Sidney Ponson: 22-Year-Old Gives Surprise Boost To Roatation

Watch Sidney Ponson closely when he is on the mound. He's a man of perpetual motion--and perpetual emotion.When his pitches are breaking right and skittering across the corners of the plate, when he's dominating a game as he has done often this season, he is like an old- time locomotive picking up speed. You can almost see the steam spouting through his Orioles cap. And the better he throws, the faster he pitches. Chug, chug, chug. Watch the big grin break out across his boyish face. He's obviously having a ball. Watch him pace about waiting for the ball to come back. He gets impatient, so impatient.

“I definitely get into a rhythm, and throwing strikes, you want to stay in that rhythm,” he says. “You want to pitch fast. When you slow down, something is wrong.”

When he's on a roll, he's so hungry to pitch that he looks like he's ready to burst waiting to get the ball back. He wants it so badly, you can almost feel it from the stands. Sometimes you get the impression he wants to dash to the plate himself and grab the ball from catcher Charles Johnson.

Mike Mussina and Scott Erickson are like fine marble statuary on the mound. Their visage rarely changes, whether they are throwing shutouts or being shelled. They don't crack smiles, they rarely get angry. And they never loose their cool. That, after all, is how a major league pitcher is supposed to pitch. Stone-faced. Keeping your emotions in check. Never letting your opponent know what or how you are feeling.

But not Sidney Ponson.

Maybe he is too young to have picked up that big league nuance. Maybe he's so exuberant just to be in the big leagues that he doesn't have time to worry about reining in his emotions. He's 22 and only in his second big league season. And the baby fat never seems to have left his face or body.

“I get pumped out,” he admits. “Definitely, I get pumped up. I only pitch every five days. So I try to get the most out of every game I pitch.”

Ponson is refreshing to watch. He attacks batters with his strong assortment of pitches, almost daring them to hit him. Sometimes, they do, of course, especially when he gets too carried away and forgets that the center of the plate is death valley for a pitcher in the big leagues. Against Cleveland last month he blew two high fastballs by Richie Sexson for an 0-2 court, then let his third pitch drop down too close to the waist. Whop! Sexson demolished it for a three-run homer. That was one of Ponson's bad games this year. He gave up eight runs in 4 2/3 innings against Cleveland, and everything he threw seemed to get blasted. The same thing happened on the last day of May against Seattle. The Mariners climbed all over Ponson, crashing three home runs among their 10 hits off of him in four innings.

Those were his bad games, the ones in which he almost seemed to forget that pitching in the big leagues is not as easy as it sometimes might seem. A pitcher facing Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez is not permitted the luxury of making a mistake. Ponson has great stuff, but youthful exuberance can have its downside. There are times when you have to slow down, when you have to think about what you're doing, when you must at least try to leave your emotions at home.

“It's fine that you show emotions, but it can't be outward,” says manager Ray Miller. “He's just a child, but he has a great arm.”

Most of this year, Ponson the man-child has ridden that great arm to success. The mistakes, like the ones he made in Cleveland and in Seattle, have been relatively rare.

In fact, the young Aruban right-hander has easily been the Orioles' second-best starter this year, after ace Mike Mussina. Who could have predicted, in fact, that after the first two month of the season Ponson would have two more wins than all the other Orioles' starters--minus Mussina--combined?

“He has a great arm, not just a good arm, but a great arm,” says pitching coach Bruce Kison. “He has four quality pitches and probably more up his sleeve, since he can pitch from different arm angles. And he's out there competing.”

Ponson loves to compete. It's in his blood. Besides his arm, it's his greatest asset as a pitcher. That and his lack of fear. He does not scare--at all. The fear gene was left out of his mental make up.

Ponson was raised in a hard-scrabble setting on the tropical isle of Aruba. He was something of a tough guy. He had a temper. He was unruly, a little wild. But he had this unusual pitching arm, and before he even was a teen, that arm caught the eye of Jesus “Chu” Halabi. Halabi is the Orioles' scout for the southern Caribbean. He nurtures young Aruban ball players the way a mother hen does her chicks. He takes them under his wing and becomes involved in their lives. He helps them grow up if they are good enough to play professional ball, they will have the wherewithal to handle the move to America and the pressures of being a professional athlete.

Ponson is his prize pupil.

Halabi quieted Ponson down. He taught him how to walk away from trouble. He put some stability in the young boy's life. And he taught him how to put his golden arm to its best use.

When he was not throwing a baseball, Ponson worked on the beaches and sailing boats of Aruba, catering to tourists.

He learned from the tourists, who came to Aruba from North and South America and Europe. He learned that there was a better life out there than where he came from. He wanted it. So he began learning about life, as well as about pitching. Ponson probably is the Orioles' top linguist. He speaks English, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese--and Papiamento. That's the language unique to Aruba, Carucao and Bon Aire, three islands just off the northern coast of Venezuela.

Today he's something of a celebrity on his home island. But he tries to avoid the limelight. “I don't always like to do appearances,” he says of requests from TV and radio reporters. I don't want to be in the media too much. I want to be myself and have fun and go to the beach. When I'm home in Aruba, it's my free time.”

Ponson stays close to his family. He talks to his mother practically every day, and she visits him in Baltimore to watch him pitch. She was not overly pleased, however, when her son shaved all the hair off his head. “She doesn't like it, but I have to live with it,” he says, indicating that he even can be tough with his mother when he feels it's appropriate.

It's Ponson's toughness, his lack of fear, that propelled him onto the Orioles' roster last year, leapfrogging over several more highly heralded and older pitching prospects.

Miller respects that toughness and Ponson's competitiveness. Yet he thinks the right-hander must control his emotions somewhat. In the big leagues, according to Miller, an expression of feeling can hurt a pitcher. During a game in Texas on May 16, Ponson threw a pitch that bounced in front of the plate and bounded behind the catcher to the screen. Ponson was not happy with what he had done, and he didn't try to hide his feelings. He cursed at himself on the mound. He slammed his glove. And he promptly gave up a three-run homer to the ninth hitter in the Rangers' lineup.

“I've talked to him about emotion,” Miller says. “You don't show emotions on the field. If you throw a pitch in front of the plate, don't show anyone you're mad about it. Make them think you did it intentionally, that you're in control.”

Miller is also concerned about Ponson's weight. Two winters ago the Orioles sent the burly pitcher to a fat farm at Duke University. He not only lost weight, but he learned what to eat and what not to eat. And he now likes to talk about what is good for him and what isn't. But Ponson showed up at spring training this year heavier than Miller would have preferred. And the manager believes every time Ponson puts on a few pounds, his fastball loses some of its velocity. “He has tremendous ability if he keeps himself in shape,” Miller suggests.

Ponson enhanced his ability over the past year by picking up a slider. He began using it last season, under the tutelage of then-pitching coach Mike Flanagan. Now he's using it more regularly and effectively.

He also has learned, during his brief tenure in the majors, one vital pitching lesson: “You have to change speeds,” he explains.” In the minors, I just would go back to my fastball all the time. Here, you need to change speeds to keep the hitters off balance.”

Ponson is eager to learn from his peers. He talks to Kison and Flanagan (now an announcer for the Orioles) and bullpen coach Elrod Hendricks. He also occasionally calls old buddies such as departed teammates Roberto Alomar and Rafael Palmeiro, primarily as a confidence booster. “Robbie will tell me, 'Your stuff is good, you have to believe in yourself.' That helps me out a lot.”

So do his curve, his fastball and his slider.

And his growing sense that being in the major leagues is a major endeavor. “I'm getting more mature,” he says, “day by day.”