part of the game on any given night. One day we were out in San Francisco, you know how cold it gets there, and they threw me in as a first-inning emergency replacement for Sid Fernandez. I had fifteen minutes to get ready -- my old familiar insurance policy role.

Well, as I say, I hung in there and lasted out that year on a wing and a prayer. I finished up 11-1. We came in second, three games back of St. Louis. Somebody asked Wally Backman where the Mets would have been without me. "Twelve games out," Wally said. As soon as the season was over I went in and had my knee operated on and they picked out a lot of that torn-up cartilage. Those bits and pieces, not a ring, were what I had to show for the ’87 campaign.

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