Shelton reunites with an old friend
Both learned from long ago incident of mound madness
BRADENTON, Fla. — While the Pirates have not played their first spring training game, manager Derek Shelton has already had a heated exchange with someone on his coaching staff.
Granted, this one happened nearly 19 years ago, when he was managing the Staten Island Yankees of the New York-Penn League (Class A Short Season) and bullpen coach Justin Meccage was one of his pitchers.
Meccage, by his own admission, was a bit of a hot head and one day blew up when Shelton walked to the mound, grabbed the ball and took him out of a game. The verbal tirade continued into the dugout, where Meccage took out his frustration on the water cooler before Shelton finally kicked Meccage out of the dugout, sending him back to the clubhouse.
“I was a very emotional player and ultra-competitive,” Meccage recalled the other day, laughing. “Sometimes, I let my emotions get the best of me. Sheltie handled that and helped me get through some of that stuff.”
Asked later about that interaction, Shelton tried to cover for Meccage by saying he, too, was probably overly emotional. That was Shelton’s third year managing in pro ball, his first in the New York-Penn League, and it would be his last time in that seat until the Pirates hired him this offseason.
“Meccage was intense, and definitely in a good way,” Shelton said. “He wanted to compete. He wanted to do well. I think at that time he was a little younger and a little more emotional.
“I was younger and probably more emotional, too. Probably more than I should have been, a young manager learning how to deal with players. I think any time you have fire — and he definitely had fire — it makes for a very competitive and good person.”
It certainly made for a good team. Shelton’s club went 48-26 and finished as league champs. The Yankees’ run differential was plus-82 (322-240), while notable names on that team included Robinson Cano and Chien-Ming Wang.
Meccage was 2-2 with a 3.11 ERA in 19 games, including three starts. He worked 46⅓ innings with 45 strikeouts against 19 walks.
“We had an unbelievable team,” Meccage recalled. “It may have been one of the better teams ever in the Penn League. I was a very marginal pitcher, but we ended up winning it all and having a really good experience.”
Meccage initially thought Melky Cabrera played on that team, but he didn’t arrive there until the following year, in 2003.
It was the first of two pro seasons for Meccage, who was drafted in the 32nd round in 2002 out of Oklahoma State. He would pitch the next year in the indepedent Frontier League, for a team named the Cook County Cheetahs (now the Windy City ThunderBolts) before starting his coaching career.
Shelton said a couple of years ago, actually in Bradenton, Fla., Meccage approached him before a game. Instantly, Shelton recalled the story of kicking Meccage out of the dugout, then they laughed. It also made Shelton feel old.
“It was kind of surreal for me because you always think of the guys you’ve coached as being younger guys,” Shelton said.
“Now he’s a major league coach.”
It’s actually one of two connections like that on Shelton’s staff. When Shelton was a player, one of his managers was Glenn Sherlock, whom the Pirates hired this season to focus on catchers and run prevention.
“It’s kind of a full-circle kind of thing,” Shelton said.
These days, Meccage has no problem keeping his temper. He’s become a valuable asset to the Pirates, before as an assistant pitching coach and now taking on a new role in the bullpen, where he said he’s excited to focus on eight guys instead of the entire staff, learning everything he can about them.
“How every one of those guys operates, both from a mental capacity, then moving on to a physical capacity, then a personal capacity,” Meccage explained. “Really digging into those relationships and finding that stuff out, helping each guy get a little bit better every day.”
The same as Shelton did for him when he showed Meccage a little tough love and ultimately some discipline for showing up his manager, something you simply do not do.
“I used to always get really upset when I got taken out of games,” Meccage said. “In college, you just pitched until you didn’t pitch well. In pro ball, it’s more about matchups and different things.
“That’s something that I’ve held onto over the years — controlling my emotions. [Shelton] helped me through that process by bringing me in and explaining, ‘That’s a selfish act. We took you out of the game for a specific reason, because it was in the best interest of the team. Maybe not in the best interest of you, but in the best interest of the team.’
“I still appreciate him doing that.”