By John Erardi
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        FORT MILL, S.C. — Everybody knows where Jake the Diamond Dog is. The golden retriever, who fetches foul balls, brings them and water and towels to the waiting umpires, catches Frisbees in his teeth and generally entertains minor-league crowds all over the Southeast, has done this gig before.

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Jose Rijo acknowledges fans in Fort Mill, S.C., before his last start. 600 | 800 | 1024 (Michael E. Keating photo)

PHOTO GALLERY

14 photos from Rijo's last start

        Nobody's concerned about Jake. His owner has checked in with club officials. They know he will be here. The fireworks operator has already checked in, too. The post-game fireworks are on their way.

        But it is 4:30 p.m. and an air of uneasiness pervades the visitors clubhouse at Knights Stadium, home of the Charlotte Knights, celebrating their 100th season as a franchise and 12th in this ballpark. Nobody is sure where the Louisville RiverBats starting pitcher is.

        Jose Rijo hasn't made his plans known, although everybody figures he is on the way. He had been sighted the day before in Cincinnati at Cinergy Field — he had even appeared with Marty Brennaman on the Reds radio broadcast, and said he'd be pitching in Charlotte on Saturday for the RiverBats — but it is less than three hours before game time and it would be nice to have something confirmed.

        At 4:50 p.m., with most of the RiverBats already on the field, warming up, running, getting ready for batting practice, a visitor to Knights Stadium slips into the clubhouse and there is Mr. Rijo sitting on a stool, slipping on his sanitary hose, as a purple RiverBats game uniform bearing the No. 41, hangs in the locker above him. He is all smiles.

        “Feelings!” he sings, a reminiscence to the song he used to croon while walking through the Reds clubhouse in the late 1980s and early 1990s, back in the day when he was “the man,” owner of one of stingiest ERAs in the majors year after year. He and the visitor laugh.

SHOW TIME?

Jose Rijo could be activated in time to face Florida at Cinergy Field on July 29. Reds General Manager Jim Bowden said on his radio show that the “possibility” existed. That would depend on Rijo's performance Thursday at Louisville against Durham.

        It is a heavier Mr. Rijo now, thick in the shoulders from all the weightlifting and rehabbing; slightly softer in the face, from what he explains was the good life after baseball, the red meat and the red wine in visits to places like Brazil and Argentina, things and places he used to consume in more moderate amounts during his playing career.

        It is the nature of baseball (especially on the pitcher's mound) that fans can see and remember in their mind's eye, as though it were yesterday, the players on their hometown team going through their paces (especially in a World Championship season).

        In October 1990, the memory stands out like the scarlet seams on an ivory-white baseball. In the brightest Reds team moment since the Big Red Machine swept the New York Yankees in the World Series 25 years ago, Mr. Rijo retired 20 straight A's in Game 4 in Oakland, in as dominating a World Series pitching performance as there has ever been.

        And this is how Mr. Rijo had always been remembered — 26-year-old son-in-law of Hall of Famer Juan Marichal, pumping his fist as another of his exploding sliders whipped across the outside black of home plate as another of the vaunted A's of Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco either watched it in wonder or flailed at it hopelessly for another strike three.

        It is impossible to separate the image of Mr. Rijo today from the fiery, wiry, conqueror of our memory; and yet, here he is, back in the flesh, not to regain old glory but to establish a new one — the former heavyweight champion going after the belt after a long layoff. Sometimes it happens; often it ends badly.

        Which will it be for Mr. Rijo?

        “I know I won't ever have that slider I used to have, because it was one-in-a-million,” Mr. Rijo says. “I don't need the money. I own a nightclub, a yacht club and a Dominican baseball camp that cost me $10 million to build. Without baseball, I wouldn't own the yacht club, I'd be doorman there. I am a pitcher, and what I do, if I am healthy, is I pitch.”

        And so, when Mr. Rijo's arm started feeling good six months ago, he started thinking seriously about returning to the mound.

        Now, here he is, on a 75-degree night outside Charlotte, sandwiched between Jake the Diamond Dog and a fireworks show, and between the yellow-and-white picnic tent in deep left with the hamburger smoke wafting out from underneath and the yellow and white merry-go-round in deep right, from which emanates the peals of laughter of youth who know nothing of miracle comeback bids.

        “Play ball!” says the umpire.

