From ND to MLB: Aaron Heilman

Aaron Heilman during the 2000 Big East Tournament in Bridgewater, N.J.

This post is about 11 months too late. I won't bore you with the details of why -- basically a combination of a vacation that followed the interview and the lack of a deadline (this is why I don't freelance; I can be a terrible self-starter) -- but suffice it to say that I would've preferred that I posted this last August.


This is how quickly it can turn. One July day, you're in the bullpen with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the team that relied on you for 70 games the previous season; two weeks later, after your release, you're preparing to pitch on "Halloween in July," marked with a skeleton-themed pullover jersey.

It's on this night I find Aaron Heilman in the Lehigh Valley IronPigs clubhouse at Coca-Cola Park. When a teammate takes a break from their game of dominoes to get some dinner, I, as a manner of introduction, point out our shared alma mater. We shake hands and I take a seat, but I don't reveal my allegiance to the Mets just yet. In hindsight, that may be part of my hesitation at writing this post. Because of our college connection -- Heilman's 1998 freshman season at Notre Dame overlapped with my senior spring -- I tend to view him in a more favorable light than most (OK, all) Mets fans I know. But then again, I don't #BlameBeltran for anything, either. While I understand how one mistake can taint you in the eyes of the fanbase for the rest of your career, I can't bring myself to dwell on the losses. I prefer to just move on to the next game, or the next season, and look forward to the next win.

So here we are, the pitcher from Logansport, Ind., and the reporter from the Jersey Shore chatting about South Bend across a table set in the middle of a surprisingly narrow clubhouse for a ballpark built in the last 10 years. IronPigs shuffle by, music blares from a stereo, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse from the kitchen of Hall of Famer named Ryne Sandberg, Lehigh Valley's manager.

Some might think that Heilman's Hoosier roots (his father, Joe, ran track at Indiana University) made Notre Dame an obvious choice for the top in-state baseball prospect in 1997, but it wasn't his first thought.

"I wanted to go South, wanted to go play someplace warm," he said while reshuffling the dominoes. "But after talking with Coach [Paul] Maineri and Brian O'Connor, I fell in love with the place. I took my visit there and called up the rest of my visits on Sunday and cancelled them. I was sold. It seemed like home, seemed like the right place for me to be."

Drafted by the Yankees in the 55th round, Heilman chose college instead, and from the start, he was right for Notre Dame. During his freshman season in 1998, he led the nation with a 1.61 ERA, going 7-3 with nine saves in 31 games (one start). He struck out 78 and walked 19 in 67 innings, holding opponents to a .198 batting average. Those numbers earned him third-team all-America and consensus first-team freshman all-America honors from Collegiate Baseball and second-team all-Big East accolades. He shared Collegiate Baseball's freshman of the year award with California's Xavier Nady and a left-hander from Auburn named Hayden Gliemmo, who was never drafted but played 42 games at Class A Cedar Rapids in 2003, his only professional season.

In 1999, his sophomore year, Heilman started 14 of his 20 games, completing six of them, with an 11-2 record and 3.14 ERA. He struck out 118 in 109 innings, breaking Frank Carpin's 41-year-old single-season Irish strikeout record (which he matched the next season). Heilman's sophomore campaign included a one-hitter over Miami (he pitched the final five innings, allowing the lone hit in the ninth of a 1-0 win, the first shutout of the Hurricanes in four years) and a 154-pitch win over Creighton in an NCAA regional (he allowed one run on five hits, with six walks and seven strikeouts). The honors came again: third-team all-America from Collegiate Baseball and the American Baseball Coaches Association, and first team all-Big East.

2000 Big East Tournament program

Heilman broke out during his junior year in 2000, earning all-America, Big East pitcher of the year and unanimous first-team all-Big East honors following a 10-2, 3.21 season with another 118 strikeouts in 103 2/3 innings. He completed eight of his 14 starts and got into another three games in relief. In a 10-inning win at West Virginia, he tied a Big East record with 18 strikeouts, 10 of which came in the final 12 batters (including seven in a row). The Twins selected him that June with the first selection in the supplemental round, No. 31 overall, but Heilman chose to return to South Bend for his senior season.

