With Chamberlain Around, Yanks Find Little Peace

Pitcher Joba Chamberlain has played only two months in the major leagues but has already made an impact.

By JOE LAPOINTE

Published: February 24, 2008

TAMPA, Fla. — Joba Chamberlain recently tried to involve his fellow pitcher Mike Mussina in some postpractice recreation in the Yankees’ clubhouse.

Addressing Mussina by his nickname, Moose, Chamberlain asked if he wanted to join in playing video games. No, the 39-year-old Mussina told the 22-year-old Chamberlain; he does not play video games.

Want to watch me play video games? Chamberlain asked. No thanks, Mussina said. Well, Chamberlain continued, would Mussina like to play Ping-Pong? Without answering, Mussina kept walking out the door and turned left down the corridor.

So Chamberlain added in a loud voice, “Hey, is the hearing the first thing to go when you get old?”

Suddenly, Mussina reappeared in the doorway and replied, “I hear everything!” in a way that made Chamberlain smile and onlookers chuckle. It was one of those Joba moments that have helped to enliven what for years had been one of baseball’s most dour clubhouses, where young players always knew their place.

With only two months in the majors, Chamberlain has become a key performer for a top team and a significant component of its personality. It does not hurt that his fastball can reach 100 miles an hour and intimidate hitters.

Last season, he used that pitch to roar like a prairie fire from his native Nebraska through every level of the minors to an August debut in Yankee Stadium, where he finished the regular season with a 2-0 record, an 0.38 earned run average and 34 strikeouts in 24 innings.

Few Yankees fans were offended when he was ejected from a game against Boston for throwing two fastballs over Kevin Youkilis. For that, Chamberlain was suspended two games.

“He’s kind of really burst onto the scene,” Joe Girardi, the first-year manager of the Yankees, said. “Just a good old-fashioned power arm. Just explosive stuff.”

Girardi, a former catcher, noted the visceral appeal of Chamberlain’s talent. “When you hear the pop of the mitt, it’s a little bit of a different sound,” he said. “You know you’re in for a battle.”

When Chamberlain threw batting practice under the high noon sun Friday, Girardi said, “I noticed he got the loudest cheer” from the fans at Legends Field, louder than the ovation for Chien-Ming Wang, who has won 38 games in two seasons.

When Chamberlain began to pitch, veterans like Derek Jeter, in a group behind a screen at second base, paused their conversation to watch his action on the ball. Behind the scenes, Chamberlain also draws attention.

He walks among the lockers bare-chested, displaying his big tattoos and his little gold nipple rings. One morning he strode past 37-year-old Jason Giambi. Without breaking stride, Chamberlain reached out from behind and ran his fingers through Giambi’s long hair while Giambi was conversing with reporters. Giambi looked up and said, “What’s up, kid?”

Across the room, reliever LaTroy Hawkins wore a blue shirt that bore the words “Joba Rules,” referring to the team’s limitations on the workload for Chamberlain’s young arm and suggesting that he may become a dominant performer.

“Joba’s like a big kid,” Jeter said. “He’s sort of wide-eyed. But he’s not overwhelmed, and he’s not lacking in confidence at all.”

Mussina added: “He’s fun and he doesn’t seem to rub anybody the wrong way. That’s a unique quality. But we all know he’s got talent.”

Will Chamberlain be used as a one-inning reliever to set up Mariano Rivera, as he did with the Yankees, or will he start, as he did in the minors? Hank Steinbrenner, the team’s senior vice president, suggested Chamberlain would begin in the bullpen.

“We’ve got to build up his innings,” he said. “He didn’t have many innings last year. Baseball history is littered with 22- and 23-year-old pitchers that were thrown into the mix as full-time starters, had arm trouble and never pitched again. We don’t want that.”

Chamberlain said either role would be fine. “Just to be thrown in the mix is definitely an honor,” he said. “It makes you want to work hard. You’ve got to earn the respect of your teammates.”

But he also said “you’ve got to take your licks as a rookie,” and recalled the way the veterans made him dress as the Cowardly Lion on a late-season trip in 2007. “Definitely a hot get-up,” he said.

A more public hazing was the strange playoff episode in Cleveland, where Chamberlain was swarmed by tiny bugs. He threw two wild pitches and squandered a lead as the Yankees lost the game, and later the series.

It is now part of Joba lore; some things about him seem like parts of a movie script.

“I could be remembered for worse things in baseball,” he said of the insects. “It prepared me for anything. So a little bug situation ain’t going to do no wrong.”

Chamberlain really speaks this way, and knows how to play the rube. But he also has a college background, at Nebraska. His father, Harlan, a Winnebago Indian, worked at a prison and raised him and a sister alone.

One of his father’s favorite movies is “Pride of the Yankees.” In describing his son, Harlan Chamberlain has said: “He’s a clown. He’s a ham.” Chamberlain has requested songs like “Indian Outlaw” and “Shout at the Devil” to be played on the stadium speakers as he warms up.

When asked about his role, Chamberlain said, “Everything’s uncertain in life, isn’t it?” Last spring, he was a prospect on the lowest level of the minor leagues.

Now, he is one of the most intriguing athletes on one of the best-known teams in sports.

“It’s weird to think about what a difference a year makes,” Chamberlain said.

INSIDE PITCH

Joe Girardi said that Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain would pitch Friday in the Yankees’ first exhibition, against the University of South Florida. Chien-Ming Wang will start on Saturday in their first major league exhibition, against the Phillies.

News source：http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/sports/baseball/24yankees.html?_r=1&ref=baseball&oref=slogin