        As a kid pitcher, Mr. Rijo had been brought up to the majors as a teen-ager by Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who desperately wanted a phenom to rival the tabloid headlines going to Mets rookie Dwight Gooden crosstown in 1984. Mr. Rijo was a hard thrower, in the high 90s. Even after coming to the Reds in late 1980s in the Dave Parker trade, he was throwing in the mid-90s.

        Now, he is a high-80s guy, which is enough if his location is good and he could mix in the forkball to keep the hitters off-balance and mix in the slider, which still has some bite, though not the explosion of six years ago.

        One hitter into the first inning, he realized he was not loose. His fastball had no zip. He had no choice. Go to the slider, or his comeback would be over. He'd done it before. Former Reds third baseman Chris Sabo remembers Mr. Rijo once throwing 23 straight sliders to start a game.

        No other pitch even remotely approaches the slider for the strain it puts on the elbow. Arguably, it is that pitch — or rather, the accumulated effect of a 12-year big-league career of them — that had shattered Mr. Rijo's world in 1995, when he walked off the mound at Cinergy Field and held his right arm in agony.

        Trusting the statement of famed orthopedic surgeon James Andrews that “every other body part is going to break before that ligament,” Mr. Rijo went to the slider. A fly ball, single and a double-play ball got him out of the inning.

        He grabbed a cup of cold water, slipped the pitching jacket over his right arm, and said a prayer for strength. He was going to be tested this night, as he hadn't been tested his first two outings (three-inning stints at Single-A Dayton and Double-A Chattanooga, allowing only one run total and never in trouble). He knew tonight would be different.

        The second inning went smoothly, but one could see it wasn't anywhere near the same Mr. Rijo of six years ago. The catcher's glove wasn't popping and the sliders weren't freezing the hitters.

        A double, sacrifice bunt and two walks loaded the bases. He had already thrown 45 pitches and was on a 70-80 pitch count. Which means he had only two or three dozen pitches left, at most, to get out of this jam and the next inning.

        There wasn't a person in the house who knew the improbability of Mr. Rijo's comeback who didn't think things were right on the edge of a flaming crash.

        He was in shape — “I'd never stopped running; I never stopped lifting the weights” during his six-year absence — but would he have enough stuff to get out of the jam when it came?

        “After I had the second big surgery, if you'd asked somebody, "Is Rijo coming back?' 99 percent of people would have said, "No.' I would have said, "No!' but I had 1percent of doubt, 1 percent of me that said maybe I could do this. So I kept it alive. Even when I left on Fridays for long weekends in different parts of the Dominican, I'd take my running shoes and shorts and my 5-pound weights and my tube (for isometric exercises). Without that, I wouldn't be here talking about this.”

        About a year ago, he began to think about one final comeback; six months ago, he began working on it.

        “I called (Reds general manager) Jim Bowden and said, "Jim, I'm going to make one last try.' He said, "Rijo, if anybody can do it, you can do it.'”

        Now, Mr. Rijo considers every pitch a gift.

        “It's an unbelievable feeling,” he says. “I enjoy every pitch: the sound the ball makes hitting the mitt, the hitters swinging and missing the slider. I didn't want to give that up without trying one more time. The only thing left now is I want to get back to Cincinnati. I want people to say, "Rijo is a miracle from God.' A lot of people are going to believe in God when I come back. I'm going to bring at least a few back to the religious life.”

        Maybe it was that strength of character that helped Mr. Rijo get through the third inning Saturday. That, and a no-bounce throw from left fielder Adam Dunn to catcher Corky Miller, who applied the bang-bang tag to nail the second runner to try to cross home plate. Mr. Rijo got the third out on a flyout.

        After giving up a well-hit leadoff double in the fourth that short-hopped the left-field wall, Mr. Rijo snagged a sharply hit ball back to the mound, freezing the baserunner at a second by running directly at him and tagging him out before he could make a strong move to any base. Then, following a walk, he got a strikeout with some nice heat away and a flyout to center.

        He'd thrown 76 pitches, 42 of them for strikes, and he was gone.

        “If it had ended tonight, it would have still been a miracle,” Mr. Rijo says. “I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to be healthy enough to pitch again. This isn't a step for me. I'm already jumping. I'm pitching. I'm throwing without pain. If somebody says I'm not quite sharp enough for the major leagues yet, that's their business. Pitching in Cincinnati will make it a miracle for everybody else. For me, it's already a miracle.”

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