Gagne Makes His Mark With Team Canada

MIAMI—When Team Canada arrived at an empty Marlins Park on Thursday afternoon ahead of its opening game at the World Baseball Classic, 41-year-old Eric Gagne headed out of the clubhouse and straight to the hill.

Walking to the peak of the tarp on the mound, the semi-retired Cy Young award winner from Montreal looked to home plate, spun around slowly to take in the sights of the ballpark, and savoured the lead-up to his first action on a big league mound since 2008.

Gagne’s return to competition was nine months in the making. If the Classic stage marks the biggest one he will take should his career continue, he wanted to make sure he really lived in the moment and appreciated what it all meant.

“It’s everything,” Gagne said. “For me to be out here at 41 years old, and I’ve been playing a long time, and to compete at this level, I mean, these guys are all major leaguers. To have guys who are 19 years old, 20 years old, go through that experience, it’s priceless. These guys are going to take that forever and they’re going to be better players for that.

“For me to come here Thursday, I came on the mound, I wanted to get a feel for the mound. Maybe it’s a veteran move, just trying to get out here and get a feel and see what it looks like. Imagine the bases loaded, two outs. That’s what you try to imagine.”

The scenario Gagne dreamed up in his illusory debut at Marlins Park came to fruition Saturday afternoon. With Colombia ahead by 2-1 in the sixth inning, Canada’s oldest hurler entered the game in relief with the bases packed and two outs, facing the kind of pressure situation he hasn’t had in almost a decade.

Instead of experiencing immediate storybook success, Gagne issued a walk to force a run home.

“I felt pretty good,” he said. “I came into a situation and I knew how to handle it, and just came in a little bit too, maybe hyper. I tried to do a little too much. Instead of just going after him 1-0, I threw a changeup. That was a rookie mistake. It’s fine. I felt good physically, but unfortunately I just walked the guy. I usually don’t do that, so it was okay.”

After that mistake though, the veteran big leaguer settled in to complete 2 1/3 frames, allowing just one hit and striking out two, using a sharp breaking ball and a fastball up to 94 mph.

While not quite the same stuff as his “Game Over” glory days with the Dodgers, it was nonetheless eye-popping give Gagne’s age and layoff.

“I’m glad it was me out there, I’m glad it wasn’t one of our young guys,” Gagne said. “That’s what I’m here for, I’m here to teach them, ‘Hey, everybody’s going to fail.’ I was out there, did everything I could, but just tried to do a little too much. But we’re going to learn. Tomorrow we’re going to come back and try to have a better day.”

Outside of the free pass issued, Canada manager Ernie Whitt got what he was looking for from the Quebecois pitcher once Gagne settled in and got his emotions in check.

“He did a great job,” Whitt said. “He was disappointed that he walked the first guy. And you go to the situation where a guy has the most experience, he’s been there before, he’s done it. And you never like to see the walk a run in, but then he bounced back and gave us some strong innings and kept us in the ballgame. And that’s all you ask out of your pitchers is to keep us in the ballgame.”

Though the request has gone unspoken, Gagne felt there has been a bit more asked of him throughout his tour with the national squad. He has tried to be a mentor and sounding board for some of the younger pitchers on the team, offering wisdom he has gained from his decades in the game.

“That’s what I try to do,” he said. “I try to have a positive attitude, try to talk to the young kids as much as I can, and just to make them feel relaxed a little bit more. I’ve been through everything, so I talk to them a little bit, try to get them to relax. I don’t know their personalities yet, but I’m just trying to help them enjoy the moment.

“There are a lot of kids who have never been on this stage, because it’s not easy, so just enjoy the moment. Even I was out in front of the mound there, I was pausing, I was looking at everybody from the mound.”

Saturday starter and Phillies prospect Nick Pivetta is one of the players who has taken advantage of having Gagne around, and knows just how much there is to glean from the three-time All-Star.

“It’s a great honor,” the 24-year-old righthander said. “I mean, having him there with us is a big boost. I’ve watched his career. I watched him pitch. I mean, you try to get as much information off those guys in such little time, and you try to have conversations with them. You try to learn from them, watch what they do, how they go about their business, and you want to have a career like them.”

Finding ways to help young Canadian players isn’t something new for Gagne, who began trying to do so by taking a young Russell Martin under his wing when the current Blue Jays backstop was coming up through the Dodgers organization.

“We were both with the Dodgers at the time and I was just a young prospect,” Martin said. “It was probably my second year in the organization, I was just starting catching. He was my hero growing up. He was one of the guys I looked up to.

“There aren’t too many Canadian baseball players, and even less people from Quebec, French-speaking baseball players, who have made it to the big leagues. I’m not exactly sure of the timeline of if he was All-Star caliber yet, but to me he was a big leaguer and that was awesome just to get an opportunity to be around him.”

Gagne does the same thing on a much larger scale now, inviting young players to stay with him at his home in Arizona. There, they can throw off the mound in his backyard, hit in the cages he is building, and work out together in the baseball weather that can’t be provided north of the border.

“It’s fun,” Gagne said. “It’s gratifying for me. It’s fun to see them compete and do well. It’s almost like being a father, you feel proud of your kids. You go out there, you teach them a little bit, and they take it out and succeed with it. So for me it’s a lot of fun and it’s just pride. You get really proud of—I call them my kids but—your players, and it’s fun.”

Spending time with the next generation of players was also the spark for the idea of a comeback for Gagne, who wouldn’t turn down a chance to continue playing beyond his time with Team Canada at the WBC.

“I know I can pitch,” he said. “Whether I do it at the major league level, maybe I get a chance somewhere, I don’t know, we’ll see. Right now I’m having fun with it, I’m feeling great, and we’ll see. [Sunday] is another day and we’ve got to beat Team USA, that’s really all I’m focused on.”