Heaverlo's best pitch is trying to remain sober

PEORIA, Ariz. — For a long time baseball was the focus of Jeff Heaverlo's life.

The game still is a major thing for the Moses Lake native, a first-round Mariners draft pick in 1999 from the University of Washington and for years a top Mariners prospect.

If that were not so, Heaverlo wouldn't have been here for the past four seasons — summer, fall, winter and now spring — working to come back from injuries.

But there's a bigger goal in his life now: sobriety.

"I have learned that in order to make this work, not just relationships, not just baseball, but life ... you have to keep a clear head," he said, sitting at a picnic table on the minor-league side of the Seattle camp. "You have to be sober."

Heaverlo says this with his usual frankness and honesty, and with the knowledge that he and others have paid dearly for his drinking.

"I've gotten to a place in my mind I want to be, I need to be, to give myself the best opportunity in life," he said. "But it wasn't easy. I've been through a lot. I'm not saying I had it so bad, but maybe I felt I did. In fact, since I made the bad choices, I put myself through a lot."

Of all the bad choices he made, the worst was the night in December 2000 he chose to drive home after a night of partying in Spokane. He describes his drinking, euphemistically, "visiting friends, having too much fun."

He and Dan Molitor, a friend from days at Ephrata High School, were about halfway home when they hit a patch of black ice.

The car went across the median of a divided highway, then flipped and rolled eight times, winding up in a field.

"I was wearing a seat belt, but Dan wasn't and he was ejected," Heaverlo said. "When the car finally stopped, I had to get out and go find him."

Molitor suffered injuries that left him paralyzed. Heaverlo says bleakly, "In a way, I put Dan in that wheelchair.

"There's a lot of guilt, but we've stayed friends. In fact, I stayed with him at his house here in Tempe a few nights this winter while I was working out at the Mariners complex."

The two have talked about what happened. "We've talked about that night so much we don't anymore," Heaverlo said. "But it's always there in the mind."

It was so much simpler years ago.

With his talent, featuring renowned sliders of varying sharpness thrown from different angles, his control and mound presence, he seemed a sure ticket for the big leagues.

He was 14-6 at Class A Lancaster in 2000 and 11-6 at AA San Antonio in 2001 and then it all came apart. He tore the labrum in his right shoulder, missing all of the 2002 season.

He made 27 starts for AAA Tacoma in 2003, but it wasn't the same. He was hit. He lost much more than he won, going 5-12.

Then shoulder trouble got him again in 2004.

"On April 17 at Tacoma, I threw a 1-0 slider to Sam Neil of Tucson," he recalled. "As I let the pitch go it felt like someone stuck a knife in the back of my shoulder."

He was done for the year, diagnosed with a shoulder strain.

Again, as he had in 2002, Heaverlo spent a summer in Peoria, working, baking.

"I've spent way too much time here, and it's no fun," he said. "It's like a really hot brown asylum."

The good news is that by the time the fall program was done in November, he was throwing free and easy from 150 feet.

Back for the winter program, he threw again on flat ground. Then in recent days he has climbed a mound for the first time in almost a year and made progress.

However far he comes as a pitcher, he measures success now in his development as a person.

Health for Heaverlo is a complex issue. He has learned hard lessons, that health means the mind as well as body. His struggle to get his career together is intertwined with his fight to stay straight.

"Nine months I kept clean after the accident, and I thought I found that was the best way of taking care of my body," Heaverlo said. "Then I got injured again and I started getting depressed and upset and my way of dealing with it was I decided I deserved some fun. So I started going out again."

This was the old pattern, mixing baseball and bad habit.

"I made some mistakes over the years," he said. "When I was through with a game let's say I'd like to go get some beverages, too many beverages, too often.

"I could have gone to a movie, gone out for a good meal, gotten on the phone and talked to family and friends. But I chose — we're talking about choices here again — to go out and drink too much, again.

"Good day, let's go celebrate. Had a bad performance? Go out and help yourself forget about it."

His allies in his fight have been the Mariners, especially the minor-league coaching staff that has a lot of respect both professionally and personally, and more essential, his family and his girlfriend, Rohana Carmichael.

"Mom and dad have been great, I can talk to them and I do," said Heaverlo, son of former big-league pitcher Dave Heaverlo. "But I had to get straight not only for myself but my relationships with my family and with Rohana."

They met two springs ago when Rohana came to spring training with a group of friends of Heaverlo's younger brother, Kyle.

Yet, despite all the support, no one but Jeff Heaverlo can determine his future. As a player, fate and health will make the decisions for him.

"Ironically, dad never had an arm injury when he pitched, in college or pro," Heaverlo said. "Yet my brothers and I all have had them. Jessie tore his rotator cuff pitching at Central (Washington) and that ended his career. Kyle had a bad back playing at Big Bend CC.

"Maybe it's one of those things that skips a generation, maybe my grandpa had a bad arm. Maybe it comes from mom's side of the family."

On the way back, he will throw the slider again. He must, for it is his pitch.

"All my career, my slider was my saving grace on the mound," he said of the pitch, which he was taught by Curly Russo, who pitched for Eastern Washington when Dave Heaverlo pitched for Central Washington. "I never threw 95-96 (mph), never had much of a change until recently. When you need an out, or when in doubt, throw the slider. Period.

"I've been throwing sinkers, two-seamers and changes. But I'll be throwing sliders again. And when I go to throw it again I can't worry. I've got to just let it go."

No matter what the outcome, and right now the prognosis from Seattle's minor-league coaching staff is good, he said he knows he cannot go back to drinking.

"I've gotten to a point where I don't need it," he said.

He said he knows he has been to this place before, and backslid.

"I'm so much happier," he said. "I come to the park and get my work done and don't feel like crap."

Some kids, he said, figure things out at 18 or 19, but not him.

"It took me to 27 and I'm fortunate to have Rohana and my family. And the Mariners have been very good with me. They tell me any time I want to talk, I need some help, just let them know. I couldn't ask for more.

"I'll tell anyone who feels depressed, who feels like life is getting too much for them, talk. Call someone you know, ask for help. Don't bottle it inside. Don't find it inside a bottle.

"But I've learned, too, that it has to come from you. It's choices again. No one else but yourself can make the choice for you. You have to make the right one. Even if you've made some bad ones, it's never too late to make the right ones."

Bob Finnigan: 206-464-8276 or bfinnigan@seattletimes.com