WILHELMSEN CARVED OWN PATH TO BIG LEAGUES
It has been seven years, but a good bartender can always remember how to pour a great drink. Just ask Arizona Diamondbacks relief pitcher Tom Wilhelmsen, who once gave up baseball to fall out of society, backpack across Europe, hike throughout North America’s state parks and, yes, become a bartender in his hometown of Tucson.
“It was a blast,” the 33-year-old right-hander said.
The most popular drink at The Hut, a popular Tiki bar near the University of Arizona campus where Wilhelmsen worked, has always been something called the Fat Man. The 60-ounce concoction is named after the first atomic bomb, and it’s not just because the bar sits in a former metal fabrication plant that used to make bomb casings during World War II.
“You start with 4 ounces of liquor,” Wilhelmsen began, recalling how to make the cocktail. “Coconut rum, pineapple rum, Midori and another flavored rum. Then you add pineapple juice, soda water and some grenadine with a pineapple, cherry or orange slice to boot, an umbrella hat and a smile.
“Oh yeah, and it’s served in a fishbowl. You know, like something you’d get at a pet store if you bought one of those Japanese fighting fish.”
Yes, this is a sports story. But it’s also a story about life. It’s about trials and tribulations, self-deprecation and self-discovery. It’s also about freedom and personal choice, and that was Tom Wilhelmsen in a nutshell not long after he signed with the Milwaukee Brewers as a seventh-round pick out of Tucson High in 2002.
After his first year in the lower minor leagues, he tested positive twice for marijuana and was suspended for the 2004 season. He spent time in a treatment facility. But when he returned for spring training in 2005, Wilhelmsen decided baseball was no longer for him. So he quit.
“That’s what everyone has to do, right? So yeah, I knew what I needed to do,” Wilhelmsen said. “That’s why I left. I knew I didn’t want to do this anymore, so I stepped away and did what I want- ed to do. It’s not worth doing something, especially like this, if you’re not going to do it 100%.”
There was nothing nefarious about Wilhelmsen’s decision to walk away.
He was young and spirited, but he was also wise beyond his years when it came to recognizing the brevity of one’s short time on earth.
“I did it because I wanted to do it. I wasn’t searching for anything,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to find myself. I had a pretty good idea of who I was, obviously, because that’s why I quit. Because I knew I wasn’t in the mood to play baseball anymore. So I did it because it’s what I wanted to do. Those were my interests at the time. I was just fulfilling my own dreams.
“I wanted to travel. I wanted to hike. I wanted to get lost in the woods.”
He did it all during his five-year hiatus, from spending Oktoberfest in Germany and getting robbed in an Amsterdam hostel to admiring Michelangelo’s David in Italy and hiking alone at Yosemite National Park in Northern California where he “ran into mama bear.”
“It was actually baby bear, and that turned into mama bear,” Wilhelmsen said, laughing as he recalled the moment inside the Diamondbacks clubhouse at Salt River Fields, where he is here as a non-roster spring training invitee. “I had the camera in one hand and a knife in the other, just in case. Luckily, they took off after a little stare-down.”
Luckily, too, Wilhelmsen reconnected with his high school girlfriend, Cassie, who helped him quit smoking cigarettes and pot. He started training again in 2009 and, after marrying Cassie, he tried out and signed with an independent league team.
A year later, he caught the eye of then-Seattle Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik, who had been Milwaukee’s scouting director when Wilhelmsen was with the Brewers.
By 2011, Wilhelmsen found himself pitching in the major leagues, and he has been there ever since, completing one of the more peculiar and adventurous journeys you’ll see in sports.
“It’s a great story. It’s a pretty special story,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. “I know his journey has taken him to a lot of different places, and we’re just thrilled to have him here right now. … When you hear a story that’s one of perseverance and commitment and recommitment, he’s easy to cheer for. Those guys, there’s something a little more special when they do well. You enjoy that, and you enjoy those moments with them.”
Wilhelmsen stands a decent chance to break camp with the Diamondbacks. The 6-6 reliever features a four-seam fastball that still reaches speeds of 95 to 98 mph, and he throws a curveball that often buckles a batter’s knees.
After being released last season by the Mariners, for whom he once was part of a six-pitcher no-hitter in 2012, Wilhelmsen said Arizona was his preferred destination. He wanted to come home.
“It feels pretty special to potentially wear Arizona on my chest,” he said. “Obviously, growing up here, the Diamondbacks were my favorite team. I remember them winning the World Series, and I had the flag on my truck going to school. To be able to be in this locker room and walk through the hallways and see pictures of the teams I remember from the past is really, really special. I couldn’t be more proud.”
Neither could Douglas “Fini” Finical, a former co-operator of The Hut in Tucson who now runs Fini’s Landing on the other side of town.
“He is the salt of the earth,” Finical said of Wilhelmsen in a 2011 interview with ESPN. “What you see is what you get. He’s a gregarious guy, very open. There’s sort of a displaced hippie in him. He loves the Grateful Dead. I see him as a guy who would be just as happy in 1968. One of those people who is completely genuine. Just completely original and genuine.”
Wilhelmsen could talk to you all day about strike zones, release points and hitter’s tendencies, but he’d rather discuss politics, music and food and brag about his vast collection of tie-dyed T-shirts.
Maybe Finical was right: This guy actually does belong in 1968.
“I don’t know. Maybe I was born in the right era to kind of remind other folks that it’s OK to be free. It’s OK to have your own will,” Wilhelmsen said. “In this day and age, there’s however many of us, and I’m proud to be who I am and to share my history with folks.”
If you run into Wilhelmsen around town, feel free to call him by his nickname, “The Bartender.” That’s what all of his teammates have called him since he left The Hut in Tucson and made his comeback to baseball.
“I’ve been called a lot worse,” Wilhelmsen says, “so ‘The Bartender’ is totally cool with me. I don’t mind it at all. It’s flattering that you can have a nickname, I guess.”