Pitcher waiting for big day

Washington.

Once Webb discovered how strange his situation seemed, he actively avoided events. He flourished at South Carolina, winning two of three trips to the College World Series, so he devised a plan: The first major pro sports game he saw live would be his major league debut.

Next week, the Pirates will pack their spring training home at LECOM Park and fly to Montreal for two exhibition games, their final tuneups before opening day April 3 in Boston. Webb, selected from the New York Yankees Dec. 8 in the Rule 5 Draft, is battling for a bullpen spot.

Webb figures Fenway Park wouldn’t be a bad ballpark for a debut.

“For that to be the first place you’ve gone to as a player, as a fan,” he said, “that would be a cool place to start.”

Rule 5 restart

On the morning of the Rule 5 draft, Webb, the Yankees’ 10th-round draft pick in 2013, was at the gym in Columbia, S.C., and glued to his phone. At 9:06 a.m., the news came across Twitter that Pittsburgh had taken Webb. He phoned his wife, Lauren, and waited for the teams to call.

The selection was relatively rare for the Pirates, their first in the major league portion of the Rule 5 draft since Gustavo Nunez in 2011. It’s a tricky transaction. As Rule 5 rules mandate, the Pirates paid the Yankees $50,000 for Webb’s rights. To keep Webb, he must remain on the Pirates’ active roster for the entire season. If they choose to drop him, they must offer him back to the Yankees for $25,000. The Yankees can take him back, decline or work out a deal so Webb can be waived.

No matter the contractual fine print, Webb was thrilled. For three years, he had been on the brink of the majors. Rule 5 regulations offered a potential path to his debut.

“It’s a second chance at a first impression,” Webb said. “You get a fresh start. [The Pirates] scouted you and obviously liked you a little bit, but they haven't formed opinions about you over the course of four years, good or bad.”

Webb played parts of three seasons for Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, posting a 3.44 ERA with 149 strikeouts in 130 ⅔ innings. Timing was not on his side. When the Yankees needed help, Webb said, he could not. Either he threw the previous day or they needed a right-hander or they took someone already on the 40man roster.

Webb had a 2.84 ERA on June 23, 2015, when a finger injury ended his season.

“It's pretty hard when you see all the moves,” Webb said. “You see the guy go into the skipper’s office, and you’re excited for him, but you’re also like, man, that would be awesome. You're excited for your buddies, but you’re discouraged that your name is not called.”

Webb has put up positive results in Pirates camp, giving up three runs and striking out seven over seven innings through Wednesday. The Pirates have a logjam of lefties in the bullpen. Perhaps Webb’s performance, plus his Rule 5 roster status, will give him an edge over veteran options.

Far from home

Like so many great accomplishments before it, Webb’s plan to delay seeing his first major sporting event until his debut carries an asterisk. An avid golfer who happens to share a name with Chevy Chase’s character in “Caddyshack,” Ty Webb, the pitcher, spent a day last March at the Valspar Championship. It’s a PGA Tour event, though not a major tournament.

“That’s a gray area,” Webb argued. “I don’t know if that counts or not.”

There have been some other close calls, too.

Webb’s mother, Kristen, was a diehard Redskins fan and sometimes tried to convince her four kids to go to a game with her. But the Redskins were so bad that they declined. Years later, Webb recalled, he was given tickets to a Redskins game and — surprise! — he accepted.

“But it was supposed to rain,” Webb said, “so I didn't go.”

The closest Webb has come to the majors was April 4, 2015. The Yankees concluded their spring training schedule with an exhibition game against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park. There Webb was, seated in the bullpen, finally in attendance at a major league stadium.

But, it was an exhibition, plus, “I didn't get in the game,” Webb said, “so it doesn't count either.”

And so for 26 years he has waited for the big day at the ballpark. It wasn’t intentional, and then it was. As a kid, Webb kept himself so busy with baseball that whenever he had free time he didn’t want to watch more sports. He wanted to hit the water, ride the waves and walk the shoreline.

It’s a way of life back home, Webb said. Nassawadox is hard to understand and hard to get to, and everything is a little slower there. Webb told this story of his first semester at South Carolina. He was “scared to death to drive in the city,” he said. When he started the sevenhour drive from Columbia to Nassawadox for Thanksgiving, Webb called his mother, panicked.

“How do I get out of the city?” he asked. “The GPS isn’t working.”

“Follow the streets signs,” his mother replied.

As he replayed the memory aloud, Webb laughed.

“I’ve come a long way,” he said.