A great read indeed. Thanks.
Disappointment aside, Hoffman still stands tall
By Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY
PEORIA, Ariz. ? Trevor Hoffman, sitting half-dressed, his tanned, muscular body leaning against his locker, looked as if his last stressful moment was deciding which fraternity to join.
He teases his teammates walking into the San Diego Padres clubhouse in one breath, and yells at his three young sons to pick up their half-eaten peanut-butter sandwiches the next. He is 40 years old, but he looks 30, and far too often, his wife says in mock disdain, acts 20.
Hoffman's chiseled face slowly turns solemn. He's ready when you are. He knows what's coming.
He's being asked, again, to re-live the worst 54-hour period of his professional career. He's asked to describe blowing two saves in three days the final weekend of last season, knowing either game ? against the Milwaukee Brewers or in a wild-card playoff against the Colorado Rockies ? would have clinched a postseason berth.
"I'm not going to sugarcoat it," Hoffman says, quietly. "It was devastating. I let my entire team down. If I didn't give a f?- about anybody but myself, maybe it wouldn't hurt so bad. But to know you (not) only let yourself down, but let down 24 other guys that are putting their trust in you, that's a heavy load trying to saddle. It's not just a burden I lived with all winter. It's a burden I'll live with for the rest of my life."
Hoffman, whose 524 saves are the most in baseball history, says this without emotion. His voice isn't quivering. There are no tears. Just raw feelings. "I never cried over this, not once," he says. "I have too much respect for the game for that. I got beat. I got beat twice. That's baseball. It's not like I p??-d it away or did something stupid. I gave it everything I had and it wasn't good enough."
Hoffman shared those sentiments with reporters then, answering question after question in the clubhouse for nearly 45 minutes after the Colorado loss.
"I always had so much respect for him as a teammate," Padres starting pitcher Chris Young says. "But after watching him handle everything, it elevated his image so high in my mind."
The pain of that moment "isn't there anymore," Hoffman says, "but there are things that happened in your career that will forever stay with you. That's one of them. I don't think you ever forget moments like that.
"But just because it's part of your history doesn't mean it defines you."
Two-run lead looked safe
The visiting Coors Field clubhouse in Denver was lined with plastic. The dozens of champagne bottles were on ice. Two-run lead. Three outs to go. One of the greatest closers in history was on the mound to close out this 13-inning, one-game playoff.
Kevin Towers, the Padres' general manager, was in the equipment manager's office, watching the New England Patriots and Cincinnati Bengals on ESPN's Monday Night Football.
Towers, so superstitious he has watched Hoffman save only a handful of games the last 10 years, kept taking peeks at the clubhouse door, waiting for his players to start the raucous celebration. He kept waiting. And waiting.
Out on the field, the torture was quick. Double. Double. Triple. Intentional walk. Sacrifice fly. Nineteen pitches. Game over.
"It was so quiet in that clubhouse," Towers says, "I figured something bad was happening. I looked outside the room, and I saw our video guy with his head on the keyboard. I finally said, 'What happened?' He said, 'It's all over. We lost.' "
The pain was much more severe than two days earlier in Milwaukee. The Padres had a 3-2, ninth-inning lead in that game, with Corey Hart on second base and Tony Gwynn Jr. at the plate. Gwynn, who grew up in the Padres clubhouse playing with Hoffman while Tony Gwynn Sr. was winning batting titles, lined a two-out, two-strike triple, tying the game. The Brewers won it in the 11th.
But still, the Padres had two games left to win a playoff spot. It never came. Another loss to Milwaukee, to end the regular season. Then, Colorado.
"Two days left in the season, we have a chance to have the best record in the National League," Towers says. "Forty-eight hours later, we're in third place and going home. It still hurts."
The Padres filed softly into the clubhouse after the playoff game against the Rockies. There was no cursing. No fits of rage. Just silence.
Padres manager Bud Black walked into the trainer's room, sought Hoffman and told him they wouldn't have been in this position without him, not for his 42 saves, but his leadership. Black then told the Padres they should be proud of themselves and one day would cherish being part of one of the greatest games played.
