TUCSON, Ariz.-
A few small steps, sure, but certainly one giant leap for right-hander Dave Veres.
The 40-year-old former closer who’s been out of baseball for two years passed his first big test Friday in his quest to become the first major league pitcher to play with a prosthetic hip.
On the eve of the 1-year anniversary of his operation, Veres threw well, didn’t favor his fake left hip, fielded a bunt cleanly and covered first flawlessly twice in an inning of work during the Colorado Rockies’ intrasquad game.
“How about that?” general manager Dan O’Dowd said. “The very first play he’s got to cover a bunt. Then he’s got to cover first on the next one.”
The only other player known to have played with an artificial hip was Bo Jackson in the early 1990s during an unsuccessful comeback from a football injury that cut short the two-sport star’s career.
Veres, who was Colorado’s closer in 1998-99, made his last major league appearance on Oct. 15, 2003, for Chicago in the NL Championship Series against Florida.
Veres was so nervous Friday that he ran to the restroom every inning before entering the game in the fifth.
“That old saying, you don’t realize what you’ve got until it’s gone? In my case it was true, in my case, sitting at home, miserable, can’t walk or move,” Veres said. “It feels good just to jog out to the mound or do everyday stuff. Pitching is a bonus.”
Veres spent 2004 rehabilitating from right shoulder surgery but his hip that had bothered him for four years grew so painful that he retired, finishing his career with a 36-35 record, a 3.44 ERA and 95 saves in 10 major league seasons with Houston, Montreal, Colorado, St. Louis and the Cubs.
“At first it was easy for me to accept,” Veres said. “I just physically couldn’t do it. It’s not like I wasn’t good enough. My skills didn’t deteriorate. My hip did. So, it was pretty easy for me to take the first year I was home.”
Veres had just wanted to be able to chase his three young children around the house when he opted for the operation. But he felt so good playing city league baseball in Castle Rock, Colo., afterward that he contacted the Rockies, who brought him into camp on a minor league contract.
He said he had no trepidation when he took the mound for his first test and the “first bunt was like the scariest” only because he had tweaked his right hamstring fielding bunts last week.
He moved free and easy, displaying the same deceptive, herky-jerky motion and mean split-finger fastball that were his trademarks. But he’s still trying to break the habit of bending over straight-legged, which he did for years to compensate for the pain in his degenerative hip.
“That’s how I tied my shoes. That’s how I did everything. It was a habit for four years. I walked with a limp, I walked like this, I ran like this,” Veres said, waddling a few steps. “So, it’s just breaking the old habits I had.”
Veres, who won’t throw again until a “B” game on Monday, will cherish the 1-year anniversary of his operation Saturday.
“I know I can pitch, that’s not the issue. It’s if the durability’s going to be there,” Veres said. “It’s going to be a year tomorrow. I’d like to think if I haven’t had a setback yet, I’m not going to have one.”
His surgeon told him after a year he’d be free to do whatever he wanted.
And what he wants is to go out on his own terms.
