With two outs in the top of the ninth inning in the September heat of Miami’s Dolphin Stadium, career minor leaguer Mike Glavine gripped his bat, determined not to record the last out of a dismal season.
Florida Marlins relief pitcher Braden Looper, preparing to dispose of the last-place New York Mets and embark on a magical postseason run that would end with the 2003 World Series championship, peered toward home from atop the mound. After fighting off two Looper fastballs and watching another ball sail outside the strike zone, Glavine stood behind in the count, just one pitch away from immortality in The Baseball Encyclopedia.
“I knew it was my last at bat for that year, and there’s obviously no guarantees,” Glavine said.
With sweat trickling from beneath his batting helmet, Glavine connected with the speeding fastball and watched it plop into center field as he reached first base — his first and only Major League hit.
MINORS TO MENTOR
Even after countless midnight trips aboard crowded buses to small-town parks and assignments through the minor league ranks, the 90 feet from the batter’s box to first base remains a ballplayer’s most challenging journey. Though his playing days have ended, Glavine continues his blossoming baseball career, this time helping others make that tough trip up the baseline.
Glavine’s love for the game and hard-earned experience helped him earn a position on the Northeastern University baseball team coaching staff where he now tutors flame-throwing, slugging stars on scholarship and determined walk-ons who aim to fulfill their baseball fantasies.
“Anybody can coach baseball,” said Glavine’s longtime friend and fellow assistant coach Pat Mason. “Everybody has a way of teaching it. There are a lot of guys that have [made it] that still wouldn’t be able to coach the same way he does. After a while your experience does wear off; guys start to know you as a person rather than just someone who’s made it . . . they want something deeper than that, and [Glavine] has that personality to back it up.”
Glavine does not just coach baseball – he teaches it. His dynamic personality and obvious love of the game create a mixture of learning and enjoyment as well as trust between him and pupils, Northeastern coaches and players said.
“He’s easy to approach, but he’s still well respected throughout the team,” said Northeastern senior first baseman Josh Porter. “He’s a great guy . . . he’s someone I really admire and look up. He’s someone that you know, after I’m done, definitely someone I’d think of as a friend and I want to keep in touch with for years to come.”
JOURNEYING THROUGH THE RANKS
Growing up in Billerica, Glavine spent most of his youth shuffling pucks across icy ponds and smashing baseballs over outfield fences. Though he developed a love for hockey at an early age, it was the diamond that captured his heart.
After a spectacular junior year playing first base for Northeastern’s Division I team, Glavine was drafted in the 93rd round of the 1994 Major League Baseball Draft by the Houston Astros. Instead of signing with the Astros, the all-star lefty opted to spend the summer honing his skills in the Cape Cod League and return to Northeastern as the Huskies senior captain. The season’s ensuing success allowed Glavine to drastically improve his stock and in the next year’s draft, the Cleveland Indians selected him in the 22nd round. Soon, Glavine was swinging for Cleveland’s single-A affiliate, the Burlington Indians.
When Glavine, still unfamiliar with the Indians organization, picked up a copy of Baseball America that was lying in his locker, he sat down to evaluate his competition for first base and realized Cleveland’s organization was already stocked with phenomenal first basemen, including future 500-home run hitter Jim Thome, masher Richie Sexson and batting champ Sean Casey.
“I still remember sitting there that day and looking at [the magazine] in my locker,” he said. “Jim Thome was in the big leagues, Richie Sexson was in triple A, and Sean Casey had just gotten drafted the same year as me. I remember sitting there thinking, ‘Oh my God, there’s no way I’ll ever make it with the Indians.'”
That was the first time I was like, ‘Oh my goodness . . . look what I’m in for here,” Glavine said.
Glavine struggled with slumps through his time in the minor leagues and his inconsistency as a hitter masked his sturdy defense and ability to drive in runners. While he would make scouts drool by hammering no-doubt-about-it home runs one game, he would plummet into a deep slump the next. Glavine’s wife, Carissa, said his unpredictable plate production caused him to doubt his own skills.
“He was never one to just shrug off a bad game,” she said. “Instead, he would replay the game on the ride home and point out all the things he should have done. If it was a particularly bad game or streak he wouldn’t say anything at all and internalize all of his disappointments and that was even harder to see.”
Glavine met Carissa in high school and their relationship developed alongside baseball schedules and cross-country flights. While Carissa was studying to be a pediatric nurse practitioner, Glavine battled through the challenges of professional baseball. He was traded from the Indians to the Atlanta Braves in 1999, before playing triple-A ball in Norfolk, Va., with the New York Mets organization in 2003.
THE SHOW AT LAST
In Sept. 2003, an injury to top prospect Jose Reyes opened a spot for Glavine to come to New York for the final month of the season.
On Sept. 25, after spending 11 days as a pinch hitter, Glavine jogged out onto the field at Shea Stadium in his first major-league start. The New York Mets were playing the last of a three-game series against the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates. Standing on the mound just 63.7 feet away was his older brother Tom, the Mets’ starting pitcher.
Clubbing just the second pitch of the game, Pirates outfielder Tike Redman dropped the ball into shallow left field and came to stand next to Glavine on first base. Soon, time spent playing catch in their yard paid off and the Glavine brothers connected for the day’s first out.
“The first hitter of the game got on base,” Glavine recalled. “I’m nervous, and Tommy throws over . . . [Redman] was stealing . . . I threw to second and we threw him out.”
Glavine spent 14 days with the Mets at the major league level. During that time, he learned how to deal with the pressure of the national spotlight, recorded a hit, played a game alongside his brother and even survived a trip to Chicago from Montreal dressed as an Arabian Princess — an annual rookie hazing ritual imposed by Mets veterans.
Once back in the minors, the next season was Glavine’s last professionally. He said his first daughter’s birth solidified his thoughts of retiring. Having a family altered his entire perspective on the game and influenced him to seek a coaching job so he could be close to home and enjoy time as a husband and father, he said.
In 2005, Glavine and former teammate Marc Deschenes opened Future Stars, a training school in Dracut where coaches provide instruction for rising baseball and softball players around their home state. First conceived by the two friends during bus rides with the Cleveland Indians organization, Future Stars has provided Glavine with a way to teach younger kids how to appreciate the game.
A DEPENDABLE TEACHER
Glavine’s players say they trust the 34-year-old’s advice not simply because he is their coach, but because he has lived the career they aspire to.
“Everything he says, you follow,” said Northeastern second baseman David Fisher, a sophomore. “He helps calm you down, especially in games. If you’re struggling at the plate, or having a bad day on the field . . . he helps put things into perspective.”
After ten years of grueling double headers, surges of power, disheartening slumps and one stint in the majors, Glavine’s passion for the game has never wavered. His experiences help him teach his players about the part of the game that makes the precise dimensions of the diamond obsolete.
“I think I experienced a ton playing baseball,” Glavine said. “Baseball helped me get a college education. I got to play professionally. I got to travel this country. I got to play in other countries, meet a lot of people . . . I don’t regret anything.”
