Pitcher Perfect

Hey, who's that guy in the subway, the one who looks tall, dark and famous? Isn't that ... ? Yeah, it was, but he's gone. Zoom! Ron Darling is on the run, and the question is, Why? He rushes to a cable station to do some dinky talk show on dancing, of all things. He rushes to his about-to-open restaurant, gets down on his knees and hammers flooring. He rushes to the gym and hammers away at his body, which you'd swear looked perfect already. Now he's off to school to lecture kids about evil Mr. Drug Abuse. Now to a photo studio to get his comely mug on some magazine cover.

Run, Ron, run. Can't ever seem to stop, can't even slow down. Taxi, subway, feet; whatever gets there fastest, he grabs it. Everywhere, people do double takes and try to mooch a signature or a handshake. Phone messages pile up at all stops.

Hey, Ron! Whoa! Hold it up. Take a break. You're entitled. Your team won the world series last year, for Chrissake. You're a certified, honest-to-God hero; but instead of going moose fishing or bass shooting or suds gulping or whatever the hell normal ballplayers are supposed to do off season, you're running harder than ever. Listen, Ron, relax. Go home. Toni's pregnant and lonely, and you could lean back and catch some tube and chat about baby furniture. Before you know it, winter's gone and it's back to work. Now's your time to take it slow.

But no, not you.

•

The Dr. Sun Yat Sen Intermediate School in lower Manhattan. A welcoming committee is out front—Chinese men in suits, anxiously watching for the guest. The guest is late. Whoops, there he is now, striding briskly down the sidewalk in a black-leather jacket with long, Western-style fringe. He wears a backpack, which is full of autographable photos, and also holds a racket, just in case he can steal some time later for tennis. No chance.

The kids waiting in the gym give him a boisterous welcome. Girls squeal as if he were a rock star. "Why are you so cute?" one asks in a question-and-answer session. With the desperate shortage of Asian celebrities in America, Darling is a major idol in Chinatown, though he's only part Chinese on his mom's side. He gets a surefire laugh here with the line "I got my height from my dad and my patience, looks and intelligence from my mom." At the end, order crumbles and Darling is mobbed, a calm giant (6'3") among burbling Lilliputians. Finally, he breaks free, and off he goes. Run!

At this point in Ron Darling's life, so much is going on that he often seems more like a corporation than a person. To coordinate all his public appointments, he has his own public-relations man. In Philadelphia, his financial agent is readying his salary arbitration with the Mets. There is another (continued on page 118)Ron Darling(continued from page 73) agent to handle product endorsements. In Houston, a lawyer is preparing for Darling's trial resulting from The Notorious Incident in a Texas saloon. In a gym uptown, there is his personal-conditioning coach to oversee his workouts. At home, a manuscript awaits Darling's labors at the word processor. Today every star must publish a book, but only Darling insists on writing his.

Why is Darling doing all this? He didn't have to go to the restaurant every morning to bang on nails. He had zero restaurant experience and three partners who would have been content to have him just show up and look pretty once the place opened. He didn't have to go to the gym four afternoons a week and pay a professional to lock him into Nautiluses and Polarises to pound his flesh away and then pedal off still more on an exercise bike that simulates hills, for crying out loud.

Why, Ron, why? "I really wanted to go all out this winter to put myself in the best possible shape," he says. But, Ron, the Mets came in first. See this gold ring with the shiny rock stuck in it? That means you won. What's the story here, Ron? Turn on Friday Night Videos and there you are introducing the Bangles. Why all the TV? Beats him. "Sometimes I ask myself that," he says. "I wonder why I do so much." Maybe someone else can toss us a clue here. Someone like Gary Carter.

Turns out that the exuberant Mets catcher has his own name for Darling. "Hey, here's Mr. P.!" Carter has been heard to shout when Darling shows up. "Must be the perfect time for practice." To the naked eye, his life must, indeed, seem perfect. At the age of 26, Ron Darling has everything: looks, wealth, fame, brains, talent, youth, three quarters of a Yale education, a Manhattan duplex penthouse, a foreign sports car, a restaurant, frequent offers to appear on TV and a world-championship ring.

There's also a beautiful wife. In fact, a model wife. In the former Toni O'Reilly, model and sometime actress, Darling found himself the perfect Mrs. P. Together, these aptly named Darlings make up a spectacular package. With the contrast of her red hair, blue eyes and fair skin against his basic dark motif, there is an exceptionally high incidence of over-all cuteness. This is an act with a future in showbiz. Ron's a bit stiff on camera, but he's learning; Toni's a natural. When they co-hosted Good Morning America, actress Susan Sullivan could not keep from blurting, "You two are adorable!"

