SARASOTA, Fla. -- Orioles minor-leaguer Shane Hale walked out of the clubhouse for the first workout of spring on Friday and he couldn't believe what he saw.
Black uniform tops. The jerseys worn exclusively by big-leaguers in the Orioles camps. The men wearing them, Hale realized, were the major-league coaching staff, manager Phil Regan and pitching coach Mike Flanagan among them.
"Hey," Hale said, poking the ribs of the guy standing next to him, "what are these guys doing here?"
Even in the most progressive of spring training camps, major-league managers and coaches don't spend much time with the minor-leaguers. Too busy, too much to do, too many pressures of their own to spend time coaching players three and four years away from the big leagues.
But in a year when replacement ace Oil Can Boyd is making more news than Ken Griffey or Frank Thomas, spring training is different. Without any major-leaguers around, Regan and his staff are giving hands-on treatment to Orioles minor-leaguers. An abnormally high player-to-coach ratio exists: There were 17 coaches (including the minor-league staff) for 24 players yesterday.
The major-league strike is creating opportunity for minor-leaguers, a chance to see and be seen by instructors who are theoretically among the best in the industry. "The coaches out there, combined, probably have a couple of hundred years of baseball experience," Hale said. "Any time you're around those kinds of minds, you're going to pick things up. Any contact with them gives you an opportunity to show what you can do, and do well."
Flanagan remembered that when he played, receiving an audience with a major-league coach or manager was something to be coveted. Getting instruction from someone in the big leagues, Flanagan said, "somehow gave it more validity. I just think your ears would be a lot bigger."
Hale wants the strike to be settled, for the good of the industry. "But right now," he said, "getting this chance is something you've got to enjoy.
"This [strike] is going to end. If you're a standout and you work hard and get things done, these guys are going to remember things like that. In the future, maybe they'll need a left-handed pitcher -- Hale is left-handed, incidentally -- "or a shortstop or second baseman, and you're still in the back of their heads."
Hale could use a boost. A seventh-round draft pick in 1990 out of South Alabama, Hale pinpointed his slider and struck out 57 hitters in his first 56 1/3 innings of professional ball. After his first three starts in Frederick in 1991, Hale began feeling a twinge in his elbow. Not unbearable, but he would sometimes need 20 minutes in a hot shower to loosen the joint.
But after a half-dozen more appearances, the pain worsened and throwing a slider was like jabbing an ice pick into his elbow. There were two outs and an 0-2 count with no one on base when Frederick manager Wally Moon trudged to the mound. Hale had tried to pitch through the agony, but Moon told him his mechanics were so affected by the pain that it was obvious Hale was hurting.
A magnetic resonance imaging test on his elbow revealed stretched ligaments; it probably would've been better, Hale said, if he had simply torn the ligaments. Instead, he spent a year trying to rehabilitate his elbow and eventually ripped up the ligaments anyway.
In the summer of 1992, doctors took a piece of ligament from his second toe to replace the damaged one in his elbow, although there were some complications: The toe ligaments were so long that the ligaments had to be doubled over in the elbow. "People would tease me about having such long toes," Hale said. "I guess it turned out to be an asset. . . . I've got a double-strength elbow now."
Hale spent almost a year and a half recovering from the reconstructive surgery. He finally returned to full-time duty in 1994, when he started 10 games for Single-A Albany (Ga.) and 11 for Frederick. His combined stats: 6-6, with 101 strikeouts in 117 1/3 innings and a 4.53 ERA.
Hale, living in Delaware this past off-season, planned on reporting to camp in early March, to prepare for a season pivotal in his career. But on Feb. 6, he got word that he was among a group of minor-leaguers expected to report on Feb. 16.
"I had no idea the major-league coaches would be here," Hale said. "This is great."