"Once you go to Notre Dame, it becomes part of your family," he said, explaining how he still stays in touch with his college years, though it might also explain his decision to return. "It doesn't matter what years you were there, what dorm you stayed in. It always seems like there's some connection there, always something to draw you back."

2007 Upper Deck

And what a season that 2001 campaign was: He went 15-0 in 15 starts, completing 12 of them, with a 1.74 ERA and .173 batting average against. The Irish won a program-record 49 games and achieved their first national No. 1 ranking during the season. In 114 innings, Heilman struck out 111 and walked 31, allowing 70 hits and just three homers. He repeated as Big East pitcher of the year (the first since Connecticut's Charles Nagy in 1987-88), was a consensus first-team all-American and ranked second in the nation in wins and sixth in ERA. He still ranks among the top 10 in 14 of 15 career pitching categories listed in the 2012 Notre Dame Baseball Media Guide, including first in innings (393 2/3), wins (43, against just seven losses) and strikeouts (425, which is 110 more than runner up David Sinnes). His single-season strikeouts totals of 118, 118 and 111 rank as the top three in Notre Dame history. And -- if I may borrow from my 2002 self, as you'll see below -- the editors of the student newspaper, The Observer, named him male athlete of the year, ahead of quarterback Matt Lo Vecchio (who led the football team to the Fiesta Bowl) and basketball forward Troy Murphy (who helped the Irish to their first NCAA tournament appearance in 11 years).

When draft day came, Heilman's name was the 18th called -- as the first player taken by the New York Mets. At the time, I thought it could only be a good thing -- a player from my alma mater chosen by my favorite team. I didn't think about failure, because I didn't expect there to be any, not on a grand scale, anyway.

Heilman progressed quickly through the Mets' system, beginning at high-Class A St. Lucie after signing in 2001, splitting 2002 between Double-A Binghamton and Triple-A Norfolk. In April 2002, I drove out to Trenton when Binghamton was in town and sat down with Heilman in the visitors' dugout (click the image to the right for a larger, somewhat readable version of the article).

In 2003, Heilman started at Norfolk before making his debut on June 26 against the Marlins. I made sure I was there at Shea Stadium, and a classmate took a train up from Washington, D.C., to join me. The game didn't turn out like we'd hoped. Though Heilman was only charged with one earned run -- singled in by opposing pitcher Dontrelle Willis -- some sloppy play by the Mets and Heilman himself led to four unearned runs, three of them scoring on a Miguel Cabrera double in the fourth inning.

Four starts later, on July 21 in Philadelphia, Heilman notched his first career victory -- against the club that had signed him a few days before our interview. He allowed four runs in five innings, but benefitted from eight Mets runs in an 8-6 final. Jason Phillips (3-for-5, three runs, two RBIs, his seventh homer) and Cliff Floyd (2-for-5, two runs, three RBIs, his 16th homer) were the offensive stars, but I must not have been watching, because I remember none of those details.

But when I asked Heilman about what moments stand out -- so far -- in his career, it wasn't the individual accomplishments that he brought up. Well, not his, at least.

"Going to the playoffs with the Mets was a lot of fun," he said, though there was something left unsaid (and this is why I wish I'd been more diligent in reviewing my notes last summer, because there's an obvious follow-up here that I never got to ask). "I got the chance to play with a lot of great players that" -- and here he chuckled, which I didn't catch at the time, but if I get the chance to talk with him again, I'll ask him what he thought about pitching in the early 2000s -- "I'm gonna assume that most of them are going to be in the Hall of Fame. I played with guys like Billy Wagner, and Roberto Hernandez was a big help to me early in my career when I went to the bullpen."

But here's the individual accomplishment that's not his own:

"I think the moment that stands out the most to me was being able to be a part of Tom Glavine's 300th win," he said. "It was at Wrigley Field, just to be a small part of something like that. Such a great accomplishment for Tom, all the years of hard work. To be able to help secure a victory for him that day was pretty special."

