Davidi on Jays: Bees make Oliver twist
Posted February 26, 2012 5:45 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
DUNEDIN, Fla. – Any player who’s been around for nearly two decades the way Darren Oliver has is bound to have plenty of stories about the good, bad, and strange things that can happen on a baseball field.
Few, however, can top the new Toronto Blue Jays left-hander’s weirdest day at the ballpark, which came during a spring game on March 24, 2005 in Tuscon, Ariz., featuring his Colorado Rockies and the host Arizona Diamondbacks.
The trigger for a bizarre afternoon, according to urban legend, was the coconut oil in his hair.
“It was the fifth inning, I was on the mound, and all of a sudden all these bees start coming,” Oliver recalled with a puckish grin. “Next thing I know, they were just all over, everywhere.
“They were just swarming around, but I didn’t get stung. I said, ‘I’m out, no way I’m staying out here.’ Pretty crazy.”
Oliver, who had just come into the game, did indeed leave, replaced on the mound by reliever Allan Simpson, who finished the frame.
But the game didn’t extend much beyond that, as promptly after the Diamondbacks took the field for the top of the sixth, the bees focused in on new Blue Jays closer Sergio Santos, who was still a shortstop in Arizona’s system at the time, and attacked.
“For whatever reason the swarm was on me, so I tried walking to third base, to the left, the right and then ran all the way out to centre field,” said Santos. “They swarmed me pretty good. No stings, but I remember doing everything I could to get away from the bees, literally running away.
“There might have been 150 hovering, it was just nuts.”
The game was called shortly thereafter, officials deciding it made little sense to leave players and fans in harm’s way with the aggressive bees showing no intention of moving elsewhere.
Santos remembers entering the Diamondbacks clubhouse once the plug was pulled and hearing his teammates “blaming it on the cocoa butter” supposedly in Oliver’s hair.
“It was the weirdest thing, we were like, ‘Did this really just happen right now?'” said Santos. “I had this picture in the paper where I was swatting bees and there were 30 of them right around my head. It was insane.”
Oliver smirks when the coconut oil reference is brought up, and points to a bottle of the same stuff in his locker at the stadium in Dunedin, Fla.
He wasn’t the only player affected by the pesky insects, as according to The Associated Press report from that day, the bees forced Arizona’s Jose Cruz from his spot in centre in the top of the fifth, and in the bottom half of the inning, they gathered around Todd Helton before chasing down Oliver.
Given that, how did the coconut oil theory get started?
“You remember Charles Johnson, the catcher? He was like, ‘Oh, it must have been that coconut oil you had in your hair,'” explained Oliver. “He was being funny about it, and people just ran with it.”
The outing was one of his last with the Rockies that spring, as they released him from his minor-league contract a week later, leaving him at a career cross-roads. Oliver signed with Arizona two weeks later, made four starts with triple-A Tucson before getting released again, then signed with the Cubs on May 3, made three starts with triple-A Iowa before retiring two weeks later.
A rebirth followed the next spring, when he signed with the New York Mets as a minor-league free agent, made the team out of camp, and reinvented himself as a reliever on a full-time basis. Six of his most effective seasons have followed since, the past four with sub-3.00 earned-run averages.
“I probably throw more quality strikes than I did when I was younger,” said Oliver. “I don’t have the same stuff, so I’ve got to be pretty precise in my control. There are times when you’re younger that you don’t trust in your stuff, like, ‘Man, I’ve got to be perfect with this pitch’ and it’s ball four.
“If you know what you’ve got, take it out there on the mound and give it all you can, because once it leaves your hand you have no control over what’s going to happen. So you’ve got to be mentally ready to put the ball where you think it’s going to go.”
While his mental approach has improved, the physical side is becoming tougher for the 41-year-old.
Asked about the challenges he faces in preparing his body for the baseball season, Oliver replied: “Just getting up every morning man, I’m not going to lie. It’s like, ‘Ugh, how am I going to feel today?'”
“It’s not really the arm, it’s how’s my back going to feel, headaches, did I get enough sleep, am I going to get my coffee in the morning? Are my kids going to be bugging me? Is my wife going to be mad at me for something? All the same things everyone else has to deal with when you’re over 40, I got the same issues, no doubt,” continued the father of boys aged 11 and nine.
“It’s like peace of mind when you come to the park because you can’t really talk on the phone, so I got my coffee, I got my iPad, you just kind of get away from reality for a few hours. Then when it’s over and you have to get back home, it’s like, ‘Oh, here we go.’ That’s usually where all the problems start.”
After signing him to a US$4-million, one-year contract with an option for 2012, the Blue Jays can only hope Oliver manages to keep things quiet both at home and at the ballpark, and whether he’s got coconut oil in his hair or not, the bees stay far away.
Notes: The Blue Jays went through their first day of live batting practice Sunday, and though Jose Bautista, Eric Thames and Colby Rasmus were all left shaking their head at what Ricky Romero was featuring on the mound, the left-hander was far less impressed. “It was OK, still a work in progress, I still feel a little out of whack,” said Romero. “Talking to J.P. (Arencibia, his catcher), my ball’s got some action on it, which is good, but still not where I want to be, obviously. I felt a little bit rushed mechanics-wise, but that’s stuff you clean up as spring training goes on.” The second group of pitchers will go through their BP session Monday. … Starter Henderson Alvarez was carted off the field after a throw from Luis Perez dipped and caught him in the left foot during warm-ups. Manager John Farrell said Alvarez was fine and the team was just being cautious. … Farrell also said tests on reliever Carlos Villanueva, who left Saturday’s workout early because of coldness in his right hand, did not reveal any circulatory issues. “He’s going to be re-examined (Monday) and we’ll have more of an update at that point,” said Farrell. … Centre-field prospect Anthony Gose went through the day with his right hand taped because of blisters.
