Six Home Runs

VIDEO: Most Valuable S3E7 “Six Home Runs” air: 6 October 2016 dir. Henry Yang

CAROLYN GENNARO: Welcome to “Most Valuable” on Showtime, interviewing the athletes at the heart of the greatest moments in sports. This week, we discuss one of the most remarkable performances in Major League Baseball’s long history of postseason heroics; Ryan Mercier’s unprecedented display of power in the 1994 World Series.

We’re here in Ryan’s home in Glendale, California. Ryan, thanks so much for having us.

(Ryan Mercier nods at the camera and shifts in his chair, dislodging his pack microphone. He adjusts his posture.)

RYAN MERCIER: My pleasure.

CAROLYN: Six home runs. Still a record for a World Series, and from a player who wasn’t even expected to play much in the playoffs, Ryan, how did you feel going into the playoffs when Manny Ramirez went down with an injury and you knew you’d be playing full time?

RYAN: Well, you know. Wasn’t my first rodeo. I’d had a decent year, we all had. Coming off the bench, playing late inning defense, I’d hit okay that year. I did my job. The strike almost ended the season, but we got back to it. So, when Mike (Hargrove, Cleveland’s manager) told me Manny was hurt and I’d be out there in left field every day, I figured, you know, I’m hitting ninth; if I get a few hits, play well in the outfield, I’ll help. That team was loaded! Oh, the hitters we had. Jim Thome, Albert Belle, Kenny Lofton… we had enough firepower. I didn’t think I’d be the one who provided most of it.

CAROLYN: What a way to start the World Series. A grand slam off Montreal’s Ken Hill.

(Video plays of Ryan hitting the grand slam in Game One of the 1994 World Series.)

RYAN: Yeah. Remember it like yesterday. Full count. He missed the strike zone on ball three with a curveball, and I figured he sure didn’t want to walk me with the bases loaded and so I looked for a fastball, and that’s what he threw. I knew it was gone the moment it came off the bat. Even there in Olympic Stadium, which was a huge park. Not easy to hit a home run in. I remember thinking, when I got back to the dugout, well, I just had a pretty good Series right there. I’ve done my part already.

CAROLYN: You knew it was gone? But you only hit five home runs that regular season.

RYAN: Sure. I mean, I’d hit home runs before. Hit like seventy in the minors. A baseball is a baseball. You can tell when you hit it. You can feel the ball sink into the bat that split second.

CAROLYN: And then later in the same game, a two run home run off Mel Rojas.

RYAN: I remember that well too. Fastball away. Paul Sorrento was on second, he’d hit a double. They’d come back to make the score close, but that just took the air outta the Montreal crowd. I hadn’t hit two homers in a game since the minors.

CAROLYN: Of course, that was just the start. A third home run off the great Pedro Martinez in Game Three, two more home runs in Game Five in Cleveland, and number six, appropriately enough, in Game Six. All of them you hit in the four games Cleveland won. Four other hits, errorless defense. It was the best week you ever had in the major leagues, as good a week as anyone could have. I suppose others have asked you this too, but, why? Why that week?

RYAN: I… I mean, it’s harder to say than you might think.

CAROLYN: You were seeing the ball well?

RYAN: (Takes a sip of water from a glass on the table next to him.) Sure. That’s what guys always say when they’re hot, but, it’s just a cliché guys say when they can’t explain a fluke. Hot streaks are flukes. Slumps are flukes too, until you get a bit too old and then they’re the new normal. But that week, I had same eyes I always had. If I had some secret I could unlock at will, I’d have used it my whole career. But, you know, sometimes guys throw you bad pitches. Maybe I just got a lot of bad pitches that week.

CAROLYN: Nothing was different?

RYAN: Well, one thing was, you know. My wife, ex-wife. Wife at the time. Christine. She was pregnant with Shawn. We’d just found out. She told me, like, a few days before the Series. It was the day before we clinched our ticket to the World Series against the Yankees.

(Ryan laughs, hitting the arm of his chair)

RYAN: I barely even remember that game.

CAROLYN: So, a sense of elation? Joy?

RYAN: Yeah. And fear. I mean, I was still making the league minimum. Which was okay money, don’t get me wrong, but I was 28. Man, sounds young to me now, but for a ballplayer that’s middle-aged. Do you know what the most common peak age for a baseball player is? Twenty-seven. Seriously. Just twenty-seven.

CAROLYN: You were with Cleveland through 1995, then signed a two-year contract with the Phillies, where you played every day. You actually did hit twenty home runs in 1996. Then after a brief stint with Toronto…

RYAN: Yeah, that was it. Moving around like that was tough, it always is, but I had a nice little career. I had an offer from Japan, in 2000, but, well, family reasons. Tried coaching.

CAROLYN: (She leans forward, and the camera closes in on her face.) Tried?