My lasting Mets memory of Heilman's tenure was a game I didn't even see. On April 15, 2005, I was sitting in a Midtown bar waiting to meet up with my wife (well, fiancee at the time) and her parents. There was no TV, but a friend of mine texted me what happened at Shea against the Marlins, where Heilman pitched one of the now three dozen one-hitters in Mets history.

"And that one hit was by a future teammate of mine, [Luis] Castillo," Heilman said, shaking his head. "A swinging bunt ..."

He let the thought trail off ...

I sometimes wonder how things would've turned out if Castillo had made more solid contact with that pitch in the fourth inning, getting it to Mets second baseman Miguel Cairo just a little faster, with enough time to get the out at first. To that point, Heilman had started 20 of 21 career games. After that, he started five of 51 the rest of that season -- and hasn't started since, in the Majors or minors. Would the Mets have moved the pitcher who threw the first no-hitter in franchise history into the bullpen? Would he have been in the game in the ninth of Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS? ...

I didn't ask directly about that game, that pitch. I should have, yes, but I blanked. I led into it, but wasn't explicit ...

"I don't have any regrets," Heilman said, repeating my question. "You go out there and you play hard everyday. Certainly, things didn't always pan out the way I wanted them to. But you come to the park the next day with a good attitude of being able to get the job done, you turn the page and move on."

And moving on is all Heilman can do -- and has done -- these days, these past two seasons. When I caught up with him, he was back in Triple-A for the first time in seven years. He pitched in nine games with Lehigh Valley, giving up nine runs in 9 2/3 innings. Twenty days after I met with him, the Phillies released him. The day after that, the Pirates signed him and he went 2-0 in seven scoreless appearances with Triple-A Indianapolis, but Pittsburgh didn't re-sign him.

"Certainly, you like to stay in the big leagues," he said last July. "The idea is to play in the big leagues as long as you can. But sometimes you hit a bump in the road, you need to kind of take a step back and refocus and regroup, get things in order so that you can get back to performing at the level that you should be."

He spent spring training 2012 with the Mariners, but got released. He's now a sometimes-closer at Triple-A Round Rock in the Rangers' organization, having finished 10 of 26 games, saving six of them. He's 1-0 with a 3.58 ERA in 37 2/3 innings. He's struck out 33, walked 13 and held opponents to a .252 batting average. The numbers are actually pretty solid, comparable to his best with the Mets in 2006-07. But yet, with all the injuries to the Rangers' rotation, he's remained at Round Rock while Nolan Ryan, Jon Daniels and the staff in Arlington give their pitching prospects a chance, and rightly so.

I thought the end of Heilman's days in affiliated ball had come back in March and that, when I Googled him today, I'd find him on an independent roster somewhere. So I was happy to see him with Round Rock, but I know that it's likely only delaying the inevitable. Still, there's a part of me that hopes Heilman gets one more shot to go out on a high note -- something better than the 6.88 ERA he posted last year at Arizona. Realistically, though, I know that D-backs red may be the last Major League uniform he wears, and I'll just have to think about some of those moments in his first one.

Spring Training, 2008

Randolph fired in the middle of the night

In a move stunning and disgusting for its timing and method, the Mets fired Willie Randolph after their 9-6 victory over the Angels on Monday night. Pitching coach Rick Peterson and first-base coach/catching instructor Tom Nieto were also axed.

On the one hand, the team wasn't playing up to its potential. But on the other, it isn't a very well-constructed team to begin with, particularly with so much of it relying on declining veterans.

I think, though, the most shocking aspect of it is that they did it after an inspiring victory, one in which the hitters came through in the clutch with runners on and tacked on runs in the later innings. With the exception of Pedro Feliciano, the bullpen performed well, with Aaron Heilman getting out of a seventh-inning jam by striking out Vladimir Guerrero and Torii Hunter; Duaner Sanchez pitching the eighth and Billy Wagner saving his second straight after three blowups. Plus, Mike Pelfrey had his fourth straight impressive start.

