Dempster a gem on the diamond
Anyone who has been around the Cubs the last few years knows pitcher Ryan Dempster likes to have fun.
Let's just say that having fun is serious business to Dempster.
He might orchestrate a little rookie hazing or dust off his Harry Caray impression. Or offer a news conference quip.
Why just the other day, a funny thing happened to Dempster on his way to the Fitch Park press room: Manager Mike Quade named him the Cubs' opening-day starter.
“I'm glad I found out today,” he said in Mesa, Ariz., where the Cubs hold spring training. “I had too many people asking me what I was doing Opening Day. Now, I have an answer for them.”
Ba dum bump. Surely a career in the Catskills awaits when Dempster is done with his MLB gig.
Whatever the situation calls for, Dempster tries his best to keep things loose.
But seriously, there is a method to the madness. A lot of it, he says, involves team building and dealing with the day-to-day drudgeries of the baseball season.
“I take what I do very seriously,” he said. “I love playing baseball, but it is my job. People coming to the games, watching the games and the other 24 guys on the team expect you do to your job. I take a lot of pride in that, and in putting hard work in and taking what I do very seriously, but at the same time, we are playing a game. You have to not lose perspective on that and enjoy it.
“Going all the way back to when we were little kids, the more fun you're having, the better your team seems to be doing. That's the most important part: How can you be together and enjoy what you're doing? As major-league baseball players, we're traveling a lot, we're playing a lot. We sometimes can lose perspective on that. I enjoy it every day. I'm always having fun and goofing around. I like to believe that, for the most part, I know the right times to do it and the right times to be serious.”
Dempster, 33, has been with the Cubs since 2004, and that gives him more than a little cache as a team leader.
So before spring training even began, he conducted a little team-building exercise by taking about two-dozen Cubs, major-leaguers and minor-leaguers alike, on a hike up Camelback Mountain in Arizona.
The way Dempster sees it, a team that huffs and puffs together bonds together.
“Absolutely,” he said. “You look at it this way: We spend more time together than I do with my own kids during baseball season. That's reality. You go on the road for a week. You come home. You're still with your teammates every single day. We're around each other a lot. So this becomes a big family.
“It's a tough thing because you need your own space. Sometimes you need your time just to get away. But I think it's important to lean on each other and be there for each other. The more team-building stuff you do, the more you see the different sides of guys. A lot of times, we can just see what guys do on the field or the way somebody's work ethic might be, the way somebody's approach to the game might be. But a lot of times, we don't see them personally or spend time with the families.”
So it doesn't start and stop with only a boys night out.
“We might have a team party and get their wives and their kids together and get a chance to see everybody on a personal level, as well,” Dempster said. “Some guys you play with for a long time, you become really, really good friends with. They're there for you during the tough times. They're there with you to enjoy the good times, too.”
Dempster has known his share of good times and bad. He won his 100th career game last year, and when he takes the mound April 1 against the Pirates, he will be celebrating the second birthday of his daughter Riley.
Riley was born with DiGeorge syndrome, a genetic disorder that caused her to need treatment for feeding and swallowing, among other difficulties, from birth. In many cases, DiGeorge syndrome can cause heart defects, breathing issues, problems with the gastrointestinal tract, immune and endocrine systems, differences in the palate, slow growth, and autism. Dempster and his wife, Jenny, established the Dempster Family Foundation (dempsterfamilyfoundation.org) to raise awareness and funds to study DiGeorge syndrome.
As they would with any parent, Riley's problems weighed heavily on her dad, the fun-loving baseball player.
“It definitely gave me a lot of strength,” he said. “You sit there and you watch everything she went through on a daily basis. And not just here, but Brady, our son, as well, and to watch how they are able to go through it. And really just handle something so hard and so overwhelming at such a young period in their life. Yeah, they don't know any better. That's all she's ever known, but at the same time I look at how it's never brought her down.”
Dempster admits it was tough going to work some days. And his fun-loving spirit wasn't always on display in 2009.
“There was times when I just wanted to go be with them and be with her and my wife,” he said. “You sit there as a parent and you try to do everything possible. I think for me, as a father and as a husband, I owe it to her to fight my way through this. Just as she's doing it, I have to figure out how to continue to go on as normal.
“I didn't want any special exceptions. Everybody goes through different things in life. My grandmother always told me, ‘Stay on your own porch.' I don't know what everybody goes through in their own personal life. But I just felt like watching her and everything she was overcoming that, ‘You know what, I'm going to overcome this. And I'm going to come through this. I'm going to let this make me better rather than bring me down.'”
So on Opening Day at Wrigley Field, Dempster may have a special birthday wish or two for Riley. He'll also remember to have some fun.
“I've always kind of taken that approach,” he said. “It's baseball, and when you have a tough game, so what? We're supposed to fail a lot. Try to fail not as much as you did when you were younger. It just kind of taught me that you can overcome whatever it is, whatever the odds are, whether it's injury or whether it's poor performances. You can overcome it.
“That's probably the biggest thing. It taught me appreciation that we really, truly get to play a game for a living. Don't get me wrong. We're a very select bunch (as baseball players), and everybody in here has worked really hard and will continue to work really hard to be able to do what we do. We're very fortunate to be able to enjoy playing a game for a living.”
The book on: Ryan Dempster
Pitches: Dempster is a fastball-slider pitcher who uses a split-finger pitch as a changeup/sinker.
Record: His is 102-102 lifetime with a 4.37 ERA. With the Cubs, he is 52-47 with a 3.67 ERA and 87 saves from his days as a closer, mainly 2005-07.
Control: Dempster's walk rate went from 2.93 per 9 innings in 2009 to 3.59 last year, but that's well below his rates in the 4s and 5s early in his career.
Durability: He has pitched at least 200 innings in each of his last three seasons since giving up his role as the closer.
— Bruce Miles