RYAN: (He seems to pull back from Carolyn.) Well, you know. That’s not an easy life, either. Toronto let me coach in double A, fielding and baserunning, but you’re in buses, you’re travelling all over. And I had Shawn. Christine wanted help. I was chasing another trip to the majors as a coach, maybe even a manager, driving from, you know, Toledo to Syracuse, from Syracuse to Scranton. Shitty hotels, shitty food. But it’s just that, that night, when she told me she was pregnant, God, I was scared. I was always scared…

CAROLYN: About providing?

RYAN: Yeah. I never went to college. Drafted outta high school. I had no other skills. Burger King’s not gonna feed a family, that’s what I told myself dragging my ass out to terrible minor league ballparks. But every day I was in the big leagues I made more money than most people made in a week. When you’re like that, one of the hundreds of guys who don’t have the huge contracts, it’s this race, this day to day… desperation, to get there, or to stay there. One more year, one more month, even just one more week. Maybe to play good enough to get a deal. I was, like, how do I feed a family? Figured we’d have more kids, though we never did. Then I go crazy in the Series and I got to stick around another four and a half years. But you’re still scared.

(Carolyn waits for Ryan to continue)

RYAN: I mean, what else could I do? I had to be in baseball. It was what I was.

CAROLYN: The fears of the marginal player?

RYAN: I wasn’t marginal, though. That’s what people don’t get. Jesus. No, see… I was one of the best baseball players in the world, you know that? When I was a bench guy in the majors, you put me on some college team or the Australian league, I’d humiliate them. But… how do I explain… you know why they don’t draft second basemen?

CAROLYN: (Shakes her head) They don’t?

RYAN: No, they don’t. If you’re a high school or college kid, and you have any chance of being good enough, you’re the best player on the team. By a mile. You’re one in a hundred thousand. If you’re an infielder you play shortstop, outfielder you play center. If you aren’t, you’re not good enough. I played center because I was the one in a hundred thousand. I was the best kid on my team in T-ball, Little League, high school. Always the best by a mile. Ten miles. But then, I got to the low minors and I was one of the best. Double A, not the best, not usually, but way better than most. Triple A… not the best. Majors, I fought every day to stay there. I never worked out harder, never studied more tape. It’s like being on a treadmill going super fast and ya gotta run like a bastard just to stay in place. I was still, I dunno, one of the five hundred best ballplayers in the world. Out of millions. But 499 of the better ones were in the same league with me.

CAROLYN: So that was a change.

RYAN: (He now leans towards Carolyn) Do you know what it’s like to be the BEST at something? Pretty soon it’s not what you do best at all. It’s just what you are. I was Ryan the Baseball Player from the time I was six to the time I was like twenty. That’s what people called me. It’s what I called myself. It’s all I wanted to do, all I wanted to practice. If I was at school, or, I dunno, playing video games or whatever, skateboarding, I was just another kid. On the diamond, I was the best. That changes in the pros. You’re out there with all the other guys who felt the same way growing up in their hometowns. You aren’t special at all anymore. You wonder who you are.

CAROLYN: You were special that week. In 1994.

RYAN: I was, I was that week. (Now he settles back into his chair)

CAROLYN: You must have known, when you hit the sixth home run, that you’d set a record.

(Video of Ryan hitting the sixth home run, in Game Six, off relief pitcher Kirk Reuter)

RYAN: Of course. I mean, after home run number five it’s all the reporters wanted to talk about. They all wanted to talk to me and of course, they talked about me tying Reggie Jackson for the record. So when I hit number six, well, I knew I was a trivia answer. The homer didn’t mean much, we were already up… seven to one, I think it was. Then a few innings later, we win it all. (Ryan looks to his left, at the shelves in his living room) I keep the ring over there in its case. It’s too big to wear. Kinda garish.

CAROLYN: (Looks towards the shelves; she begins her question before she can pull her eyes away and look at Ryan again) Do you get recognized back in Cleveland?

RYAN: Man, I haven’t been back in years. When the twenty-fifth anniversary comes up in a few years I suppose they’ll have me back. I guess some hard core fans will remember me. I’m older now. I don’t think I’m getting my meals for free.

CAROLYN: So the Series led to a guaranteed contract. Security for that new family. So…

RYAN: It helped, but, yeah. Not for long. Christine and I split up in 2002. She didn’t ask for anything, she has her own career. The job is just hard, you know, on everyone in a family. Always chasing another contract, chasing another week in the majors. She married a minor league player and divorced a guy she barely knew. I barely knew her. Whaddya gonna do. I did the coaching thing, she took care of Shawn most of the time.

CAROLYN: Did you see him much?

RYAN: (Pauses for a long time, at least ten full seconds)

CAROLYN: Ryan…

RYAN: You know. Summers, weekends.

CAROLYN: He seems to have inherited some talent.

RYAN: (He chuckles) He’s got more than I did at that age.