My concern now is that some players who have begun to put it all together -- Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran have been playing well of late, and then there's Pelfrey -- will regress. That momentum will be gone, that familiarity out the door.

Or maybe they wanted Willie booted. We'll see.

I'm sure I'll have more to say after I've slept on it. I don't want to go too far now on my initial gut reactions, only hours after the announcement.

Shea Goodbye: 78 to go

Couldn't watch this one because I was at my friend Dave's wedding rehearsal dinner -- this, the guy who planned his wedding for the same week as the Mets' home opener and thus couldn't go on Tuesday, snapping his streak at nine -- but we high-fived when I got the final score text message. Watching Baseball Tonight now, and though Aaron Heilman continued to struggle, it was nice to see the rest of the bullpen come through, especially Scott Schoeneweis against Chase Utley. That was a big out right there, and if we can trust him in key situations, that's a bonus.

Jose Reyes was the key, not just because he doubled with two outs in the 12th and made a deft slide to score the winning run on Angel Pagan's single that followed. (No, I don't know if he actually touched the plate, but I don't know that he didn't, either. And I don't know that he was tagged, so I can't say that the umpire had the call wrong.) But Reyes also stole his first base in 23 games, according to ESPN, and that's what the Mets need from him -- getting on base, creating runs, and stealing bags. As they say about power hitters when they step to the plate, that they're already in scoring position, so it goes with Reyes once he reaches: he's in scoring position. If he's on first base, he can score on a double. Or he can steal second to put himself in scoring position. His success is key to the Mets', so it's glad to see him coming around.

But what's with Steve Berthume on Baseball Tonight? During every highlight, he's mentioning any player who once donned a Mets uniform by prefacing his name with "former Mets great," no matter who the player is -- including Xavier Nady (less than a year in Queens) and Chad Bradford (a decent but nothing-special middle reliever). Was his year at SNY unpleasant?

Starting a new Tradition (or Starting anew at Tradition)

If teams are supposed to bring at least four starters to road games in the spring, how do you tell with the Orioles?

That's a question I asked my new friends as we watched the Mets and Orioles from the second row behind home plate at Tradition Field in Port St. Lucie. The lineup on this day featured holdover veterans Aubrey Huff and Jay Gibbons, and then ... probable center fielder Adam Jones (who had been acquired from the Mariners in the Erik Bedard trade) and eventual Opening Day starter Jeremy Guthrie. All-Stars Brian Roberts and Nick Markakis didn't make the trip, though the two New Jersey guys I'd met this morning and the Frenchman who had joined us walking around the complex thought that third baseman Mike Costanzo was Markakis, and shouted at him during batting practice based on that assumption.


I'd been at the ballpark since 7:30 a.m., taking a shot at catching some of the players as they arrived for work. I saw some -- Carlos Delgado in his Mazerati pulling into the fenced-in players' lot, Johan Santana and Aaron Heilman through the screen over the fence as they walked from their cars into the clubhouse -- but only Heilman acknowledged us, saying he had to get inside. There were only five of us, yet still no willing signers.

Port St. Lucie was the best stop of the trip. It might've been the familiarity of the club or the relative friendliness of being with my own fans. At Dodgertown, I could've easily had Jason Schmidt's autograph, but I didn't have much of a desire. But in St. Lucie, I went to bed at 10 p.m. just so that I could get up at 6 o'clock to be at the complex by 7:30. I was, literally, the first fan there.

After a walk around the main field, I returned to a spot near the players' lot and met Jamie and Michael, the two brothers from central Jersey. We became fast friends and spent the day talking baseball. When I mentioned that I had to go buy a ticket to sit in the seats because I'd bought a berm-only ticket, they handed me one of their two spare complimentary seats two rows away from the Mets' on-deck circle. I even ended up in the aisle seat.