Yes, Carter is on to something with that Mr. P. routine. Except that it implies perfection achieved. Fact is, the man has a deep need to become perfect. Despite his placid, shy, withdrawn exterior, Ron Darling is a driven man. A man who can't sit still. Even when he finally does get home and watches TV, he drives Toni batty, madly remoting from channel to channel. And he hates to lose, even if it's just a card game with his wife. Behind that sleepy-handsome face, so impassive, cool and controlled, a turbine roars.

Sometimes he allows us a peek inside. Shea Stadium. The world series. Mets vs. Red Sox. Darling gets the start in game one, and he is pumped. He pitches perhaps his best game of the year. His team, however, is in a stupor. The Mets have not yet recovered from their torture marathon with Houston for the league championship and can muster no offense. Boston ekes out one unearned run on a Mets error; it's enough to win.

Normally, win or lose, Darling doesn't hold on to a game. But this one he had wanted more than any he could remember. He pitched again twice in the series; overall, he did fine. So did the Mets. New York rejoiced; champagne flowed. But Darling stayed up nights obsessing over game one. Replaying it. Wondering what on earth he could have done differently, thinking, I did everything perfectly and I still got the loss. Ron, let go! You did all you could! For heaven's sake, go to sleep!

Dream about the good old days.

Worcester, Massachusetts. The Sixties. Search back far enough and you find that every adult had a childhood. Never fails. Ron Darling had a fairly normal one, complete with two parents, though an exotic pair they are. His father, Ron Sr., is an orphan, raised in French Canada and New England. He was a fine athlete but turned down college scholarships to join the Air Force. Stationed in Hawaii, he met and married Luciana Mikina Aikala, of Hawaiian-Chinese descent. She was only 18 when Ron was born. The couple moved to Worcester to raise a family. With four sons, both parents had to work hard. Ron Sr. was a machinist and worked at other jobs on the side. His wife, though a tiny woman, loaded trucks for United Parcel.

The oldest son and namesake, Ron Jr. became the focus for his father's ambition. He was expected to do well in sports and in school. Every day, despite his heavy work load, Senior took Junior out back and drilled him in the sport du jour. Summers, it was hit 100 balls, field 100 grounders. This is where Ron must have learned the lesson that he wasn't ever good enough. He had to get better.

Part of the curriculum was learning not to show pain. If little Ronnie got whacked by a bad bounce, he knew better than to whimper or the next one from Dad would come in twice as hard. Jump ahead a decade or so and see that lesson pay off:

Yale. (Well, of course. Would a perfectionist be content with some jock factory?) Somewhat bigger Ronnie is pitching. A scholar from East Carolina College drops him hard with an unstoppable smash off the knee. Darling limps off the field. In the stands, major-league baseball is watching. Joe McLlvaine, then a scout for the New York Mets, thinks, Well, that's the last I'll see of that kid today. Darling goes back to the mound, takes some warm-ups and resumes pitching. "It really showed me something," McLlvaine says. "A lesser guy would have quit at that point."

That's our species for you. Find a pattern early and stick with it. You are what you were and what you'll be. No wonder Ron do run run. Dad fired the starting gun. And it wasn't long before Ron found yet another endlessly demanding father to keep him hopping.

Ron, meet Davey Johnson. Well, no, not quite yet. Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1981. As much as you love Old Eli, major-league moola is tough for a working-class kid to kiss off. So when the Texas Rangers draft you number one, you trade your senior year in New Haven for double-A ball in Tulsa; you're such hot stuff, the Rangers promise you'll be up to the bigs in a blink. Next thing you know, they trade you! You're stunned. You're depressed. All you can think is, Hey, this outfit picks me number one and now they don't want me at all. Don't worry, Ron. It's all gonna work out OK, because you're headed for your team of destiny and the manager you were born to play for.

Ok, Tidewater, Virginia, 1983. Up in New York, the Mets are a long-run disaster; but below, things are quietly changing. A new management has been stocking the minor-league system with young talent. Down on the farm grow Strawberry and Gooden. By Ron's second year in Tidewater, he and his teammates believe they are a better team than the Mets. So does their supremely confident leader, Davey Johnson. Coach feels that he is building the nucleus of a new, winning Mets team and that its new, winning manager will be Coach himself.

Johnson helped Darling a lot. As when he decided that the Rangers had screwed up Darling's natural delivery. "Have you always thrown overhand?" he asked during a game in Syracuse. Darling said no. (continued on page 131) Ron Darling (continued from page 118) At Yale, he'd thrown three-quarter style. Johnson told him to go back to the old way. He did and pitched better.

Johnson also criticized Darling a lot. And rarely praised him. Remind you of anyone, Ron? In their four years together, the two would develop a richly rewarding and irritating relationship. It was interrupted slightly at the tail end of 1983, when Darling was promoted to the Mets. For him, it was a sickening spectacle. The Mets were comfortably nestled in extreme last. "The team was a joke," Darling says. "No one was trying."