CAROLYN: What’s your best memory of that amazing week? Six homers, fourteen runs batted in, also a World Series record. Babe Ruth never did that, Willie Mays didn’t. Hank Aaron didn’t. Mickey Mantle, you can name them all. It’s your name alone. The first home run, the grand slam? The last? Or was it when it was over, celebrating with your teammates?

(Ryan thinks for a very long time)

CAROLYN: Something else?

(Ryan looks down.)

RYAN: Being home. Home, with Christine. When we came back from Game Two in Montreal. She’d gone to Montreal with me, of course, and when we got home, we had this shitty – oh, sorry. This little place in Shaker Heights, we got home on the off day, and we ate Chinese food. Biggest name in baseball for a week, and we’re on the couch, eating kung pao chicken and rice outta take out containers, you know, and I was touching her belly and we were talking about names and painting bedrooms. That was the best part of that week. (Ryan nods, smiles.) Yeah. I still remember that.

CAROLYN: Did you…

RYAN: Twenty-eight is middle aged for a ballplayer but it’s so young. We were so young.

(Carolyn nods, waits, doesn’t look at her notes)

RYAN: Then, you know, the rest of it all plays out, and I bring home the MVP trophy and they gave me a truck I didn’t want, we sold that. The sponsor was Ford, so I got an F150. (He laughs) We sold it, got a minivan. More practical for a baby. Yeah. And then life went on. Shawn was born in April. Seems fitting. We got back into the Series the next year, lost to Atlanta, whaddya gonna do, then I moved us to Philly. Had to take the money. We didn’t like it there, though, and then, you know. Moving around. Trying so hard to stay in the game. Every day I’d wake up and think I can keep this going, stay in it, make more money. She said a few times I could stop trying, but it seemed, like, not crazy, but impossible. Like a different universe, one I couldn’t even understand, you know? And yeah, we’re not together now.

CAROLYN: Now Shawn is likely to be in the major leagues next year.

RYAN: Seems like it. He sure tore it up this year. He works crazy hard at it. Even more than I did.

CAROLYN: Were you his first coach?

RYAN: No. Not really, no. But the time he was really playing, I wasn’t with him enough. He had good coaches. We’d play when he was with me of course. Not so much since he got into high school. We only talked once in awhile. That’s how he wanted it. I respect that.

CAROLYN: Oh, I see. (She begins to flip through her notes again) You…

RYAN: I shouldn’t have… prolonged it all, I guess. Tried to stay who I was when I was a young man. Accepted it was over.

CAROLYN: Few athletes do…

RYAN: (Interrupting; the camera doesn’t immediately switch to him) I should have quit after Game Six. I mean I never would have, right? Not a million years. (Carolyn looks surprised; at this point, the camera goes back to Ryan) No one does that. I was, I was a kid. How could I have known? God, I was a child, not even thirty, we’re all so smart and so stupid then. Imagine! (Ryan leans forward again, his voice rising) Then I’d be a legend, then everyone would really remember me. The man who had the greatest World Series of all time, middle of his career, and he just walked away! Retired right then and there. Thanks for the trophy, see you later. I could have gotten some other job. I could have coached in some college or worked in a store. Maybe we’d still be in Cleveland, I dunno. But we’d be fine, right? I didn’t need that big contract in Philly. People do okay without baseball contracts. And then I’d still have… well. Maybe, maybe not.

CAROLYN: (Shaking her head) Maybe not… sorry, what?

(Ryan slouches back again, averting his gaze. He looks away from the camera)

RYAN: You know. Or not. It doesn’t matter now. The last ten years, I do jobs. Every now and then someone remembers. It’s neat. Makes for a good story. But it wasn’t fair to Christine, me trying to still be that guy, to chase a dream I’d already had when time had already decided I wasn’t. She tried, you know. She did, she knew she was marrying a guy who was a ballplayer. She just didn’t know that’s all I was. I didn’t know how to do anything else. How to do any other job. Or anything, really. Just, just that.

(Both Ryan and Carolyn are quiet for several beats)

RYAN: But I hit six home runs in a World Series and no one else ever did that.

CAROLYN: So… as Shawn likely is going to be in the big leagues next year, have you given him any advice? How to handle that pressure, maintain that career.

RYAN: I did, yeah. We talked, I guess, four weeks ago? What day… gosh, maybe six weeks ago. We talked about it.

CAROLYN: What advice did you have for him?

(Ryan shakes his head; he murmurs something, but the mic cannot pick it up clearly)

CAROLYN: I’m sorry?

RYAN: I said to quit the day he gets married.

CAROLYN: But that would possibly means quitting in the middle of…

RYAN: Yeah. Maybe at the height of his career. Quit. Or quit now. None of it matters. What matters is being in your shitty rented house, eating fast food with the people that really matter. Not trophies. Only that. I’m so worried for him…

CAROLYN: I… I mean, Ryan… (She puts her notes in her lap and tries to reach out)

RYAN: He’s too much like me. Oh God, he’s too much like me...