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More than an hour has passed since the final outs were called in Boston’s split-squad spring training games. The Red Sox locker room sounds more like a library with almost all the players long since gone.
It’s 4:30 p.m. Thursday in Fort Myers, Flas., and the only people still around are equipment managers and other locker room attendants, scurrying around to collect and clean shoes, towels and uniforms.
Wait a minute. There are still a couple of players present. One of them hasn’t even hit the showers yet and it should come as little surprise that he’s wearing a red No. 33 jersey.
Jason Varitek is putting in some overtime this day, taking a little extra batting practice with Red Sox hitting coach Dave Magadan and trying to work out some complexities in his swing as the team prepares for its opener on Monday, April 2 in Kansas City.
“I’m trying to make some mechanical changes this spring to help go where I want to go, and it’s in a rather gray area still but I’m starting to envision things and incorporating them into my body,” Varitek says specifically when asked what he’s doing. “I just want to be more consistent. I realize some things I do at
the plate that rely a lot on just pure timing, so this allows me to adjust more to pitches and do things.”
In other words, the 18th full-time captain in Boston Red Sox history and the first to wear the “C” since Jim Rice in 1989 was putting in some extra work. It’s called preparation and it’s a word that has become synonymous with Jason Andrew Varitek.
“As far as calling the game, that’s part of my job is to be prepared,” he adds. “I believe my job is to be prepared, whether I’m hitting or not.”
The people whose opinions matter most, his pitchers, say he’s doing that job well.
“He is the most prepared player that I’ve ever played with,” says Curt Schilling, a six-time Major League Baseball All-Star and veteran of 16 big league seasons. “He’s physically and mentally the most prepared. He’s a captain in every sense of the word.”
“Captain.” It’s hard to believe that’s a word Varitek has had to get used to since he was given the honor after signing a four-year contract extension on Dec. 24, 2004.
Oh captain, our captain
What a difference a little red “C” can make.
“I was a little shy to wear it at first,” Varitek admits. “I was uncomfortable with it, but it’s something I feel very honored to be able to do.”
The soon-to-be 35-year-old Varitek seems born for the role of Red Sox captain. He served the same role on his college team at Georgia Tech and has been treated, albeit unofficially, as Boston’s team captain almost since he arrived in a trade with Seattle in 1998.
“Everybody KNOWS he’s the captain,” says starting pitcher Tim Wakefield, a 14-year big league veteran and Varitek’s teammate the last eight years. “He takes a lot of pride in his job. I mean, he goes above and beyond with his professionalism and his dedication not only to his job, but his teammates.
“He’s the same way as me. As good as he is, he knows you can always get better.”
Wakefield also understands Varitek’s early discomfort while wearing the “C” on his jersey.
“I would feel the same way. I’d be embarrassed to have the ‘C’ on my jersey, but he wears it out of respect to the rest of us and the organization,” Wakefield explains. “They want him to wear it and he’s part of it now.”
It’s easy to see why the Red Sox hierarchy wanted him to wear it.
“I guess it’s just what I believe in and the way I play the game,” Varitek answers when asked why he thinks he was chosen. “Whatever I do, that’s the way I do it and it just happens to fit the same mold.”
That’s a mold that may be broken after Varitek retires. He has surpassed Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk as Boston’s all-time leader in games played by a catcher with 1,017. He ranks second in RBIs and third in home runs among totals by catchers for the last five seasons and is third in both homers and RBIs in a season by Sox catchers with 25 and 85, respectively, in 2003.
“He’s the consummate professional and he goes about his business the same way every day. There’s a reason he’s got that ‘C’ on his jersey,” Red Sox advance scout and former Portland Sea Dogs manager Todd Claus said after throwing batting practice to Varitek. “He’s sort of assumed that role by the way he’s gone about it. It’s not a rah-rah type of thing. It’s more an energy and professional type thing. That ‘C’ is definitely merited.”
Just before he became captain, there was a possibility the Sox would lose Varitek in free agency after the 2004 season.
“The option was going to have to be there that I could end up somewhere else, but it never ended up getting far enough along that I had to make a choice about somewhere else. We got things done,” Varitek explains. “At the time, our key focus was to exhaust all alternatives here and only then move elsewhere, so yeah, it was a relief.
“No question. This is where I wanna be.”