But he was. He debuted against the division-leading Phillies, and it was enough to unnerve a guy. The first three hitters he faced were Hall of Fame shoo-ins. He struck out Pete Rose and Joe Morgan, and he got Mike Schmidt to ground out. "When I walked back to the dugout," he says, "it was like I was walking on air."

Over the winter, the Mets metamorphosed. Johnson was named manager. His Young Arms, Gooden, Darling and Company, would become the backbone of a team that leaped from rigor mortis to instant contention. Johnson nursed the Arms along oh, so carefully, rationing their innings so as never to overtire them or undermine their confidence.

Johnson and Darling also nursed along a classic prickly relationship. Their shouting matches—never held in person, only through the media—evoked comparisons to Rome vs. Carthage, Earl Weaver vs. Jim Palmer and other famous feuds of history. After a game, Johnson (a known Rolaids addict) might tell reporters that Darling had gotten behind on so many batters, it made his stomach ache. Darling would read that and gripe that Davey never talked with his pitchers. Davey would read that and belch anew for quotation. On they'd merrily growl.

Of course, what we have here is two world-class perfectionists butting heads. Good as Darling was, Johnson wanted him better. Fortunately, so did Darling. So what else could happen? He got better. The Darling who first came up to the Mets was that great cliché, the hard-throwing but wild rookie. The Darling of today is a finesse pitcher. "For a young man, that's really quite a remarkable thing," says Keith Hernandez, the Mets' sagacious first baseman. "To do that in two years. It's like you almost forget that he used to be wild at one time."

Johnson's problem was that Darling always acted like a finesse pitcher—even before he had finesse. Always he was trying to outsmart the hitter. "Arrrgh!" Johnson said one day in 1985. "I want to strangle him by the throat until he's dead!" Johnson was sick of Darling's trying to hit the corners and missing. He said, "Don't get fancy—just fling it down the middle and let your natural hop get the outs." Darling tried but couldn't always manage it. Johnson seethed. You couldn't fool him. That damn Yalie was out there thinking.

Darling worked and evolved. He still walks people, but not so many. He has a good mix. He has mastered the trendy pitch of the Eighties, the split-fingered fastball. The splitter loves to do its impression of a normal fastball until the last millisecond, when it plunges insanely. The batter weeps.

Ron has thought about the parallels between the manager and the father whose back-yard drills pounded home the lesson so thoroughly absorbed: Gotta get better. He knows that Johnson seems to understand something about him. "Davey criticized me more than anyone else," he said in a reflective moment. "At first I took offense at it, but I think Davey did it only because he knew I could be a lot better. And he was right. He was right."

Thus Ronnie runs. Ran to Manhattan when he arrived on the Mets, unlike most ballplayers, who cleave to the suburbs. He can't understand that. Here they have the chance to experience the great throbbing whacked-out hub of the universe and they hide on Long Island.

Darling couldn't wait to hit Gotham. Before Toni, his hunger for experience seemed to focus primarily on night life, at least according to the New York tabloids, which placed him in half the town's clubs and restaurants on a given evening. Ron did enjoy life. He had a much-publicized date with Madonna. He made Cosmopolitan's list of the ten most eligible athletes. But he says the debauchery was mostly media invention. Even so, his employers were nervous enough to start dropping hints for him to cool it. Johnson got up to speak at a promotional dinner on Long Island and began, "I'm glad Ron Darling has been able to take time away from the New York social scene to join us."

Marriage conferred instant respectability. Toni O'Reilly, out of an Irish family much like Darling's (lots of kids, little money), escaped to the U.S. and a modeling career. Ron didn't settle for the shrinking, worshipful type; Toni likes to tease her husband and he seems to enjoy it. "I couldn't believe how shy he was," she says of their first date.

"I couldn't believe how brash she was," he shoots back.

As he's admittedly "not very good at planning evenings," Mr. Excitement mostly took Toni to basketball games. They went out for about a year before they got married. Toni has faced some of the classic adjustment problems of baseball wives—loneliness when Ron is on the road and the fame factor, which, after the world series, sometimes became overwhelming. "God Almighty," she says, "we can't even go to Macy's or the supermarket. People just mob him. And they're pushing me out of the way; some girl says, 'Can you believe he married her? God, she's not even pretty.'"

•

With the new season approaching, Mr. P. had to run harder than ever. Events were all converging. The most dreaded was the trial. Darling flew to Houston to finally resolve his most mortifying defeat, the Battle of Cooter's Saloon. The headlines had yowled about the four Mets arrested for fighting with cops in a bar. They were actually off-duty cops moonlighting as bouncers, and the problem started when they objected to Tim Teufel's attempt to leave with an open beer bottle—a crime in Texas. Scuffling broke out; Darling went to Teufel's aid and was accused of attacking the security men.

