Published: Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Former Mariner Endy Chavez finally back on the baseball field
Hurt in 2009, the outfielder is trying to make the Texas Rangers’ roster
PEORIA, Ariz. — Endy Chavez has endured 20 months of pain, hard work, patience and self doubt, but he now believes he’ll become a productive major leaguer again.
Chavez is convinced his right knee, severely injured in a grotesque outfield collision with shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt when they played in 2009 for the Seattle Mariners, will fully recover. He’s confident his speed, the key element to his game, will return.
“I feel good,” Chavez, a non-roster invitee with the Texas Rangers, said Tuesday before the Rangers played the Mariners. “The thing I care about most is running, and I think I’m doing pretty good.”
Chavez hasn’t felt this good in a long time.
The injury — on June 19, 2009, when he sprinted in for a fly ball to shallow left field as Betancourt sprinted out — was one of the worst ever suffered by a Mariner. Chavez tore the anterior cruciate ligament, the medial collateral ligament and a portion of the meniscus in his right knee.
The recovery time initially was estimated at 9-12 months.
It has been nearly twice that long, but Chavez is back on the field feeling good. He has played in all three of the Rangers’ spring training games, including Tuesday’s when he started in left field and went 1-for-2.
“There were a lot of times when I thought I wasn’t going to play baseball anymore,” Chavez said. “That was a pretty bad injury and I didn’t think I could run again. But I was strong in my mind and I said I had nothing to lose. I had to try and go forward. I focused on getting healthy and I made it. This is my second opportunity to grow up in baseball.”
Chavez, 33, retains a vivid mental image of the collision, along with his surprise that Betancourt had become part of the play.
“I will always keep the memory,” he said. “I always know where my teammates are at. In that specific fly ball, I was confident that nobody was going to be there. I wasn’t looking for Yuniesky. He surprised me when I saw him there. In another case, that’s not going to happen.”
It ended what had been a solid season for a player who not only had filled the Mariners’ left-field void, but also batted leadoff while Ichiro Suzuki began the season on the disabled list because of a bleeding ulcer. Chavez batted .273 with a .328 on-base percentage, nine steals and two home runs in 54 games.
He said the worst part of his recovery was the mental letdown he felt last summer at the one-year mark, a time when he believed he should have been well enough to play.
“I thought I would be better, but my knee was still bothering me,” he said. “That was tough for me. All I could do was continue to work hard, do my exercises.”
He pushed himself to play some minor-league games last summer with the Texas Rangers, who’d signed him, but he realized quickly the knee wasn’t well.
“I knew I wasn’t ready yet,” Chavez said. “I played eight games and hurt my knee again and had to stop for the rest of the season.”
Swelling was the problem this time, and all he could do was rest. He gave it another go during winter ball in Venezuela and, despite some soreness early, Chavez experienced a breakthrough.
“It was tough in the beginning to get the rhythm of the game. I had felt a little uncomfortable. I wasn’t confident at all running, stopping,” he said. “But the more I continued to play, the more confident I became. After three weeks I felt pretty good and knew I could do everything in the field. I just thought about the game and not about my knee.”
Despite what he’s been through for more than 20 months, Chavez says he doesn’t flinch on shallow fly balls to the outfield.
“I’m not afraid of the game,” he said. “I just play baseball like nothing happened. I thank God. When you fall down, you’ve got to get up and continue.”
Chavez is convinced his right knee, severely injured in a grotesque outfield collision with shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt when they played in 2009 for the Seattle Mariners, will fully recover. He’s confident his speed, the key element to his game, will return.
“I feel good,” Chavez, a non-roster invitee with the Texas Rangers, said Tuesday before the Rangers played the Mariners. “The thing I care about most is running, and I think I’m doing pretty good.”
Chavez hasn’t felt this good in a long time.
The injury — on June 19, 2009, when he sprinted in for a fly ball to shallow left field as Betancourt sprinted out — was one of the worst ever suffered by a Mariner. Chavez tore the anterior cruciate ligament, the medial collateral ligament and a portion of the meniscus in his right knee.
The recovery time initially was estimated at 9-12 months.
It has been nearly twice that long, but Chavez is back on the field feeling good. He has played in all three of the Rangers’ spring training games, including Tuesday’s when he started in left field and went 1-for-2.
“There were a lot of times when I thought I wasn’t going to play baseball anymore,” Chavez said. “That was a pretty bad injury and I didn’t think I could run again. But I was strong in my mind and I said I had nothing to lose. I had to try and go forward. I focused on getting healthy and I made it. This is my second opportunity to grow up in baseball.”
Chavez, 33, retains a vivid mental image of the collision, along with his surprise that Betancourt had become part of the play.
“I will always keep the memory,” he said. “I always know where my teammates are at. In that specific fly ball, I was confident that nobody was going to be there. I wasn’t looking for Yuniesky. He surprised me when I saw him there. In another case, that’s not going to happen.”
It ended what had been a solid season for a player who not only had filled the Mariners’ left-field void, but also batted leadoff while Ichiro Suzuki began the season on the disabled list because of a bleeding ulcer. Chavez batted .273 with a .328 on-base percentage, nine steals and two home runs in 54 games.
He said the worst part of his recovery was the mental letdown he felt last summer at the one-year mark, a time when he believed he should have been well enough to play.
“I thought I would be better, but my knee was still bothering me,” he said. “That was tough for me. All I could do was continue to work hard, do my exercises.”
He pushed himself to play some minor-league games last summer with the Texas Rangers, who’d signed him, but he realized quickly the knee wasn’t well.
“I knew I wasn’t ready yet,” Chavez said. “I played eight games and hurt my knee again and had to stop for the rest of the season.”
Swelling was the problem this time, and all he could do was rest. He gave it another go during winter ball in Venezuela and, despite some soreness early, Chavez experienced a breakthrough.
“It was tough in the beginning to get the rhythm of the game. I had felt a little uncomfortable. I wasn’t confident at all running, stopping,” he said. “But the more I continued to play, the more confident I became. After three weeks I felt pretty good and knew I could do everything in the field. I just thought about the game and not about my knee.”
Despite what he’s been through for more than 20 months, Chavez says he doesn’t flinch on shallow fly balls to the outfield.
“I’m not afraid of the game,” he said. “I just play baseball like nothing happened. I thank God. When you fall down, you’ve got to get up and continue.”
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