Pitcher excited to get on with career

http://www.floridatoday.com/!NEWSROOM/sportstory0215BROWNCOLUMN0.htm

By ScottBrown
Florida Today

For most of us, Monday will just be the start of
another work week.

For Jason Blanton, it will be the start of the rest of
his baseball life.

The Chicago Cubs farmhand has gotten clearance to "let
it loose" during a pitching session Monday. That means
the former Astronaut High standout will be giving it
his all when he throws fastballs -- something he has
done sparingly since undergoing reconstructive elbow
surgery in August 2002.

"I'm champing at the bit," Blanton said from Raleigh,
N.C. "Honestly, this is the best (the arm) has ever
felt in my whole life."

Blanton feels equally good about his prospects with
the Cubs, even though he pitched just six innings last
year.

He appeared to be coming into his own as a late-inning
relief pitcher for the high Single-A Daytona Cubs in
2002 before undergoing the dreaded Tommy John surgery.
The hard-throwing right-hander expects to return from
the injury that was once a death sentence for pitchers
with even more velocity on his fastball.

The reason: For the first time since early in his high
school career, Blanton's right elbow will be 100
percent.

Blanton missed his sophomore year at Astronaut with an
elbow problem. He later found out that he had pitched
with a partially torn ligament through high school,
college at North Carolina State and the first couple
years of his professional career.

His elbow gave out the during spring training in 2002
the day after he pitched in an intrasquad game.

Blanton was playing catch with a teammate when he
heard a pop and felt a burning sensation.

Since he had always pitched with pain, he kept
playing. He lost so much off his fastball, however,
that teammates who charted games he pitched in marked
down slider whenever he threw a heater. Not that
Blanton dared correct them.

"I didn't tell them I was throwing 85 mile-an-hour
fastballs when I'm supposed to be throwing 90-plus,"
Blanton said.

In that sense, he was actually relieved when doctors
told him he had blown out his elbow. That at least
explained the alarming drop in velocity on his
bread-and-butter pitch.

The rehabilitation that followed surgery has been as
lonely as it has been long (Blanton pitched on a
rehabilitation assignment in 2003 but the Cubs quickly
shut him down for the season after he experienced
tightness in his elbow).

Blanton, who has been working out at N.C. State,
started throwing off a mound again last month and the
recent OK he got to start throwing as hard as he can
again has made that light at the end of the tunnel
even brighter.

His fastball has a natural cutting movement and it was
clocked as high as 95 miles per hour before his
surgery. Blanton, who figures to open the season with
Daytona or for Chicago's Double-A team in Jackson,
Tenn., thinks he may throw even harder now that his
elbow is completely healthy. He'll find out soon
enough.

"I can assume I can at least get back to where I was,"
said Blanton, who will report to minor-league camp in
Arizona in early March. "I'm ready to go to spring
training and just let it fly." Nice problem to have

==============================

Brian Cashman has a difficult job to be sure. The
Yankees general manager is under the thumb of
imperious owner George Steinbrenner, has to deal with
fans that are almost as impatient as his Boss and the
New York media can be brutal.

But having too much money at his disposal? Puh-leeeze.


Yet having unlimited resources may actually make
Cashman's job harder, he claimed during a Town Hall
meeting with fans in early February.

"Having money to spend can make things more
difficult," Cashman said in a story run by MLB.com.
"It can be more difficult to handle high expectations.
I've been in a position of telling George, 'We don't
need to spend this, it's too much extra, we're fine
where we are.'

"I'm probably the only general manager that's ever had
that conversation with an owner. But I run more risks.
Someone else maybe can't afford a $3 million mistake,
but I'm after bigger game. I can't afford a $10
million mistake."

During that same Q & A with fans, Cashman called Jeff
Weaver a "$10 million mistake."

Funny, but in the roughly two seasons Weaver spent in
New York, the Yankees won a pair of division titles
and played in the World Series.

Weaver has since been jettisoned and the Yankees are
hardly in shambles.

Having too much money to spend? Expos general manager
Omar Minaya should have such problems.

Missed opportunities

If the Braves and A's sink into mediocrity -- and the
heavy losses each sustained in free agency make that a
distinct possibility -- neither can say they didn't
have their chance to win more championships.

The Braves have been to the postseason 12 straight
times and have just one World Series title to show for
it (heck, even Shaq doesn't go 1-for-12 on a bad night
at the free-throw line).

The A's have also badly underachieved in the
postseason. They have lost nine consecutive games in
which they had a chance to win a playoff series.

Contact Brown at 242-3698 or
sbrown@... baseball



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