After two hours of nothing -- no players came over from the lot, though as I said, we saw Delgado, Santana, Heilman, Jose Reyes, David Wright, Brian Schneider and a few others, even if we were unsure of exactly who they were -- we walked through the practice fields with three fans from France who had made the trip and happily joined us around the grounds. Jamie and Michael saw two minor leaguers they'd gotten to know from going to games at Binghamton and Trenton -- Tim McNab and Mike Nickeas -- and we caught the big leaguers warming up for batting practice on Field 7, the one reconfigured with CitiField's dimensions. The outfielders were learning the angles just as we were usured out at 10:30, when the gates closed.

Though the Mets may have been the most unaccomodating of the three teams I saw -- no way to get autographs as the players arrive, only a short hour or 90 minutes to roam the fields, and a way-to-early forced exit at 10:30, then limited access near the dugout -- I enjoyed the brief glimpses in Port St. Lucie the most. But based on what others said about charging for workouts, I suspect the Braves are more uninviting. I arrived too late at the Disney complex to wander around, but I was told in PSL that Atlanta (or Disney) charges fans to enter the workouts. And though the Dodgers and Mets collected $5 for parking, that's $5 if it's one person in the car, but also if it's four.

Once we entered Tradition Field at 11 a.m., we spent about 90 minutes during Orioles batting practice waiting for Mets autographs and got nothing. They never emerged from the dugout, having completed all BP and warmups on the back field. That annoyed me. I haven't tried for any autographs in years, but I printed out some photos I've taken and felt an urge to meet a few guys for the first time in a long time.

My photos from behind the plate on this day are stellar, in my mind. It was a great afternoon for shooting, which made up for the lack of autographs. The Mets starters -- save pitcher Oliver Perez -- played through the sixth inning, and following Perez, we got Wagner, Heilman, Joe Smith and Duaner Sanchez. After the game, I went with Jamie and Michael to see Omar Minaya, but didn't think until much later that I should've mentioned my plan for the Home Run Apple to Fred Wilpon.

Jamie, Michael and I met up with the three French kids and the father/son pair from Islen once more before I headed north to my cousin Donna's house, another long drive through Floridian desolation with the iPod shuffling and the Prius coasting.

Port St. Lucie -- as remote and lonesome as it is, relative to the well-known Florida hotspots -- was the perfect end to this initial foray into spring training tourism. I'm eager to go back, though not as eager as I am for the course of this season, which is bound to be interesting. I don't know that I'd want to make it an annual trip (there are too many places I'd like to see to spend vacation time and money going to Florida every March), but I'd certainly be up for a somewhat regular return.

Should he stay or should he go?

I generally don't see the point in firing a manager when his team's just playing out the string to get to the end of the season. I see no reason for the Phillies to go ahead and send Larry Bowa to the curb just to name someone "interim" manager for the rest of the season. I said "generally." If the Phillies were considering bench coach Gary Varsho as their next manager and wanted to give him a four-week trial run from here to the end of the season, that would certainly be worth the hassle.

Chances are Bowa's done in Philly, and I doubt Ed Wade will be turning to someone in the organization as his first choice to take the reins in 2005. Otherwise, he might very well have already changed the locks on the manager's office in Citizens Bank Park. The team will probably wait until the offseason to see who's available -- and which coaches on other teams they can get permission to talk to -- and hire someone just before Christmas. The division was the Phillies' to lose this year, and they sure did it with flair. During Bowa's tenure, Philadelphia has a winning record before the all-star break, but can't crack .500 down the stretch. They have a history of blowing their wad too soon.

But there is one case in which I'd like to see a change made today: the Mets'. Clearly, Art Howe is not the man for New York. (I think the main problem is the Wilpon family and their idiotic decisions over the past four or five years, but they're not about to fire themselves or sell the team.) He's too soft, too quiet, and he's clearly lost control of the team. The losing streak is currently at nine games and the Mets have won once in their last 14 attempts. There's no heart, no pride, no sense of any desire to win from the team as a whole.