Hoffman, the first pitcher since the Brooklyn Dodgers' Ralph Branca in 1951 to give up a walk-off hit in a winner-take-all playoff game, retreated to his locker and awaited a stampede of reporters.
"I'll always have that image of Trevor sitting in the clubhouse, with reporters swarming him, and taking full responsibility," Young says. "It was one of the most unbelievable things I've ever seen. ? He didn't have to do that. The guy saved 42 games with a bad elbow. If I was one game better myself, Trevor wouldn't have had to answer questions.
"It wasn't his fault. It was all of our fault."
Jake Peavy, who won the 2007 National League Cy Young award, had a 5-3 lead early in the game. He ended up allowing six runs and 10 hits in just 6 1/3 innings. Yet it was Hoffman who still took the criticism.
"If I do what I'm supposed to do," Peavy says, "Trevor's not even in the game. Yeah, he was out there when the game was lost. But we never should have been in that position in the first place. No one person should have had to shoulder that blame."
Quiet flight back home
Tracy Hoffman, Trevor's wife, was trying to calm her three boys ? Brody, now 11, Quinn, 10 and Wyatt, 8 ? back at their San Diego home. They sobbed when the game ended. They're accustomed to seeing their father shake hands at the end of games, not walk off the field with his head down, blowing consecutive saves.
"It was the first time my kids have ever cried watching a game," she says. "They were just so upset. But after a few minutes, one of them said, 'Hey, that means Daddy comes home tonight, though, right?' Their faces lit up right away."
The plane ride home was quiet. Hoffman sat mostly by himself. Teammates stopped by to check in with him. His older brother, third base coach Glenn Hoffman, his hero growing up, plopped onto the next seat to tell him how much he loved him.
When they landed in San Diego, most of the players at least had a chance to say their goodbyes for the winter.
"It was almost a blessing to have a bit of a finality of that plane ride," Hoffman says. "It sucked being in the moment, watching the other team celebrate, and seeing the energy that crowd had. But now you were headed home, and everyone was moving on.
"It was just different than any flight I've been on. It's one thing to lose in the postseason, but at least there's a sense of achievement, the fact that you got there. This was demoralizing, knowing that you're one of 22 teams that are going home. We didn't accomplish anything."
Hoffman came home at about 3 in the morning. Everyone was asleep. He was up 3 1/2 hours later, waking his boys, taking them to school, running them to baseball practice, football practice, guitar lessons and tutoring lessons. Life was normal again.
"I could definitely tell it bothered him, particularly that first week," his wife says. "But one of the first things he said to me was, 'I know I'm not retiring this year.' I saw more determination. Determined to get back. It gave him even more motivation."
Hoffman also realized the love and support in San Diego. He ventured to the grocery store, and strangers would stop, thanking him for the season. He would pull up to the gas station, and folks would hang around the pump, telling him how much he means to the community.
He received a long message of encouragement from golfer Phil Mickelson, who has suffered his share of heartbreaks. His high school basketball coach from Anaheim, Tom Gregory, sent him an autographed picture from John Wooden, complete with his legendary pyramid of success, and the inscription: "The true strength of a person's character is the manner in which they react to victory and defeat."
Former teammate Alan Embree sent a text: "Hang in there bro! You're still the man!"
"I remember talking to (former Cy Young-winner) Rick Sutcliffe," Hoffman says. "He said, 'There's nothing anybody is going to be able to say to you. Nothing they can do. It's going to suck. And it's going to last the whole offseason.'
"And he was right.
Hoffman, who pitched a perfect inning in his 2008 spring-training debut, in a charity game Thursday, says he feels great physically. He had elbow surgery a week after the season, removing bone chips and shaving a bone spur, but refuses to use it as an excuse. It is what it is, he says. The blown saves happened. They hurt. But it's over.
"It's time to move on now," Hoffman says. "I want to live up to my responsibility, but it doesn't do any good to keep dwelling on it. You can't move forward, emotionally or physically, until you let it go.
"I'm not going to let what happened last year, ruin this year. I just won't."
