BRADENTON, Fla. — David Bednar was walking around Pirate City at the start of spring training when he heard a bunch of grunting and yelling emanating from the row of bullpen mounds situated between two fields.
“I was like, ‘Whoa, what’s happening over there?’ ” Bednar said. “It took me a little bit to realize that it was just Rich getting after it.”
Rich, of course, is Rich Hill, the Pirates’ left-handed starter who will turn 43 in a couple weeks and has assumed the mantle as Major League Baseball’s oldest player. And although Hill could not be any nicer or more mild-mannered off the field, when he takes the mound, well, it’s a bit different.
No, check that, a lot different.
“He’s a psycho … but in a good way,” said Kevin Plawecki, who caught Hill in Boston. “He’s just the ultimate competitor. Nobody wants to win more. It’s why he’s been able to do this for so long.”
Where this comes from produced a fascinating conversation with Hill, one that included references to Rafael Nadal, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan, as well as comedian Jim Gaffigan, plus some honesty and perspective likely stemming from the personal tragedy Hill and his family have endured.
What Hill does, if you’ve never seen him pitch, is essentially flip a switch when he takes the mound. Out go the contemplativeness, approachability, natural curiosity and calm demeanor. Arriving quickly is the grunting, possible profanity, Hill screaming at himself or punching or kicking things in the dugout if something doesn’t go well.
Watch it before you judge it. It’s not a tantrum. It’s more mound presence, persona or intensity to the highest degree.
“It’s something that has come over time,” Hill said. “It’s not manufactured or fake. The intent is real. Bringing a consistent attitude helps with effort level. As players, the one thing we can control is our effort. If that’s not there, it’s open season for criticism.”
When it comes to athletes Hill admires for their intensity, Ben Sheets, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer were a couple he cited in MLB. Nadal, Bird and Jordan were three from outside his sport. Hill enjoys watching documentaries and learning about the mental process of other professional athletes who operate like this.
“These guys had that killer instinct, but they were a different person off the field,” Hill said.
Competing to Hill is pretty much like a legal drug. He gets a rush from it. He refuses to stop. It probably seems obvious for someone his age, but it’s why he continues to do this.
“If someone were to ask me, at 43, why are you still playing, it’s because I love the competition,” Hill said. “You can’t get this type of feeling anywhere else. But how can I explain it to someone who hasn’t done it?”
Tough to do, sure. But we’re trying.
Underneath the umbrella of why Hill continues to do this, the other athletes he might draw from and how he never wants to leave himself open to criticism sits perspective that has shaped his personal life as well.
In a way, Hill has seemingly had several careers crammed into one. While pitching for 11 different MLB teams, including three separate stints with the Red Sox, Hill has gone from starting to relieving to starting again. He’s been hurt a bunch. He also worked his way back to MLB from independent ball.
Bigger than that, Hill and his wife Caitlin lost their 2-month-old son, Brooks, to lissencephaly and congenital nephrotic syndrome in February 2014. Although he was certainly intense before, going through such an unthinkable tragedy has taught Hill to never take a minute for granted, grunts or dented water coolers be damned.
“As you get older, you realize that mortality is a real thing,” Hill said. “I think it’s incredibly motivating to do the best you can every single day with what you have, no matter how good or bad you feel.”
How Hill explains a start is fascinating. He talks about taking “ultimate responsibility” for whatever happens and says things like “every moment of focus matters.” It also drives Hill nuts when he hears pitchers blame weather, the field, umpires or anything that’s impossible to control.
“It’s all bullshit because it’s not holding yourself accountable to the ultimate standard, which is your effort,” Hill said.
In preparing for a start, Hill likens it to crafting a story. His subject matter may seem vast at first, but through a process that he has honed for more than two decades, he can shrink it down into super intense, pitch-to-pitch focus.
In Hill’s mind, fans don’t care about how a bullpen looked, how he worked out or the kind of food he ate. All they want to see is effort and intensity.
“That’s what they bought the ticket for,” Hill said. “The emotion.”
Nobody at PNC Park will leave this season feeling shortchanged in that department when Hill pitches. It’ll also be wise, if you’re sitting close and offended by certain words, to bring earplugs.
But it’s also fun and unabashedly Hill, the grunting, the swearing, the “psycho” persona — to borrow Plawecki’s term — whenever he takes the mound because he knows no other way. Hill wishes he could function more like clean comedians such as Gaffigan, but the reality is that one of his starts probably better mirrors in intensity Denis Leary’s standup.
“It’s almost like a comedian who can go up there like Jim Gaffigan, who can tell hilarious jokes without using colorful language,” Hill said. “It’s amazing. I’d like to think my intelligence would be a little higher, but I guess it is what it is.”
Hill cracked his trademark laugh when he said this, a humorous way of acknowledging that there’s no way of stopping now. The process for Hill has produced an incredible tale of longevity. More impressive, Hill’s focus has hardly faltered. As Bednar heard, it has only heightened.
“Everybody likes to use a scale of one-to-10, but what if you could go to 11 or 12?” Hill wondered aloud. “Push it as much as you can, see how far you can take your ability. That’s something I almost lost in this game: the ability to be in a major league locker room.
“I think it’s important to understand how pertinent your effort is. If you start becoming complacent because of your results or success, your preparation fails.”
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: March 1, 2023, 12:24 p.m.
