“How goes it young one?” Jim Edmonds asks the rookie right-hander sitting quietly in the locker stall a few feet away. The rookie lifts his nose from his text messages and allows a small smile.
“Nothing much,” Mike Leake tells him.
There are seldom rookies who are rookies in name alone. Only a few of them come around every year, those with talent and perspective. Talent allows them to be here and perspective helps them stay. Simplicity. It’s the same game, oldest saying in the book. It doesn’t matter how good the other guy is. It matters how good you are.
Confidence. A front-office clerk brings Leake a stack of papers, spray chart and scouting reports for the Dodgers offense, or at least what is left of it. Leake has been sent to the bullpen here in Mid-August, but that’s nothing new either. He could go both ways in amateur baseball. He can pinch hit. I’m pretty sure you could use him at second base if you needed him. Leake would say no big deal. Been there. Done that. He reads the reports for about 10 minutes and then rises to ask a question. Simplicity at a complex level: need to know? Find a veteran, common sense in a place where ego often prevails over logic. There will come a time when he will want the information but will know the hitters so well that he will no longer need to ask.
These two words ought to be inscribed on Leake’s knuckles — simplicity and confidence – etched there like clan markings of a street fighter who throws 89-90 with the same aggressiveness reserved for 95-97.
What you have to like about Leake is this commitment to simplicity and confidence. I asked him a slightly more daunting question, one I knew I wouldn’t get everything I wanted from, but that was the point. I wanted to know if any one of his weapons played up more in the big leagues than it did as an amateur, with the obvious exception of throwing the change-up more freely against wood.
Leake’s eyes danced for a second. I got that ‘Where the hell did you come from look?’ Big leaguers aren’t used to writers asking stuff and approach questions. I told him, ‘I admit, I’m trying to get inside your head a little bit.’ Leake allowed a slight grin. I’ll take whatever the carver gives me.
“Mixing and matching depending on the situation,” he said. Simplicity and confidence. He might have thrown at me if I had a bat in my hand. I liked it.
Then I laughed. Greg Maddux was the same way in this very locker room. These card players are all the same. I remember how Maddux would tell you everything by saying nothing, partly because he rightfully assumed that most people wouldn’t understand him, and partly because he had no interest in letting anyone in his head. It’s part of the advantage. Confidence.
“I’m the same guy,” Leake said. By that he meant the same guy he was when I last saw him pitch for ASU in spring 2009, not implying he is the same guy Maddux was. But the more I see, the more he reminds me of him. The more I listen to him talk and carry himself, the more I can see it. Not every young player, and Leake is 22, carries himself like he belongs no matter where he is. It’s the same game. Only the stadiums, the salaries, and the hitters change.
I know a ballplayer who met Leake once. At the time, this ballplayer was going to a Pac-10 school as an incoming freshman. I’m withholding the ballplayer’s identity because the story was related to me in confidence. Unlike many writers, I believe in trust.
The ballplayer introduces himself to Leake. Tells him what school he’s going to.
According to the player, the conversation goes like this.
“So you go to (generic Pac-10 school)?” Leake asks, the stoicism coating his face.
“Yes,” the young player said.
“OK,” Leake said.
And that was that.
There was no smile. There was no pat on the back. No ‘See you in Tempe, punk.’ This, too, is another personality characteristic Leake shares with Maddux. Cutthroat is the word for it. He doesn’t have the time to intimidate you. He’s busy trying to get in your head, much less someone else trying to get into his, with at least the instincts and courtesy to admit it.
The word the player used to describe Leake? Thug. He meant it respectfully. I’m pretty sure. I’d have to ask again.
You can find Leake’s stats elsewhere. From a scouting standpoint, he is one of the best examples of a guy whose makeup helps him play above his physical grades. This is a precise game up here. If you ain’t got power, you better have precision, and the simplicity and confidence to understand the thin margin of error. Leake is a stick among the sloths. A quiet little street fighter with knuckles that ought to be tattooed, simplicity and confidence, and if you ask him what’s cooking, the answer is as simple now as it will be in a decade. Nothing much.
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