SARASOTA, Fla. — You learn who your friends are when your fastball dents the backstop and you can't play a simple game of toss. When you refuse to throw a breaking ball, for fear you might hurt someone ... who's with you then? Who's not?

        The Reds stuck with Mark Wohlers. Wohlers, somehow, stuck with himself. And here we are in the orange blossom-scented morning, right in the middle of the best story in the game.

        “I still have doubt,” Wohlers said Thursday. “But now, even if I'm playing catch, if I'm trying to hit a guy in the chest and I throw it over his head, I laugh. In the past, I'd make one bad throw and think the world was going to end.”

Mark Wohlers (Jeff Swinger photo) | ZOOM |

        For a few years, Mark Wohlers couldn't hit the ocean from a boat. He was Rick Ankiel, before Rick Ankiel. Early in the '99 season, he blew out his elbow. Pitching is not exactly abundant, but who wanted a headcase with a busted elbow?

        The Reds
got Wohlers a new ligament and asked him to try one more time. “We didn't treat him like a freak or a commodity,” team doctor Tim Kremchek said. “We treated him like a man.” All that meant was everything.

        The Reds offered Wohlers $1.5 million to come back this year and finish the fairy tale. He could have gotten more elsewhere. He might have gotten a closer's job.

        You'd almost forgotten, he came back to the Reds. Something about loyalty.

Lesson in loyalty         We've made a big deal of it. It gets bigger every time another more-more-more moron thinks $10 million a year is beneath him. Wohlers is not moved.

        “If I deserve credit for being loyal to the organization, then they deserve credit for being loyal to me. We're even,” he said. This is the kind of guy Wohlers is. It's worth remembering.

        During the '94 strike, Wohlers worked in an auto body shop. His peers showed up at bargaining sessions in stretch limousines. Wohlers prepped cars for paint jobs. You knew then he was different.

        You'd almost forgotten, though. The wildness was what you remembered, the complete loss of control. The baseball felt foreign in his hand. The catcher's glove looked to be on another planet. Imagine forgetting how to do something you've done your whole life.

        Said Wohlers: “To get to where I am today, I needed to lie to myself: It's not in my head. It's mechanical. It's an injury.

        “Maybe it was. But I think a lot of it was in my head. The mind is a very powerful thing. You can convince yourself you're not going to throw the ball over the plate. But you can also trick your mind enough to make your body do what you want.”

"Everything's going to be OK'

        Wohlers pitched 30 innings late last summer, with good results. In a squad game last week, he was throwing breaking balls for strikes. Some believe Wohlers eventually could be the Reds' closer.

        Regardless, Wohlers knows he's better for what has happened. “Maybe what I went through made me appreciate what's happening to me now. I'm only 31. I can pitch a lot longer. Maybe now I can start enjoying it more, regardless of the money. I've seen a lot of rich guys who aren't very happy.

        “I'm competitive. But if give up a run or two, everything's going to be OK tomorrow.”

        Perspective earned on the wild side.

        E-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/daugherty.

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