Professor Varitek aces his exams

October 13 , 2007 | New Hampshire Union Leader | By Alex Speier

 

BOSTON – For many Red Sox players, the four-day layoff between the last game of their Division Series sweep and the first game of the American League Championship Series seemed interminable. For Jason Varitek, it represented an opportunity.


In the days leading up to last night's Game 1 against Cleveland, the same sight was repeated on a daily basis. When the clubhouse opened to the media each morning at 10:30, the Sox catcher and captain was planted in front of his locker, rifling through a binder containing the scouting report on the Indians.


Varitek attacked the pages with a highlighter, identifying any tendencies that might give him an edge against his competition. Even amidst the chaos of the media scrum, the player's focus remained total. There was no need -- or even desire -- to relocate to quieter environs.


"I got (to Fenway) early. I didn't think (members of the media) would be there," Varitek shrugged. "I was already into it knee-deep."


Such efforts, of course, are typical of the catcher. They represent the object of both amazement and fascination to his teammates.


"He takes what he does like a professor who's doing research," observed Don Kalkstein, the Sox' director of performance enhancement. "He's constantly thinking about it. He's playing out scenarios. He's taking it home with himself. He studies. It never stops. It's an insatiable quest to have an answer and know the answer at will.


"He's got several Ph.D.s in baseball," continued Kalkstein, who counsels players on the mental side of the game. "I would be curious to see if he attacked school the way he attacks baseball."


The rationale is clear. In the Sox clubhouse, Varitek plays the part of the world's most disciplined student. It turns out that his academic career -- which culminated in a degree in four years from Georgia Tech -- followed a similar course.


"He wasn't gifted with a Nobel Laureate-type mind. But he works very hard at it," Varitek's college teammate and roommate Al Gogolin said in a phone interview. "Everything that he achieved at Tech was a product of working hard, which goes in line with what you see at the big-league level."


The college level does not feature the same extensive scouting reports that Varitek now absorbs. Instead, Varitek's baseball intellect became evident in his ability to make in-game or in-series adjustments.


His college teammates never saw what he might do with reams of data about opponents. All the same, the image of the catcher in a state of complete concentration while game planning rings familiar to his contemporaries at Georgia Tech.


"I've seen those cut shots of him in a locker room, going through a notebook. That's kind of what it looked like (in college)," said Gogolin, who spent a few years in the minors before pursuing a career in engineering and business development. "He had his nose buried in the book with the highlighter and the pen. He took notes. He was fastidious about that."


Varitek's commitment to classwork was more than matched by his work on the diamond, where his work ethic was exceptional. The switch hitter would insist on showing up an hour early at practice so that he could take full rounds of batting practice from both the right and left sides of the plate.


That approach drove Varitek's teammates to work harder, in a rather literal sense.


"The ironic thing was, of the buddies we hung out with, Jason was the only one who had a car. So if we wanted a ride to field, instead of walking we had to get a ride with him," said Gogolin. "We were all better because he made us get there early -- not because we were as driven as he was, but because we didn't want to walk."


Now, of course, Varitek receives enormous credit for being the force that drives the Red Sox. And rightly so.


Boston pitchers recorded a 1.33 ERA in the Division Series while holding the Angels to a .192 team average. The performance reflected, in no small part, on the execution of the pitchers and the depletion of the Los Angeles lineup. Yet the catcher's role should not be underrated, particularly after starter Curt Schilling credited his batterymate with "flawless" game calling in the series-clinching victory.


Similar lauds were the norm in the 2004 postseason. It seems likely that the rest-filled structure of the playoffs can only help to give Varitek, heralded as one of the game's foremost tacticians, an additional edge.


"I would imagine it's a little bit easier when you're getting ready to play one team, potentially seven straight times, as far as preparation goes," said Schilling. "(Varitek) is ready. I know we talked a lot today, or the past couple days, about what we want to go out and do in getting ready.


"(The Indians) are going to have to be pitched to exceptionally well for us to beat them in this series, and I think we understand that challenge."


It would be a surprise if that was not the case. The Ph.D. of Pitch Calling, after all, has taken his latest assignment very seriously.