Teammates, who call him “Tek,” want him here too because he makes it look easy. Varitek says being a captain actually does come easy for him.
“It just happens to fit in with what I believe in doing, so yeah, it’s pretty easy,” he says. “The captain’s side of it just came along with the way they perceive how I go about my business and the way they want that example here.”
It’s that example, and the way Varitek has always naturally led by example, that has endeared the Rochester, Minn., native in such a blue-collar way with teammates and members of Red Sox Nation alike.
“My parents have been that way and at an early age, I learned how to do that right away and kind of took it upon myself to be that way,” he explains. “I think a lot of that came from my parents.
“I wasn’t allowed to do anything unless I did it 100, 110 percent, but I’ve learned along the way and I can give you hundreds of names of people – players, coaches – I’ve learned from.”
Varitek ticks off names of guys who played major parts in his professional development like former Red Sox pitching coaches Joe Kerrigan and Dave Wallace; former pitchers Bret Saberhagen, John Burkett, and Pedro Martinez; and even current pitchers such as Schilling, Wakefield and Daisuke Matsuzaka, but he starts that list with Roger Hansen.
“He was there when I was in Seattle’s organization,” he explains. “I was really struggling, but he kept sticking with me and working on things.
“Then I came here and it was [former Red Sox manager] Jimy Williams, who was the biggest reason I ever got here. He instilled the confidence in me that I was going to be a baseball player and be successful,” adds Varitek. “I was just working and doing stuff as a [September] callup and Jimy doesn’t say a whole lot, but he looks at me and says ‘You’re a baseball player. You’re going to be a big league baseball player.’ That’s all it took.”
Tek-nically solid
Ten major league seasons later, Varitek is widely considered to be one of the best, all-around catchers in the game. Not because of a powerful arm or explosive bat, but because he’s so fundamentally and technically sound.
In short, the 6-foot-2, 230-pound Varitek casts a big shadow in Boston and has few peers when it comes to defense, acumen, and the management or handling of pitchers.
“He’s the first guy I ever looked at behind the plate where if I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, I knew he was, because of him getting to know me and how I like to pitch,” says Schilling. “Getting to know pitchers AND hitters is not something a lot of catchers do, but Tek’s always been very good about it.”
This will be Schilling’s fourth year with Varitek and the veteran duo are convinced the Red Sox can greatly improve on a disappointing 2006 season which saw the Sox incur a rash of late season injuries on the way to finishing third in the American League’s Eastern Division with a record of 86-76.
Schilling is back and healthy, as is Varitek, who played in only 103 games (his fewest since 2001) due to a left knee injury. Schilling is joined in what some consider the American League’s strongest starting staff with Japanese import Daisuke Matsuzaka, former closer and Rookie of the Year candidate Jonathan Papelbon, Wakefield, and 2006 16-game winner Josh Beckett.
It’s a fearsome five, but having a guy like Varitek catching them (Doug Mirabelli catches the knuckleballer Wakefield) makes them that much more formidable.
“Oh, absolutely. I’ve won the games I’ve won in large part through him,” Schilling says. “I’ve been as consistent as I can be because of him. I always felt like whatever you were paying your pitchers, you were getting more than that out of them because of him.”
Papelbon, who’s switching from closer to starter this spring, says it’s going to be a much easier transition to make with Varitek behind the plate.
“For me, everything he does gives me that extra little bit of conviction in a pitch,” says Papelbon. “He just gives you that confidence in your pitches just knowing he’s back there. Knowing his experience and what he’s been through, he exudes that confidence and it bounces right back to the pitcher.
“Let’s just put it this way, I haven’t shook him off a whole lot since he’s been catching me.”
With all the awards and honors the two-time All-Star has received, it’s commentary like that which he’s most proud of.
“You play for the respect of your teammates. That’s the biggest compliment you can get,” Varitek says. “The biggest compliment I could get would be for them to know they can go in a foxhole with me. If I can get that from my teammates, it doesn’t matter how successful I am because you can live with that.”
That being said, Varitek will be pleased to read one of Schilling’s last comments about his catcher.
“It’s hard to summarize what he’s meant to me the last few years,” the ace veteran says after being asked where Varitek ranks among the catchers he’s worked with. “I’ve had some good ones, but he’s as good as anybody I’ve ever thrown to, no question.”
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