Glavine’s Stoic Demeanor Hides A Current Of Emotion

Tom Glavine is 12 months removed from the game of his life and within a few hours of the game for the season. Wednesday night dictated tonight. The Atlanta Braves had to hit, Greg Maddux had to be sharp and they were, so the world champs evened the National League Championship Series with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Now, the ball belongs to Glavine. For Game 7. For the pennant.

Although on familiar turf, the crafty left-hander spent Wednesday night in the dugout, his stomach churning and his heart pounding and his mood swinging wildly with every crack of the Cardinals’ bats. The penetrating lens of the TV cameras will capture little of this, save the bulge in his cheek and the rhythmic chomping on his bubble gum.

Glavine is a master at keeping secrets, especially his own. “It goes back to a lesson I learned in the minor leagues,” he says. “When you’re out there pitching, don’t show any emotion. Act like you have complete control, even when you don’t. And for some reason, I’ve had that ability, with whatever is going on in my life, whether it’s on the field or personal stuff, to set it aside and concentrate on what I’m doing.”

These past several weeks, his concentration has taken a direct hit, professional concerns eclipsed by the real thing. Life. Word of marital discord leaked. Neighborhood gossip ensued. So did spicy tidbits in the newspapers and on the airwaves. Will Tom divorce Carri? Can this marriage be saved? Is another of Atlanta’s most celebrated unions ultimately doomed?

If not the stuff of Ted and Jane - or David and Halle, for that matter - it was enough to send Glavine into a rare emotional funk, though not for long, and never for public consumption.

“Things will work out one way or another,” he allows, with a slight smile.

More pragmatist than idealist, Glavine cites temperament as his greatest asset. He is slow to anger and quick to laughter, and though among the most competitive of men, “I try never to get too excited about anything, good or bad, because I know somewhere down the road there’s going to be an evening-out process. Take this past year. The World Series was great. But the downside is that 12 months later, you’re back to reality and things aren’t so great.”

With marital strife as the backdrop, the 1991 Cy Young Award winner nonetheless completed another remarkably consistent season, with a 15-10 record, a 2.98 ERA and 191 strikeouts and, though he issued the second-most walks in his career, enhanced his celebrated changeup by revising his pitch sequences and tinkering with his curve.

But what has most impressed the Braves is not Glavine’s command of his pitches; it’s Glavine’s command of Glavine. His routine never varied. Same work on the side. Same amount of time devoted to each pitch. Same temperament, too. Most, including pitching coach Leo Mazzone, detected no hint of trouble.

“To be great,” says Mazzone, shaking his head, “you have to lock out distractions, and Tommy can do that. It’s amazing to me that he can do that, because I don’t think a lot of athletes could. But he is the strongest pitcher mentally I have ever known, and he had that ability even when he was young.”

With age comes wisdom, if not answers. Glavine, 30, confesses to an occasional lapse while seated in the dugout and acknowledges there are times he wonders if another curveball is aimed his way. A serious person by nature, marriage is more than a minor detail. Besides, there is a 2-year-old daughter to consider.

Yet when it is suggested that the matter may “humanize” him in the public’s mind, he laughs. The thought does not displease. A warm, generous person who is well-respected by his peers and long a favorite of the media, he senses his public image is less flattering.

“I think people have this perception of me as this stone-faced guy who is not very emotional,” he says, with a grin. “I have people tell me all the time, ‘Will you smile when you pitch?’ People are afraid to approach me, or think I have this attitude, and that’s the farthest thing from who I am. I feel things. I just don’t show it.”

But his concentration now? “All baseball.”