SAN FRANCISCO – The arms are what you notice. They wave like a bed of kelp in a sea of orange and black, catching the attention of the hot dog vendor, fanning a sun-drenched face, or adding an exclamation point for a passionate disciple spreading the gospel of God’s game to his kids.
More than 41,000 fans are packed into the stands at AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, on a divine July afternoon. A scan of the sections reveals bodies that blend together and faces that disappear into the bright background. From a distance, the intermittent wave of arms is all that’s clear to see.
Just below the blur of fans, in the visiting bullpen, stands Dale Thayer, whose arm has afforded him a 10-year career in professional baseball and whose mustache has afforded him Internet fame. (Go ahead, open another tab and Google it.)
Thayer, who by the looks of him ought to be traded to the Pirates, is instead enjoying his longest ever stint in the Major Leagues with the San Diego Padres. He’s appeared in 33 games this season, a little more than 10 years after helping lead the Chico State baseball team to the 2002 NCAA Championship game.
Thayer was a Second Team All-American for the Wildcats in 2002, posting a 2-1 record and 14 saves in 27 appearances. And the team he anchored, which won California Collegiate Athletic Association and West Region titles on the way to a school-record 55 wins and the NCAA Championship game, still rates as perhaps the program’s best ever.
Individually, Thayer still ranks second in single-season saves and seventh in appearances in Chico State history. He’s stood the test of time as well as his achievements with the Wildcats have.
Thayer has spent the vast majority of his professional career in the minor leagues, having logged 173 saves for teams like the Single-A Fort Wayne Wizards, Double-A Montgomery Biscuits, and Triple-A Portland Beavers in ballparks holding closer to 4,000 to 40,000.
But he was in the big leagues on Wednesday thanks to a combination of his zippier than ever fastball and being in the right place at the right time.
After spending one season with the New York Mets organization, Thayer signed with the Padres as a free agent in December. According to Chris Jenkins of the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Padres were impressed with Thayer’s fastball, which was up from 93 to 95 mph. But that wasn’t all.
Padres manager Bud Black told Jenkins: “The perseverance, I love. A lot guys who spend a lot of time in the minors get increasingly bitter, from what I can tell, he has a pretty good perspective, a positive way about him.”
Thayer stayed on Black’s radar thanks to a strong start at Triple-A Tucson, where he logged 8-plus scoreless innings while allowing only two hits. A host of injuries left the Padres’ bullpen in need of reinforcements early in the campaign, prompting Thayer’s eighth career call up to the Major Leagues.
As it turns out, it was his best chance yet to stick at the highest level. Thus far, he’s taking full advantage of what could be his last great opportunity to prove himself at baseball’s highest level.
“I’ve always done well in the minor leagues so I’ve always wanted to show I could get the job done up here,” said Thayer prior to Wednesday’s game. We were tucked away in a dark corner of AT&T Park’s main artery, which pulses with stadium vendors, ball players, and media types. “But, yeah, this is my 10th season so there’s a time when you’re going to get too old for this game. You always think about it. But once you get up here it really doesn’t matter what age you are as long as you get outs. As long as I stay up here I’m going to keep playing.”
As he speaks that last sentence, a wide smile parts Thayer’s walrus-esque mustache and the beard that hasn’t quite caught up with it in terms of length.
Ten years of waiting and Thayer may have finally reached the promised land for good.
“I was up and down a little bit (over the course of my career) and that just gives you some experience of what you need to do to succeed up here,” said Thayer. “This was a good opportunity for me to pitch well and stay up here. I started off real well and then I struggled a little bit. But just being able to get up a couple times before this opportunity came helped me do what I needed to do to stay here.”
So did Thayer’s performance. He retired the first 10 hitters he faced as a Padre. Then San Diego traded one of its top relievers the night before closer Huston Street went on the 15-day disabled list.
One week after making his Padres debut, Thayer found himself being utilized as the team’s closer – a role he had never enjoyed in the Major Leagues. And he certainly did enjoy it. Thayer needed just 11 pitches to retire the Rockies’ Troy Tulowitzki, Todd Helton, and Michael Cuddyer in order for his first Major League save since his very first big league appearance on May 22, 2009. Thayer’s save that night was of the three-inning variety. He was not the Rays’ closer.
Thayer didn’t have to wait nearly as long before his next save opportunity, which he converted the following night. He would go on to save five games for the Padres over a two-week span while Street was on the DL.
“I wasn’t expecting that at all,” said Thayer of the opportunity to save games with the Padres. “It just happened to work out that way. I’m glad I had success in that role. It was a lot of fun to show that I could get the job done.”
Thayer struggled a bit in the month after Street returned, perhaps due to his lack of familiarity in a setup role. But, unlike his first three Major League experiences, it didn’t result in a trip back to Triple-A.
The Tampa Bay Rays sent Thayer back down after his first four days in the big leagues in 2009 and called him back up for just four more days in July before bringing him up when the rosters expanded in September. That was the longest stretch he would spend in “The Show” before this season.
He made one very rocky appearance with the Rays in 2010 and was promptly sent back to Triple-A Durham. As it turned out, that would be his last chance with Tampa Bay. The Rays called him up for four more days that August, but he never appeared in a game.
Thayer signed a minor league contract with the New York Mets in February of 2011 and was called up on May 28. He pitched fairly well, allowing just two runs on five hits in four innings, but absorbed his first Major League loss in his fourth appearance and was promptly sent packing for Buffalo. The Mets recalled Thayer when their roster expanded in September, but when they outrighted him to Triple-A following the season (despite a respectable 3.48 ERA in 11 appearances) he refused the assignment and instead, signed a free agent contract with San Diego.
“Every other time I’ve been up, if I did poorly in one outing I knew I was gone,” said Thayer. “Here, I started off well so I wasn’t really nervous about giving up runs because I knew they weren’t going to just send me packing because of one bad outing. So it’s just a lot less pressure than I’ve experienced in the past.”
Thayer spent what must have felt like an eternity at times in professional baseball, slowly making his way up to the peek of a rollercoaster with a few dips and curves mixed in. But he can finally throw his hands up in joy, feeling the wind in his mustache after those nine years of slowly click… click… clicking his way to the top.
Thayer has rewarded the Padres for their patience. He’s 2-0 with a 0.71 ERA and four holds in 13 appearances since June 22.
“I think one of the great things about the Padres organization is that they give guys a chance to play the game and if they go out there and they go through some struggles they keep throwing them out there until they are able to figure it out, if they can,” said Thayer’s bullpen mate Luke Gregerson. “I know Dale’s been very successful down there. He persevered and gutted it out and kept working toward that one ultimate goal, which is to make it to the Major Leagues. Now that he’s gotten that opportunity I think he’s been given more of a chance here to show what he can do and I think he’s doing a great job at it.”
In Thayer’s 33 games for the Padres the right-hander has compiled a 2-2 record with five saves and 4.02 ERA. In nine professional seasons prior he had appeared in just 23 games.
“He’s shown that he knows how to pitch, that he can get guys out up here,” said Gregerson. “That’s what managers look for in guys that pitch in the pen. We know he’s reliable and we know we can put him out there in any circumstance.”
On Aug. 3, Thayer will be in the bullpen when the Padres host the New York Mets. A group of Chico State baseball alumni will be there, likely giving him a thumbs up for representing the program so well. He won’t be able to differentiate those waving hands and arms from the thousands of others in Petco Park. But that’s all right. They can assume that Thayer would simply encourage them to simply follow his lead: put their hands up and enjoy the ride.
