A. Bartlett Giamatti obviously wasn't referring to Matt Harvey when he wrote that baseball breaks your heart and is designed to break your heart. Giamatti wrote those words 12 years before the New York Mets pitcher was even born.
But the former commissioner of baseball may as well have had Harvey in mind. It certainly feels that way, in light of the news that the 24-year-old right-hander suffered a partial tear of the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his right elbow and will almost certainly miss the rest of the 2013 season.
Harvey and the Mets are holding out hope that the injury will heal through rest and rehabilitation, rather than surgery. Building up the muscles around the ligament tear could conceivably strengthen the elbow, and that's apparently what Harvey has in mind. But the chances of avoiding Tommy John surgery seem low, based on other pitchers who have suffered a partial UCL tear.
The Dodgers' Chad Billingsley is one recent example of someone who thought he could repair his elbow with rehab and a platelet-rich plasma injection, instead of going under the knife last September. However, Billingsley underwent reconstructive elbow surgery eight months later, despite getting through spring training and actually making two starts early this season.
If (or when) Harvey has Tommy John surgery, he'll miss most if not all of the 2014 season. That puts quite a damper on whatever hopes the Mets and their fans had for next year.
One of my best baseball buddies is a big Mets fan. He wasn't expecting big things from his team this season and the Mets have lived down to those expectations, working toward a fifth consecutive fourth-place finish in the NL East.
I have to admit, it was pretty amusing every time I bumped into him and he'd go on about how much Ike Davis sucks. Attempts to console him by touting Lucas Duda didn't work very well.
But regardless of how bad the Mets looked, he got excited when talking about Harvey. "Did you see Harvey last night?" he'd say, probably a bit too loud for being indoors. But he couldn't contain himself. "Twelve strikeouts! He only gave up one hit! He's incredible!"
As with many other baseball fans, Harvey was already appointment television for me. He was someone you had to watch, whether you were a Mets fan or not. One of those nights, he was going to throw a no-hitter and you wanted to make sure you saw it.
The pitchers you seek out every time they start are the special ones. Clemens. Pedro. Halladay. Verlander. Kershaw. Strasburg. Harvey put himself in that group with his performance this year.
With 191 strikeouts, Harvey led the National League. His 2.27 ERA and 0.93 WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) rank second behind Clayton Kershaw. Opposing hitters batted .209 against Harvey, one of the five best marks among fellow NL starting pitchers.
Advanced metrics make Harvey look even better. His FIP — Fielding Independent Pitching — was 1.99. He led all MLB pitchers — Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Felix Hernandez, etc. — in Wins Above Replacement at 6.1. By virtually any and every measure available, Harvey was having an incredible season.
He's only 24 years old! This was his first full season! What more would we see from him in the future? Just what is he capable of doing during his career?
Unfortunately, we'll now probably have to wait a year before asking those questions again. It could be nearly two years before we see Harvey close to the pitcher we watched this season. That's pretty damn heartbreaking. Watching the best at their best — achieving athletic feats most of us can only dream about — is one of the things that makes sports so compelling to follow.
Of course, serious injuries are a part of every game. Star quarterbacks take a hit to the knee and are knocked out for a year. Basketball players tear their Achilles tendon. In hockey, the wear and tear of skating might result in a bad groin pull. The human body can only withstand so much when being asked to do superhuman things.
Harvey certainly isn't the only pitcher to hurt his arm badly. Plenty of hurlers end up having Tommy John surgery. Harvey's Mets teammate, Jeremy Hefner, is set to undergo the procedure, due to a partially torn medial collateral ligament.
Some of them are among the best in the game, including Stephen Strasburg and Adam Wainwright. (Those who have avoided serious arm injuries — like Kershaw and Justin Verlander — seem to be the exception these days. And let's all knock like hell on the nearest piece of wood to make sure those guys stay healthy.) But many of those who have surgery come back strong and healthy, resuming their excellence. So we shouldn't be writing Harvey's baseball eulogy, by any means.
One of the many reasons baseball has been so fun to watch over the past decade has been the renaissance of amazing pitching. Sure, chicks dig the long ball. We all enjoy seeing the titanic slugger launch balls out of the park. Miguel Cabrera is a daily highlight film, the kind of player we'll talk about for generations. But home runs and big numbers on the scoreboard are hardly the only compelling reasons to watch the game. Appreciation for pitching has grown because so many of the guys throwing the ball are now really damn good.
But there are still some truly special arms in baseball. Nothing captures the imagination of fans, reporters and analysts who follow the game more than the pitcher who can throw nearly 100 mph or make hitters look foolish with an arching curveball or biting slider. Even if a team is bad overall, an ace-level starting pitcher provides reason for hope.
Harvey was that guy for the Mets. This was his year, a season in which we watched a phenom become a star.
He started the All-Star for the NL in his home ballpark of Citi Field and pitched two scoreless innings with three strikeouts. He had a hilarious bit on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, asking fans what they thought of Matt Harvey, not knowing they were being interviewed by the man himself. He posed naked for two full-body photos in ESPN the Magazine's "Body Issue." Not just anyone gets asked to do that. He has leading-man looks, pitching in the country's most famous city, and is among the best in his sport. He might not just be a star in baseball, but one that eventually becomes famous in pop culture.
Harvey's year wasn't supposed to end like this, not with a tear in his elbow. Not at a table facing reporters, talking about his injury, rather than his latest performance on the field.
Perhaps it's fitting that we learned of Harvey's injury early in the day from reports. We didn't see him hurt himself on the field, as with Strasburg. (Although his last start — in which he gave up 13 hits versus the Tigers — was one of his worst of the season.) So we don't have the image of a fallen star in our minds. Harvey at his best is still very vivid. The hope is that he comes back soon enough to make sure those memories don't fade away.
