“I’m all
in!” That’s what Zephyrhills native son
Dave Eiland (rhymes with “island”) says with a beaming smile when he tells you
about his latest baseball assignment:
special assistant to the Tampa Bay Rays front office. It’s the latest milestone in a major league
baseball career that has spanned parts of four decades, which is saying a lot for a guy who
is still only 44.
Eiland, son of
the late and legendary Zephyrhills police chief Bill Eiland, for whom Eiland Blvd.
is named, lived on 19th St. and went to Zephyrhills High School,
where he played baseball, football, basketball, and golf. His baseball number 14 was retired a couple
of years back, the capstone to his diamond exploits, but he was also an
All-Conference quarterback and wide receiver on the football team, and played
golf so well that he still plays to a 7 handicap.
Dave, who
still gets back to Zephyrhills a couple of times a week to visit his mom and
his sister and his aunts and his in-laws, remembers clearly the years he spent
growing up on 19th St. with his dad showing him the mechanics of
baseball throwing and hitting in the front yard of their home. “My dad was a huge presence in my life,” Dave
says. “He was my best friend and
confidante, as well as the Chief of Police.
I was extremely proud of him.”
The “Chief,”
as Dave’s father was known by everyone in the community, died in 1996 after 36
years as the town’s top lawman. And
Dave still misses him tremendously. He’s
especially sorry that his dad didn’t live long enough to see his son pitch in
Tropicana Field for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1998 and 1999.
In November
1991, Dave married a girl who had also graduated from Zephyrhills H.S., Sandi
Tuscano. Sandi had moved with her
parents and nine siblings from New Providence, NJ to Zephyrhills in the early
1970s. In 1994 they had a daughter,
Nicole, now 17, and three years later a second daughter came along,
Natalie. Dave marvels at the way
both his daughters are inner-directed and goal oriented. “They seem to have inherited Sandi and my
determination and family oriented focus,” Dave says proudly.
The family has remained in Pasco County all these
years, living first at Lake Bernadette, then Saddlebrook, and finally at their
current residence in Wesley Chapel.
Sandi, the glue that holds everything together, is also
the Office Manager at Carrollwood Florist in Tampa. Eiland understands how hard
a professional baseball career is on family life. “I am
very fortunate and grateful,” he says, “to have the wife that I have—not many
put up with the difficulties that result from a professional athlete’s
schedule.” Which is precisely why, he
says, his new job with the Rays is so
welcome: he can live at home.
Eiland’s
baseball career began after he transferred from UF, where he had gone after
high school to play football, to USF, where he played baseball. After a year at USF he was taken by
the New York Yankees in the seventh
round of the 1987 amateur draft.
Eiland’s progress through the Yankee farm system was
fast-tracked. He started the 1988 season at Double A ball in Albany, but was called
up to the Columbus Clippers in the Triple A International League in July. Then, on August 3rd he was called up to the Yankees. He had just turned 22.
The Yankees tested their young pitcher immediately,
starting him that same day against the Milwaukee Brewers at County Stadium in
Milwaukee. The Brewers’ first batter was
future Hall of Famer Paul Molitor, who hammered a home run, but Dave settled
down and pitched a solid seven innings giving up just that one run and leaving
with a 5-1 lead. Unfortunately the
bullpen gave it all back and the Yankees lost 6-5, giving the young right-hander
a no-decision for his first big league game instead of the victory he had
pitched well enough to earn.
When the team got back to New York, Dave was sent off in
a rental car to a hotel in northern NJ and then had to negotiate strangling
traffic and strange new highways to find his way to the Bronx and fabled Yankee
Stadium. The total travel experience
left him reeling—this was a young man who hadn’t been much farther than
Gainesville most of his life. “It was a
culture shock,” he admits now in a notable understatement.
The team Dave Eiland joined on the field of Yankee
Stadium on August 5, was managed by Tampa native Lou Piniella. On the field were such legendary stars as Don
Mattingly, Dave Winfield, and Rickey Henderson.
And the pitching staff he was joining included Ron Guidry, Tommy John,
and Dave Righetti.
This was the
Big Leagues. “Culture shock” didn’t
begin to cover it.