From the first, Darling had insisted that he was innocent and hoped to go on trial and prove it. But there was no trial. In Houston, his lawyer immediately plea bargained the felony-assault charges into oblivion. Even the sentence of a year's probation would be quietly quashed a month later as part of the deal.

What a relief it was to be rid of the cloud that had hung over him the past half year. For the man who would be perfect, the embarrassment had been intense. Here's a guy who gives antidrug talks for the governor's task force, who visits sick kids in hospitals, who thinks about maybe going to law school after his baseball days or becoming a TV newsman or living in Europe, and now people must figure he's some low-life goon who brawls in bars. What he'd wanted for his public image was a Guy with Class! Oh, well. His public-relations man was working on it; but at least, Ron consoled himself, the people close to him knew the truth. "They know I'm not this crazy monster."

Ron and Toni flew to Florida for a brief vacation before spring training. Then Ron flew right back to New York. Time for what he called his arbitrary hearing. It was his second in a row, and he was annoyed. For three years, he'd been overshadowed by the Wunderkind Dwight Gooden. If Ron was Mr. P., Dwight was Dr. K., and before his spring drug test, at least, he appeared to be of a higher order. So for Gooden, the Mets always went all out to negotiate a nice, friendly contract settlement; for him, Darling felt, they'd dig in and virtually dare him to try the crap shoot that is arbitration. His first time, asking for $615,000, he had lost. This time, asking for $1,050,000, he won.

Ron Jr. called Worcester to tell Ron Sr. that he had a millionaire son. This had seemed like an exhilarating thought; but then, when he made the call, it didn't seem so great. "My father worked his back off for 30 years," Ron says. "He won't earn $1,000,000 in his lifetime. It seemed the height of something fanciful, almost frivolous."

In the midst of all the other chaos, the restaurant opened. The place pulled a big downtown lunch crowd, and one of the main reasons sat at a table and worked hard at playing host. Dressed in modish black, with a tiny diamond stud in one ear lobe, Darling obliged a stream of handshakers and autograph hounds. "I've got butterflies in my stomach," he said. "It doesn't make any sense. You know, I can pitch in front of 50,000 people, but I don't like to be in big crowds and I don't like to be the focus of attention."

Still, competitor that he is, Darling goes forth to slay the butterflies. He puts himself in situations where he draws attention, and he handles them with apparent confidence. He does have an extroverted side that peeps out now and then—like when it's silly time at the ball park and in the midst of some gang of pranksters perpetrating a hotfoot, there is Darling. Then, suddenly, he's the cool loner again. "You never know which phase is on," says Hernandez. "He can be very distant or very much a social guy."

Darling loves the game. It's the sanctuary in which he can shut out all worldly distractions, unleash his laserlike concentration and shoot for the Big P. But when the game ends (unless it's a world-series loss by one unearned run), it is folded up and put away. Off duty, Darling wants to hear no baseball talk, hang with no baseball players. "I do not take my work home," he says. "We do not talk about baseball. Ever." It's important for Darling to think of himself as a well-rounded person, not just Joe Jock. It's also important for him to assert his individuality against the forced conformities of team life. So subtle little symbols of independence sometimes appear ... such as that tiny earring of his.

•

St. Petersburg. Finally, the Darlings managed a few idyllic days in the sun together before training camp. Toni loved lolling on the beach. Ron was bored. So was Tyler Christian Darling, in utero. What, lie around till April? Forget it. The kid rushed into the world three weeks early. There could be no doubt that this was the son of Ron Darling. Run, Ty, run!

So with the baby on the scene and his court appearance behind him, it was time for ... baseball! Ron was in the best shape of his life. He'd always had this problem with no-decisions; he'd get pulled out of a game ahead or tied and not get the win. What can a pitcher do? That's baseball, right? Not if you're Mr. P. "Make me awesome," he'd ordered his conditioner. The goal had been more stamina. Don't tire as quickly and stay in longer. You control your own fate. That was the plan.

Florida has dutifully provided the required supply of sun, palm trees, gentle breezes and sea gulls. Huge crowds belly into the flimsy fences guarding the Mets' practice fields, adequate when the team's stock was down but now bursting with humanity. Ron Darling works to Gary Carter with a fluid grace. He's back in the back yard, striving, as always, to do it better. The sweet old rhythm of pitch and catch thrums out as Darling throws and Carter plays Dad. "Get that movement," Carter says. "That's all I'm concerned about right now."

"Uhhh," Darling says. Whump!

"Don't come across the body."

"Uhhh." Whump!

"Good! That's it, right there."

"Uhhh." Whump!

"Let it out!"

The ball comes harder. A new season means a new chance for perfection. Mr. P. tries again.

'"Here's Mr. P.!' Carter shouts when Darling shows up. 'It must be the perfect time for practice.'"