Baseball way back: Why Phil Regan is one of MLB's most unique birds

Ever since his very first opening day in the majors, Phil Regan has specialized in putting out fires.

On April 11, 1961, before more than 41,000 at Tiger Stadium, Detroit Tigers manager Bob Scheffing brought in Regan, five days past his 24rd birthday, to rescue starter Jim Bunning in the second inning. Cleveland had batted around in the inning and opened up a 6-0 lead.

With two outs and Woodie Held on first, Regan yielded a single to Vic Power before striking out Bubba Phillips to stop the bleeding. He stayed on the mound through the top of the fifth, giving up only one run in the fourth on a triple by Willie Kirkland that scored Jimmy Piersall. The Tigers, who would finish second with 101 wins that year, mounted a comeback, but lost 9-5.

During his 13-year pitching career, Regan proved an able fireman, leading the National League twice in saves, with 21 in 1966 for the pennant-winning Los Angeles Dodgers of Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax, and with 25 for the Cubs in 1968.

Last year, nearly six decades after his major league debut, Regan was called on once again to salvage a dire situation. In June, he was brought in as the New York Mets interim pitching coach. At the time, the pitching staff's ERA of 4.74 was third-worst in the NL. From June 21 through the end of the season, the staff boasted a 3.84 ERA, third-best in the league.

This year, the 83-year-old Regan is ready once again to lend assistance, beginning the COVID-shortened season as advisor to the Mets' minor league pitchers.

It is a brave new baseball world, but Regan said during an interview from Port St. Lucie, Florida, three days prior to opening day that one addition, the DH in the National League, will help the Mets, “because we have (Yoenis) Céspedes.” His words were validated Friday when Céspedes deposited a baseball into the vacant seats in left, leading the Mets to a 1-0 opening day victory over the Braves.

Regan is used to changes in baseball and life. As a coach, he has had to adapt to the world of computers, analytics and sophisticated technology.

Regan, whose post-playing career included stints as pitching coach for the Seattle Mariners, Cleveland Indians and the Cubs, as well as one season as manager of the Baltimore Orioles, said that when he returned to coaching as the pitching coach of the Mets' farm team in Port St. Lucie in 2009, “The first thing I noticed was that all reports were on the computer. I had never turned a computer on in my life.”

But, characteristically, he adjusted and soon found himself feeding off the WiFi of a local Panera Bread at 1 a.m. to file his reports.

Now, he sees the advantage of technology and the value of such analytical tools as slow-motion cameras. He said he wishes those tools had been available during his playing days when they didn't even have film available.

Regan learned early to make adjustments while a boy growing up on a farm in Wayland, Michigan, 20 miles from Grand Rapids. In those days, he would listen to his beloved Tigers on the radio. Unable to attend games, he would listen to announcers Harry Heilmann and Van Patrick relay the exploits of players like George Kell, Virgil Trucks and his favorite, Hal Newhouser. Later, Regan would wear Newhouser's number, 16, with the Tigers.

Regan and his brother Chuck, himself later a Tigers prospect, didn't have Little League in Wayland. Instead, they played “endless games” with a rubber ball against each other on the farm. Regan said,

“We had an old windmill with a pump that pumped the water into our house. On the other side of that windmill, I built a mound, and it faced the barn. And I painted (a) square on the barn.”

An important influence on Regan was Walt Gillett, his coach at Wayland Union High School.

“He was really a patient guy and loved baseball and for me was really instrumental in the development of my career,” he said. Gillett organized an American Legion team on which the high school kids could play during the summer. “We would play 60, 65 games. We played all over the state. We played in Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, and played all the top teams. He drove an old school bus and we would play all summer long.”

He also played for the Grand Rapids Sullivans, an amateur team that spawned such future Tigers stars as Mickey Stanley, Kirk Gibson, Al Kaline and Willie Horton.

Regan also cites the influence of former Tigers pitcher Schoolboy Rowe. While in high school, Regan attended a Tigers tryout in Kalamazoo, where Rowe saw Regan, a “low three-quarter right-handed pitcher,” throw.

“He told me, 'Young man, you got a good fastball, but you better get your arm up a little higher, because them big left-hand hitters will chew you up if are you throwing sidearm like that.'”

Signed by the Tigers in 1956 and working his way through the minor league system, Regan didn't really heed the advice before he ran into Rowe in 1958 in Ocala, Florida, where Regan's Birmingham team was training that spring.

“The first thing, he saw me throw, and he said to me, 'Young man, you got to get your arm up or them left-hand hitters are going to eat you alive.' He hadn't seen me in five years, and he told me the same thing.” Rowe taught him the slider, which became an important pitch.

From that point, he became “kind of a herky-jerky type pitcher with a high three-quarter type, almost a short-arm, delivery, but it helped me in that my slider was pretty good and it was quick and sharp.”

Regan's made his major-league debut on July 19, 1960, when he relieved Don Mossi in a 5-0 loss to the Washington Senators — soon to be the Minnesota Twins ­— at Briggs Stadium.

Brought in with the Tigers behind 3-0 in the top of the fourth, he lasted through the top of the eighth, the only blemish being a homer by Harmon Killebrew in the sixth.

One of the highlights that year was facing one of his idols, Ted Williams. He experienced firsthand Williams' famed plate discipline on Aug. 6 against Boston.

“I was a sinkerball pitcher and I pitched mainly sinkers away to left-hand hitters. That was the way I got guys out. I threw him six pitches. All of them were right in that area. He never swung at one.” After working the count to 3-2, Williams walked.

Regan pitched for his boyhood team from 1960-65. His best season was 1963, when he went 15-9 in 27 starts, with a 3.86 ERA.

But his days as a starter were numbered and an exciting chapter beckoned, with a World Series appearance, a share in the glory days at Wrigley Field and a nickname that would earn him a measure of major league immortality.