It's hard to overlook all that the Wilpons have done to get them to this point since the end of the 2000 season:

• They didn't even give Steve Phillips a chance to sign Alex Rodriguez and had the GM come up with some ridiculously lame excuse that he was asking for too much (a luxury box for his family, a private jet, etc.).

• They wouldn't give the Mariners Aaron Heilman for Lou Pinella. As a Notre Dame grad and a Mets fan, I would love nothing more than to see Heilman have a decent career in New York. So far, he hasn't shown he can stay at the big-league level, and certainly hindsight shows this as a stupid mistake on the Mets' part. But at the time, as much as I wanted to see Aaron make his major-league debut in blue and orange (and I went to Shea last summer for the game, against Dontrelle Willis and the Marlins), I thought it might be worth it to send an unproven minor-league pitcher to Seattle for a sure-thing to manage the club.

• They wouldn't trade Scott Kazmir for Alfonso Soriano. Who knows how seriously the Mets pursued Soriano, but some talks during spring training got far enough for one of the Wilpons -- father/owner Fred, I believe -- to go on the record in the New York Times and say that Kazmir was one of the few untouchable prospects in the Mets' organization (David Wright was another). The Rangers rumors probably were Jose Reyes and Kazmir for Soriano, but even with Soriano's less-than-Yankee-like season in Texas, giving up an injury-prone Reyes with little power and Kazmir for Soriano doesn't look like such a bad move for the Mets now. That they could then decide that Victor Zambrano was worth letting go of Kazmir is unfathomable to me. I could take not getting Soriano for Kazmir had they kept Kazmir. But this? God.

The Wilpons are clearly falling into the abyss that George Steinbrenner dragged the Yankees into in the 80s. During his height as "The Boss," George couldn't resist meddling in the day-to-day operations of the team and guided the Yanks into their worst stretch in their history. When he was suspended, then backed off, the farm system signed, drafted and developed the likes of Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte. Then they went out and won four of five World Series and have made it to two more since then.

The Wilpons aren't letting their baseball people do their jobs. They've got pitching coach Rick Peterson advising Jeff Wilpon on trades, they're sending Jim Duquette out there to clean up the mess of the Zambrano trade and injury and they're making bad moves at the wrong time. If the Kris Benson and Zambrano trades were made for the future (figuring they could sign Benson quite easily and knowing they have Zambrano locked up for three more years), that's one thing. But you get the sense that the trades were made also as a fading hope at making a postseason run this year, which is ridiculous. If that's the case, the moves should've been made in early July, when the Mets were in the thick of an NL East race that had the Mets, Braves and Phillies all within two games of one another. But July 30, it was way too late.

Art Howe isn't going to get the team anywhere. These players -- when they're healthy -- might be enough, but clearly the pitching staff lost its magic since having the best ERA in the majors when the Subway Series started at Yankee Stadium in late June. Wilpon criticized the Mets for not continuing to win despite injuries, saying good teams overcome them, but the Mets aren't equipped to overcome injuries to Mike Piazza, Mike Cameron, Jose Reyes and Kaz Matsui with the likes of Jason Phillips, Gerald Williams, Joe McEwing and Wilson Delgado. Those players are OK as bench players, pinch hitters, late-inning defensive replacements, pinch runners and day-game-after-a-night-game spot starters, but in no way can you send two, three or four of them out there day after day and expect to beat the likes of the Padres, Phillies or Braves.

A report in the New York Daily News said that should Bowa get fired, the Mets would consider him as a bench coach. Good God, no. Not unless that means Howe is gone and Don Baylor is promoted to manager. What could the Mets get out of having Howe as the manager and Bowa as the bench coach (with Baylor either gone to manage some other team, or sticking around as the Mets' hitting coach)? Howe and Bowa on the bench would be a good cop-bad cop routine every night, every inning. And Baylor -- perhaps the best manager of the bunch -- would be doing the least managing.

It's taken me a while to admit this, but the Mets, clearly, are a mess.

There's little hope for the near future in Flushing.