Let this pitcher rub off on you

Published online on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009

See if this story sounds familiar.

There's this baseball team. Not a very good baseball team. It's playing pretty poorly toward the end of the season. It's playing so badly, in fact, that it has the worst record in the league in the second half.

But it gets into the postseason anyway, through an automatic-bid loophole. And then, impossibly, this team goes on a run and wins the championship. The whole thing. It sweeps the championship series. It makes comebacks in every one of the final five games.

Oh, and one more thing. This team has Justin Wilson pitching for it.

It's been 16 months and several books later, and it's still not clear how the Fresno State Bulldogs won the 2008 College World Series. I'm not even sure they did. A buddy of mine used to say Nebraska is so boring you have to hallucinate the fun.

But I'm really starting to think Wilson was an even bigger part of it than we thought. Not that he went unappreciated. He was named most valuable pitcher of the College World Series, which is a nice place to start the bucket list.

The story from above, though, wasn't the 2008 Bulldogs, it was the 2009 Lynchburg Hillcats, the high Class-A team for the Pittsburgh Pirates, where Wilson spent his first real professional season. They won the Carolina League Championship last month.

"We just went on a wild run at the end," Wilson said.

Of course they did. Why wouldn't they? They had Justin Wilson. J.W. Just Win, baby! Championships follow the guy around like flies at a pie-eating contest. The Raiders should have drafted him in the first round instead of Darrius Heyward-Bey.

His numbers weren't insanely good (6 wins, 8 losses, 4.50 ERA, 55 walks, 94 strikeouts), but he started every fifth day all season, and wasn't bad considering the Pirates had him on a strict pitch count. They even had him on a per-inning pitch count of 30. He got pulled in the second inning a couple of times for that. They also had him throw only two-seam fastballs, and working on a circle changeup instead of that split-fingered thing he had been using for a changeup.

Wilson is back in Fresno for the winter, after a month of instructional ball in Florida. As he spoke, he went mostly unnoticed, and it's tough to go unnoticed in a restaurant where there's an enormous banner with your picture on it.

That's who he is, the guy who blends into any room, Mr. Wallpaper, but put him on a baseball field and it turns into a magical land of enchantment. This was the fifth year in a row his baseball season ended in a title of some kind. His senior year, Buchanan High won the Valley championship, and then it was three Western Athletic Conference titles, a national championship and now the Carolina League.

He said it's a coincidence, or at least partly a coincidence, but that's just him. He never was much for taking credit. But c'mon, it's a championship in the Pirates' organization. What'll he do next, take France to world domination?

If you put him on the Washington Generals, the Globetrotters would have to find a new opponent. We should put him on the national debt -- we seem to be sort of an underdog in that fight.

Wilson says he still doesn't know exactly how the Bulldogs did it. He saw one of the books written about the team in a bookstore in Virginia. He doesn't remember which book, but he doesn't have much interest in any tell-all versions.

"How could there be anything negative in what we did?" he asked.

Well, some people enjoy the details, the personality conflicts, the behind-the-scenes tidbits and stories. I tell him it's sort of a compliment to the accomplishment that people would want to know as much as possible. Nobody cares who didn't get along on this year's Kansas City Royals.

Wilson has a Vegas view on the topic.

"I just think that what happens in the clubhouse should stay in the clubhouse," he said. "I guess some of the guys didn't respect that."

Wilson, of course, got along with everyone. He still talks to almost every player and coach from that team. He went to say hi to coach Mike Batesole this week. He says it takes a nice mix of personalities that blend together for great team chemistry, and if that's true, then he was the calm stability on the wild ride. It's no wonder his teams keep winning.

Wilson is giving pitching lessons this winter. He's taking all ages, anybody with a glove and a dream. Here's his e-mail address: jwils@ymail.com.

I say forget mechanics, forget advice, forget working on your form. Just pay Justin Wilson for a hug and hope something rubs off.