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Blue Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman embracing emotion of bittersweet day

DUNEDIN, Fla. – The marine layer hung thick on the dawn drive from Tampa, even throwing off a few drops of rain along the causeway. The public relations man leaned against a chain-link gate, which hesitated before rolling open with some reluctance. He waved in the car, then turned and walked across the field, leaving dewy footprints from the left-field line through center field and into the right-field corner.

I’d come looking for Marcus Stroman, the 23-year-old pitcher from Long Island by way of Duke. He’d won 11 games as a rookie for the Toronto Blue Jays with a power fastball and five other pitches, most of them, as Russell Martin would describe after a single bullpen session, “Electric.”

Marcus Stroman pitches in the bullpen during spring training. (AP)
Marcus Stroman pitches in the bullpen during spring training. (AP)

That wasn’t the reason for the trip.

He’s slotted fourth – behind R.A. Dickey, Mark Buehrle and Drew Hutchison – in a capable Blue Jays rotation, for a team that added Martin, Josh Donaldson and, when his knee heals, Michael Saunders to the offense, either of which would make the Blue Jays dangerous, both of which could be plenty enough to win the AL East, which hasn’t happened in Toronto in more than two decades.

That wasn’t it, either.

Stroman wears No. 6, because his grandmother, Gloria Major, his father’s mother, was born on March 6. She’d helped raise him. She’d kept a fractured family from ruin. She’d huddled in the bleachers under two blankets on those early spring days on Long Island and cheered herself hoarse for the little kid who wouldn’t ever be broad or tall enough to make much of baseball. He could hear her above all the others. And while his mother and father were good and loving and supportive, and did the best they could after the divorce, it was grandma who lit little Marcus’ smile, grandma who taught him there were only good days and better ones.

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Grandma would’ve been 72 today, March 6, the day the marine layer came. She died in the fall of Stroman’s junior year at Duke. His parents had called to say she was in the hospital and not feeling well but would be fine so just do your studies and we’ll keep you in the loop. Stroman said no, he’d have to come home, and there was an argument, but in the end his mother and sister scraped together the money for a plane ticket, and Marcus – he loved the way it sounded when she called his name – sat at her bed. She was thin and weak, but she was still in there somewhere fighting the cancer, and she even smiled when it was time for him to return to school. He kissed her, told her he loved her and said, “See you soon, OK?”

She died while Marcus was away, and he put down the phone and cried like he never had and hasn’t since. He wears the number that represents the day her life began. When he wished her well and a happy birthday on Twitter early Friday morning, he turned back to his phone several minutes later and found it had been retweeted six times and favorited 66 times.

And so I came to ask him if this was a good day or a terrible one.

He stood outside the door to the Blue Jays clubhouse and smiled. His hair is a rust color on top, where it is long and wavy. It is shaved on the sides, with a fancy zigzag carved into one. He’s short, as advertised, but full in the shoulders and chest, so far from fragile. He smiled at the question.

“A little of both, I guess,” he said. “I’d rather celebrate. Today, it’s more remembering, more positives, more smiles. I talk to her all the time. And every fifth day I sit down in center field and talk to her.”

As a starting pitcher, he plays every fifth day. So he reminds her this wasn’t just his dream, but theirs. He thanks her for showing up on those brutally cold days that were not made for baseball, and for driving so far, and for calling his name louder than anyone else.

“It’s like she’s there,” he said.

She wouldn’t miss this, probably.

Stroman pitched 130 2/3 innings as a rookie last season. (AP)
Stroman pitched 130 2/3 innings as a rookie last season. (AP)

“Everything was always positive,” he said. “Nothing was negative. Because of her confidence, I knew I was going to make it. She kinda made me who I am.”

He is what she’d have hoped he would be. Not because he was striking people out and winning ballgames and finding his way in the big leagues, necessarily, though that undoubtedly would be part of it. He’s bright and engaged. He’s respectful. He’s curious about who he is and what’s out there for him. At 23 – he’ll be 24 in May – there’s still a lot to come. There’ve been mistakes and there’s sure to be more, because that’s part of the worthwhile experience.

He stood outside that clubhouse door, talking to a stranger, when the door creaked open and the veteran Buehrle walked by. “Blah, blah, blah,” Buehrle barked. They laughed at each other. Theirs is one of the unique relationships in the game, more “Diff’rent Strokes” than clubhouse pals. For one, Stroman calls Buehrle “Dad” or “Papa,” and Buehrle allows it. Stroman has asked Buehrle if he could come spend a winter with him hunting deer – Stroman, though his father is a Suffolk County detective, has never even held a gun – and Buehrle hasn’t dismissed the idea entirely. They talk a lot.

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Now, Stroman is a Duke-educated first-rounder, 95 mph-throwing, vociferous 23-year-old New Yorker with a black father and Puerto Rican mother who’s only getting this career and life thing sorted out. Buehrle is a Jefferson College (Mo.) man, almost 36 years old, throws maybe 85 on a very lively day, with kids and 15 years – and 199 career wins – behind him. His personality tends toward reserved. The clubhouse television plays country music videos, likely at Buehrle’s urging. He says the word “Twitter” like it’s gotten stuck to his tongue. They’re an interesting pair, Stro’ and, um, Dad.

Marcus Stroman 2014 Pitch Selection | PointAfter

“He’s almost like my dad,” Stroman said. “I told him, ‘When you’re done playing, you should just adopt me.’ He takes it. I think he kinda likes it.”

“Am I amused by it?” Buehrle asked. “Yeah, I think it’s funny. … I take it as kind of a compliment. It’s not just the age aspect of it.”

The kid kind of cracks him up, actually.

“He’s just got a great head on his shoulders,” Buehrle said.

Stroman’s a good kid with some fight in him. Somebody could show him the way. Where the good fights are, and the ones not worth fighting. Someone else to remind him that it can be done. Someone else to sit up in those bleachers and say, I’m here. I understand. I believe. Just like you. Now go do it.

So, yeah, he’d celebrate a good day. He’d wear it on his back and remember what it was like, what she was like, what they were like.

“I just felt better about myself,” he said.

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