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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – John Yandle visited a buddy in the Giants’ clubhouse, and coaches asked if he could throw some batting practice.
Sure, why not? Yandle had pitched at Stanford and reached Triple-A with the Padres, so he knew a little about throwing baseballs across the plate.
He came out the next day. And the next. And the next. The opportunity to throw to major-leaguers was a dream assignment.
That was 1985, and he’s been throwing ever since.
The left-handed Yandle is 71. This is his 42nd year tossing BP. Pretty much any Giants hitter you could think of over that span, he threw to. Managers and coaching staffs have come and gone. Same with owners and general managers. And more than 1,000 players. Yandle has stuck around, and nobody in the organization has been in uniform longer.
He has thrown hundreds of thousands of pitches, bringing new meaning to the term rubber arm. He had rotator cuff surgery in 2012, and that was the last time his arm was sore — “not a lot of muscles in this skinny little body to get sore,” said Yandle, who carries 155 pounds on his 6-foot frame.
His nickname would be The Freak if it didn’t belong to Tim Lincecum.
“I’m here to do what they want me to do,” Yandle said this week during a break from BP sessions. “I love being around the game doing what I do. I don’t want to force myself and feel like they need to throw me. If I can help, I will. I made it throughout my whole career without ever saying I can’t throw to somebody.”
The first BP came with Jim Davenport as manager. Yandle made 20 bucks a day. Then Roger Craig took over. Then Dusty Baker and Felipe Alou and Bruce Bochy and Gabe Kapler and Bob Melvin. Now Tony Vitello, who said Yandle will be utilized “a ton.”
“The reason he’s able to do this is he’s got his routine, and he takes care of himself,” Vitello said. “It’s not just that. He brings value in other areas, too. He’s been around the game a long time. He loves the Giants. There’s a unique sense of loyalty to the organization.”
Early each morning, on the main field at Scottsdale Stadium, sometimes when no one else is around, Yandle runs eight laps, which is two miles, and he does it religiously as part of an extensive workout program that allows him to throw as much BP as requested.
Naturally, Yandle formed close relationships with many people over the years, none more prominent than Barry Bonds, and pitched so often to the home-run king that people thought he was Bonds’ personal BP pitcher.
“One of the greatest times in my life with Barry trusting me like he did,” Yandle said. “I first met Barry when he saw me in the cage at Candlestick and liked that I was throwing hard. He didn’t know I could do that and asked if I could throw to him. That happened to be a day I was entertaining Bank of America out at a parking lot tailgate. I made a deal with him. ‘I’ll throw as long as you want, but afterward, you’ve got to say hi to these people.’ So I threw to him, and he was good to his word. Barry couldn’t have been nicer.”
Yandle runs two miles per day at Scottsdale Stadium during spring training. | Source: John Shea/The Standard
During the season, Yandle is often seen pregame on the mound and in the indoor cage during games, and he’ll show up on the road when the Giants face a lefty starter that day. For Bonds, it didn’t matter if the starting pitcher threw lefty or righty. He liked Yandle throwing to him regardless.
“If Barry wanted me to throw extra the next day and said, ‘Can you come tomorrow?’ … of course I’d come,” Yandle said.
In the cage, Bonds told Yandle to throw as hard as he could, 100% all out. On the field, Yandle was supposed to throw about 75% to everybody. Except at the 2007 All-Star Game that the Giants hosted. When Bonds took BP on the field with a group of fellow All-Stars, he had Yandle ramp up the velocity. It was fine for Bonds, who put on a typical monster show. But other All-Stars wanted to swing at marshmallows.
Arizona’s Orlando Hudson followed Bonds in the cage, but before he got in, he told Yandle to ease up. Hudson lined the first pitch to the opposite field and said, “That’s more my style.”
One of the most phenomenal batting practices I ever witnessed came when I happened by the indoor cage with Bonds swinging in street clothes. We made eye contact, and he basically gave me the OK to step in and watch. He absolutely crushed balls and was letting everyone around him know it, talking aloud between pitches, prompting Yandle at one point to say, “You just lack confidence. That’s your problem.”
Oh, I forget to mention this was 2019, and Bonds was 54 years old.
Today
3 days ago
Friday, Mar. 6
The hitting coaches generally decide the hitting groups and who throws to them. The Giants have several BP pitchers and now have another lefty thrower in house, bench coach Jayce Tingler. Plus plenty of machines including those that replicate every major-league pitcher’s repertoire, from velocity to release point to pitch shapes to spin rates.
But even with advanced technology, there’s nothing like a ball coming out of a human hand, especially if the human can throw any pitch to any quadrant. The velocity might not be what it once was for Yandle, but BP pitchers usually throw from about 45 feet, and he has plenty of zip and command to keep hitters happy.
“He still brings it,” Matt Chapman said. “He throws good batting practice. When we’re facing a lefty, he can be in the cage and throw mixed BP. It definitely helps out. A good guy to have around.”
Yandle, who has three World Series rings and one league championship ring, first started throwing BP at Candlestick Park, where the strong winds affected his pitches and made them cut (not on purpose), which led to his nickname: “Cutter John.” Not a good tag for a BP pitcher who’s mostly supposed to throw the ball straight so hitters can crush it, not swing through it. So he used a different grip and an overhand motion as if he were throwing a football, which straightened out his pitches and led to constant contact.
Barry Bonds relied on Yandle, left, to throw batting practice to him throughout his Giants tenure. | Source: Courtesy of John Yandle
Still, he never lost the nickname.
“That stuck for 42 years,” he said. “Candlestick would have been a great place for me to pitch if I was trying to get people out.”
That’s what Yandle did at Stanford, where he pitched well enough to get drafted in the 11th round by the Padres in 1977. He was in Triple-A by 1980, sporting a 3.52 ERA in 31 outings including four starts. But the Padres’ new GM, Jack McKeon, acquired several young new pitchers including a lefty named Dave Dravecky, and wanted to demote Yandle to Double-A.
So Yandle sought a fresh start with the Angels and pitched in Double-A, lowering his ERA and increasing his innings. When he was informed by Hall of Famer Warren Spahn, then an Angels minor-league instructor, that he wasn’t getting an invite to big-league camp the following year, he stepped away.
“My friends in college were doing well with their jobs, and I was making $3,500 a month for six months out of the year,” Yandle said. “It wasn’t easy because once you’re out, you can’t go back.”
Oh, but he did go back. After spending three years in Oregon, where he was raised, he returned to the Bay Area, became a licensed broker, and started a successful commercial real estate career. His visit to the Candlestick clubhouse during the 1985 season to see Ricky Adams, a former minor-league teammate, led to his other career as BP pitcher.
“Back then, there were no designated right-handed or left-handed BP pitchers. They didn’t get as analytical as they are today,” Yandle said. “Also they didn’t have a lot of coaches who could still throw.”
Yandle, pictured here in 2007, threw batting practice at Oracle Park before the All-Star Game. | Source: Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press
Friday, I told Will Clark, a Giants special assistant who’s in town as a guest instructor, that he doesn’t have the longest tenure in camp because he arrived a year after Yandle. Clark shared a story about one of the first times he faced Yandle at Candlestick – he squared to bunt and got drilled.
“Really, John? Can’t blame that on the wind. Not at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. It wasn’t blowing then,” said Clark, who kids with Yandle but also praises him: “He quickly became one of the guys that people wanted to face during batting practice.”
These days, Yandle makes more than 20 bucks a day from the Giants but donates what he makes after expenses to charity. He doesn’t work as often in his day job and pitches in various senior tournaments and father-son tournaments.
That is, when he’s not pitching for the Giants.