MSL to MLB: Schmack Played Big Part in Baseball History 20 Years Ago
Rolling Meadows, Northern Illinois Product Persevered for Memorable Big-League Stint as Relief Pitcher with Detroit Tigers
Brian Schmack had a long and winding journey to what appeared to be a small place in Major League Baseball history on Sept. 27, 2003.
Grit and perseverance got Schmack to the Detroit Tigers as he took the mound for his 11th big-league appearance on this Saturday night at Comerica Park. From a Mid-Suburban League championship team at Rolling Meadows High School. To Arlington’s American Legion national runnerup. To a re-starting Northern Illinois University program. And then to eight minor league stops in nine years.
The guy who wasn’t even pegged as a regular high-school starter as a senior. He was never drafted. Started his pro career in independent ball and then got a shot in the White Sox organization out of a tryout camp. The odds were stacked against him as he closed in on 30 years of age when he finally saw his dreams come true in late August of that 2003 season.
“I’ve always said they would have to take the jersey away from me,” Schmack said when we talked shortly after he made his big-league debut.
Schmack was wearing No. 53 when he came in with the Tigers trailing the Minnesota Twins 8-1 after five innings. The Twins had wrapped up the AL Central title days earlier and were tuning up for the postseason. But there was oddly a lot at stake for the Tigers. They were four innings from matching the modern record of 120 losses in a season by the 1962 New York Mets, the gold standard for baseball futility, and it would put them in position to set the standard in Sunday’s regular-season finale.
Schmack proceeded to put up three zeroes. He gave the inspired Tigers a chance to rally and tie the game. He didn’t get the win but the Tigers did in the bottom of the ninth. They won again the next day, too, to take 5 of their last 6 and finish the season 43-119. Schmack went 1-0 with a 3.46 ERA in 13 innings in the 11 games of his dream month.
“The last week was so exciting,” Schmack said for a 2006 story we did on the Tigers’ resurgence that took them to the World Series. “I’ve told the story that we saw a reporter from The Wall Street Journal in the clubhouse and I said, ‘What the heck is The Wall Street Journal doing in there?’ We almost played spoiler to their stories, which was really exciting.”
It was all part of a remarkable story for Schmack, who finished his pro career in 2004, went to Valparaiso as an assistant coach in 2006 and just finished his 10th season there as head coach.
Schmack wasn’t on any pro radar guns at Rolling Meadows as he missed most of his junior year with a hand injury but he had a key 2-inning relief stint in a sectional semifinal victory. His teammates included future high school coaches like Terry Beyna (Elk Grove and St. Viator), Don Spaniak (Elk Grove, Arizona), Jerry Song (Conant), Scott Klipowicz (New Trier), Tom Kuhn (Mundelein) and Scott Otahal (Meadows football). Catcher Ryan Giusti’s older brother Ross has won 500-plus games at Prospect and Ross’ son Connor just transferred to play for Schmack at Valpo after four years at Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
In 1991, Meadows coach Larry Tanaka decided to give Schmack his first start nearly a third of the way into the season. Schmack beat Wheeling 5-2 and retired 11 of the last 13 hitters.
“Coach told me at seventh hour today,” Schmack told the Daily Herald’s Marty Stengle. “I was a little nervous but I didn’t do anything different. The wind made my curveball bite quite a bit. I finally figured out where to throw it. I rely on Ryan Giusti and throw whatever he calls.”
It kept working as Schmack kept winning and at one point told Stengle, “it (pitching) is getting to be fun.” Tanaka told Stengle that Schmack reminded him of Ed Stryker, who he coached at Prospect and spent three years pitching in the Dodgers’ organization.
“Brian is going to be a good prospect for somebody,” said Tanaka, who sadly didn’t get to see the ultimate payoff as he passed away in January 2003 at 52 after battling kidney problems.
Schmack earned all-conference honors as Meadows won the MSL crown. He got a scholarship to pitch at Northern Illinois, which had just restarted its program in 1991 after an eight-year hiatus, and came back after his freshman year to play an integral role in Arlington’s second-place finish in the 1992 American Legion World Series for legendary coach Lloyd Meyer.
His NIU career had more downs than ups with a 12-21 record, but he got plenty of opportunities to continue developing and still ranks in the program’s top 10 for career appearances, starts, innings and complete games. From there he went to Newark in the Frontier League and didn’t exactly make a big splash with a 2-1 record and a 5.34 ERA in 7 games. But the next spring, Schmack and Beyna drove to Florida for some major-league tryout camps. At the White Sox camp, former big-league pitcher Dewey Robinson, then the minor-league pitching coordinator, was impressed enough to give Schmack a contract.
“It’s not like I wowed them,” Schmack told the Herald’s Joe Bush in June 1998. His fastball at NIU topped out at 87 but he was succeeding with a slider and splitter he learned from Meyer. Schmack said his dream of a big-league career had “gotten stronger” because of his unconventional road to the pros.
His first year at Triple-A with the White Sox affiliate in Charlotte in 2000 was a success as he went 11-7 with a 2.78 ERA in 51 games. Then he was part of an offseason trade to the Texas Rangers for shortstop Royce Clayton and struggled in two seasons in their system before he signed with the Tigers as a free agent.
An assignment to Class AA Erie (Pennsylvania) didn’t seem to be an encouraging sign for his big-league dreams. He and his wife Cari had a 2-year-old son Kyle, who is now one of the stars for his dad’s Valpo team. Fortunately he still had a lot of support that included his parents Bob and Mary.
“When you’ve got a family and bills start piling up at some point you’ve got to make decisions,” Schmack said in 2003. “The last couple of years with Texas, I didn’t have the greatest years and I said, ‘What am I going to do?’ or ‘What should I do?’ But you have to go out and as long as you have a jersey on anything can happen.”
Schmack became the best closer in the Eastern League and was an all-star with 29 saves and a 2.05 ERA. Pitching coach Britt Burns, who pitched for the White Sox from 1978-85, was instrumental in Schmack’s turnaround. Then came the ultimate call to the bullpen during one of Erie’s final regular-season games in Portland, Maine, and the message from his manager, Kevin Bradshaw.
“He said, ‘Hey get out of here, you’re going to Detroit,’” Schmack said. “I said, ‘Come on, don’t play around with me.’
“I was floored. I kind of started shaking a bit and I was so happy I was smiling ear-to-ear. Everything after that was kind of a blur. I couldn’t wait to get inside and get on the phone.”
His parents were at a wedding in Chicago when they got the news. Schmack flew out of Portland on Sunday morning and that afternoon in Detroit threw a scoreless inning against the defending World Series champion Anaheim Angels in front of a good-sized gathering of family and friends.
“It was awesome,” Schmack said. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
Schmack got his win with 1⅓ innings of scoreless relief against Cleveland on Sept. 2. His only one rough outing, where he gave up 4 of the 5 earned runs he allowed, was still an opportunity to pitch against the New York Yankees in the House that Ruth Built. And he got a strikeout with his final big-league pitch on that memorable night exactly 20 years ago.
It wasn’t a long time in the big leagues for Brian Schmack. But there were plenty of memories to last a lifetime.
Always loved stories like his.