MONUMENT, Colo. – Twelve years had passed since the last time I'd seen, and spoken with, Dave Dravecky. That earlier conversation took place at Torrey Pines, the Buick Invitational, February of 1992, which was some 30 months after the last time anyone had seen him pitch.
Dravecky had agreed to participate in the tournament pro-am even though the left arm that won 65 major league games was missing. Cancer had invaded the tissue and refused to let go until the limb was amputated. On the Invitational entry form was a line asking for his handicap. "Can't give you a number, but I'm down to one arm," Dravecky had written.
Coping with the loss wasn't as matter-of-fact as that above quip would make it seem. Dravecky refers to a period during which he battled depression, confusion, and twinges of bitterness as "the valley."
"At age 33, my career was over," he was saying on a recent morning. "My job was gone. When I looked at my kids, fear of the future kept creeping in."
As Dravecky was recovering from an initial surgery and fashioning a comeback that bordered on the miraculous until the bone in his stricken arm snapped and left him sprawled in agony on a mound in San Francisco, he'd been much in demand as a motivational speaker.
"When making those appearances, I did so reluctantly," he recalls. "My attitude was, 'Who's going to relate to a major league baseball player, making lots of money? Mine is not the world they live in.' There also was the fact that spending time with seriously ill people was a daily reminder of my own problem.
"Faith in God eventually pulled me out of that valley. After I lost the arm, (wife) Jan and I gradually came to believe that this happened for a reason. Call it a vision if you want, but a way to turn this into a positive began to take shape.
"To begin with, I'd been brought back down to earth. Major league baseball elevates you to a place that's not reality. Illness, losing a job, these are things that people deal with every day, and suddenly I'd been thrown into their world. The reality was, I'm no different. This was a huge lesson for me."
During this conversation, we were seated in Dravecky's office, located in a modest building that serves as headquarters for "Dave Dravecky's Outreach of Hope." Situated in a small suburban mall, it's flanked by a liquor store and pizza parlor – plenty of everyday reality there. A mile west is the north entrance to the Air Force Academy. Colorado Springs lies 10 miles to the south.
"Outreach of Hope" is a Christian-based service organization for cancer patients and amputees. The five-person staff makes available materials and other methods of support to the 750 to 1,000 families that contact them annually, either through a Web site (www.outreachofhope.org) or other means of communication.
"I have no idea how most of them hear about us," Dravecky says. "Given the number of people with whom we've been involved over the 13 years we've been doing this, a lot probably is word of mouth."
Dave and Jan Dravecky take no salary. Dravecky says his income is from the motivational speaking he now does willingly. "About 25 of those a year," he adds, "although Jan is suggesting I move it up to 30 since we have two kids in college."
Dravecky also is the author of nine books, the first being "Comeback," and the second, poignantly, "When You Can't Come Back." The most recent, "Called Up," offers insider glimpses of the Padres during the years (1982-'87) Dave was a highly competent member of the staff.
When healthy, the man could pitch. Win-loss numbers say his finest season was 14-10 in 1983, but more revealing is his lifetime ERA of 3.58, his 2.93 in the championship year of 1984, the nine shutouts he tossed and the stunning (by today's standards) fact that he finished what he started 28 times.
Postseason? With the lights at their brightest, Dravecky was lights out. Assigned to the bullpen by Padres manager Dick Williams during the 1984 playoffs and World Series, Dravecky allowed five hits and zero runs in 10 2/3 innings ("Dick told me if the Series went to Game 7, I'd be the starter," Dravecky says).
With the Giants during the 1987 NLCS, Dravecky defeated the Cardinals' John Tudor 5-0 in Game 2, then lost to Tudor 1-0 in Game 6. The only run he surrendered in 25 2/3 October innings was the result of a misplayed fly ball.
His overall postseason ERA? Can you say 0.36?
What might have followed those years of maturation into a potentially dominant performer had cancer not intervened one can only speculate, but Dravecky recently has reconnected with the game – on a nonprofessional level. He is pitching coach at Colorado Springs Christian High School, plus he and Jan sponsor a developmental baseball program that includes six teams for youths ages 15 through 18.
Some allow physical misfortune to direct their lives downward. Dave Dravecky took the hardest hit he ever surrendered to a hilltop in Colorado, and converted it to a win – for humanity.
Former Union-Tribune sports columnist Tom Cushman writes occasionally for the paper. He can be reached at tcushmant@gbronline.com
