Reliever Puts Positive Spin On More Than Baseball

When 30,000 fans at Fenway Park would boo Heathcliff Slocumb, here’s what he’d think:

“They really want me to do well. They’re booing me because they’re not too happy. C’mon, Slocumb, turn it up a notch.”

In that way, Slocumb says, “I turned that negative into something positive.”

Such an attitude comes easily for Slocumb, the Mariners’ latest relief hope, who five years ago was dealt a negative of such monumental proportion that it makes a blown save seem about as troublesome as a paper cut.

His wife, Deborah, died of cancer in November 1992 at the age of 27, leaving Slocumb with two young girls to raise.

That the girls - Jessica, now 10, and Heather, 6 - are growing up to be happy and healthy is a triumph that dwarfs, say, the ninth-inning strikeout in Milwaukee on Sunday that brought Slocumb his first save with the Mariners.

Like their daddy, the girls still cope daily with their tragedy. Like Daddy, they have good days and bad days.

“It’s a big, old wound,” Slocumb said softly. “That’s like someone cutting you and you’ve got a thousand-stitch gash on you. It’s going to take some time to heal. But it will heal.”

During the baseball season, the girls live with Debbie’s mother, Verda Cross, fulfilling a promise Cross made to her daughter on her deathbed. They had been living in Queens, N.Y., near where Slocumb grew up, but recently moved into a new home Slocumb had built in Florida.

In a 1995 interview, Cross described Heathcliff (who was named Heath by his mother but redubbed Heathcliff by teasing friends as a youth in Queens) as “a loving father. He’s a softy.”

Slocumb sees his girls when he can during the season, often flying to Florida on days off. It won’t be as easy commuting from Seattle to Florida, but Slocumb hopes to bring the girls West at some point.

“The kids are doing real good,” he said. “They’ve adjusted. They still miss their mom. We don’t hide anything. There’s pictures all over the house. The little one wants to wear high-heeled shoes because that’s what she remembers about her mom. The other wants to wear jeans because that’s what she remembers.

“Whatever emotions come out, we talk about everything. Sometimes, in the off-season, we’ll be together, and they get a little sad. I can tell that look now. You talk about it, and it makes them feel a lot better.”

The Slocumbs are dealing with another change. For six months, Heathcliff has been in a relationship with a woman.

“I threw myself into work so much and into raising the girls so much, I neglected everything else,” he said. “You get to where you’re so used to having that companionship, and then you got used to not having it.

“It’s different. You’re learning all over again. I’ve grown, too. There’s a lot that came out of a successful marriage. I know not to make certain mistakes again.”

After his wife’s death, and that of his father five months earlier, Slocumb relied on his religious faith (his mother was a pastor in a Pentecostal church) and his responsibility as a parent to sustain him.

That, and he threw himself fullbore into baseball. Strong-armed but inconsistent, Slocumb meandered through the Chicago Cub and Cleveland organizations before landing in Philadelphia, where his breakthrough came.

After a solid year as a setup man in 1994, Slocumb’s big break came in 1995. Coincidentally, the opening that year in Philadelphia came as it did this year in Seattle. Norm Charlton, expected to be the Phillies’ closer, faltered early. Slocumb fell into the short-relief job and had 20 saves in the first half, making the All-Star team.

He wound up with 32 saves but was traded to Boston in a move widely believed to be financially motivated. The trade allowed the Phillies to give their closing job to minimum-salary rookie Ricky Bottalico - nearly traded to the Mariners on Thursday, the same day as Slocumb.

Slocumb had mixed results in Boston. He had 31 saves last year and 17 this season at the time of the trade, but his high-profile failures made him the favored target of Fenway Park fans.

Slocumb learned to cope with booing the way he learned to cope with Deborah’s death - by finding the positive lurking within adversity.

“You know, things happen for a reason,” he said. “I got through it by having a strong faith in God, praying a lot. It gives you more of a sense of peace, like, ‘OK, that was then. She left you with two beautiful kids to raise. It’s time to move on.’

“It helped me become a better parent, going through the loss. I’ve been spiritually uplifted.”

When times get particularly tough on the baseball field, Slocumb will take a deep breath on the mound and look at his glove.

Etched into the back are the initials D.S.

Debbie Slocumb.