At the end of Eiland’s
first week in New York, the Toronto Blue Jays came to town, and Dave started
the third game. He was pulled in the
second inning, however, after giving up three runs on four hits and a walk. Not a good outing. But that did not much dampen the celebration
that night when Chief Eiland, Dave’s high school Coach Craig Milburn, and
Zephyrhills H.S. Principal Larry Robinson all met for dinner. A win would have been better, but their boy
Dave, barely a month after his 22nd birthday, had started a game in
Yankee Stadium. Nothing could dim their
high spirits and pride.
The next couple of years were split between Columbus and New
York, with 1990 being Eiland’s best in professional ball. For Columbus he went 16-5 with a 2.87 ERA, good
enough for him to be named International League Pitcher of the Year, and then
in September he was called up to the Yankees and went 2-1 with a 3.56 ERA.
In 1992, Dave signed
a free agent contract to play for the San Diego Padres in the National League,
where pitchers hit—and it was there that he earned a spot in the all-time
baseball record books.
In his first
major league at-bat in San Diego, April 10, 1992, Dave faced Dodger lefty Bobby
Ojeda, who got two quick strikes on him and then tried to get Dave to swing at
two successive curve balls in the dirt. “I
figured I’d get a fastball next because Ojeda didn’t want to go 3-2 on me, and
when I got it, I hit it out of the park.”
And thus Dave
Eiland became the only major league pitcher ever to give up a home run to the
first batter he ever faced and hit one himself in his own first at-bat. It’s a quirky kind of record that can’t be
broken, only tied, and so Dave Eiland has a permanent niche in baseball history.
For the next few years Eiland bounced around with several
clubs, the Indians, the Rangers, the Yankees again, the Cardinals, and then in
1998, he caught on with the new franchise in the American League, the Tampa Bay
Devil Rays. He saw only limited service
that year but in 1999 he started 15 games, going 4-8, either losing or getting
a no-decision in “several quality starts,” as he puts it, that the bullpen gave
away in the late innings.
One quality start he did not lose. On July 7 he faced Pedro Martinez and the
Boston Red Sox at Tropicana Field.
Martinez had one of the best years ever recorded by a pitcher in 1999,
winning the Cy Young Award for his 23-4 record, his 2.07 ERA, and his 313
strikeouts. But that day Dave got the best of Pedro,
winning the game 3-2.
That year he also served as the “body double” for Kevin
Costner in a movie called “For Love of the Game,” about a major league pitcher
at the end of his career facing the New York Yankees. And so Eiland became not only the holder of
an odd baseball record, but also the answer to a baseball movie trivia
question.
In 2000 and 2001 Eiland suffered two arm surgeries that
cut his career short. But in 2003 he
began a new career as a pitching coach in the Yankee organization, working his
way up the ladder from the Single A Gulf Coast Yankees to the Triple A Scranton
Yankees. Then in 2008 Dave replaced Ron Guidry as the New York Yankee pitching
coach and was on board for the World Championship season in 2009. It was another career milestone.
Coaching young pitchers and evaluating talent may well be
Dave Eiland’s career for many years into the future. “That’s what I have a passion for,” he says,
helping guys get better.”
Eiland left the Yankees after the 2010 season when the
Rays beat New York for the second time in three years for the American League
East title. And when the opportunity
came along for him to identify and rank the best of the country’s high school
and college pitchers for the Rays, he knew he wanted to be on board.
His main job
as special assistant to Andrew Friedman, the Rays’ Executive Vice President of
Baseball Operations, will be to help the organization prepare for the amateur
draft, June 6-8. The Rays own three
picks in the first round and nine of the next 56 selections, so Eiland’s input
will be critical to the team’s success, this year and many years into the
future.
But that won’t be the extent of Eiland’s
contribution. He’ll also be in uniform
for spring training in Port Charlotte.
“I’ll provide opinions on major league pitchers for potential trades and
free agent signings.” And with the Rays
bullpen in process of a massive overhaul, he will also be weighing in with
critical evaluations of pitchers in camp and those who may become available
when rosters are trimmed down before Opening Day.
With his proven
record of success as a pitching guru, it is entirely possible that the addition
of Dave Eiland to the Rays’ brain trust will be as important as any addition or
subtraction made to the 40-man roster.
Best of all,
Eiland says, he’ll be working out of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg—and
living year-round at home in Wesley Chapel with his wife and daughters, a very
welcome chance, he says, for him to be a regular full-time father and
husband. As he excitedly looks forward
to his new job with his old team, he says contentedly, “Yes, I’m home now—the
Rays and I are a perfect fit. I’m all
in!”
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