Long’s action movie suddenly in rewrite
A chance with Giants makes real life more interesting
TEMPE, Ariz. — In some respects, Sam Long is your typical quirky lefthanded reliever. Case in point: His asyet unwritten screenplay, in which he rides around Sacramento on his electric bike, saving the city as an ecofriendly superhero.
He’d like James Cameron, of “Titanic” fame, to direct.
“It’s written by me, directed by Cameron, I’m going to try to get him,” Long said. “It’s basically a tour of Sacramento, an action film and I’m starring in it. It starts with me jumping off one of the tallest buildings in Sacramento, BASE jumping in and then hopping on my electric bike. From there, there’s gonna be some cool stuff on the way to the bridge, probably with the villains, like an army, involved.”
But wait, there’s more: Long dives or bungee jumps into the river, rappelling into the River Cats’ field, interacting with mascot Dinger and other high jinks.
“I haven’t put pen to paper,” said Long, who conceived the idea during the minorleague shutdown. “This is all in the brain. My brothers and I grew up remaking movies, like ‘Rambo,’ ‘Forrest Gump,’ with a little
camcorder.”
When not saving Sacramento, Long, 25, would like to be saving games for the Giants, or at least pitching out of their bullpen. He’s having an impressive spring, but remains a long shot to break camp with the team, largely because he’s a nonroster player and the team has a fleet of lefthanded relievers vying for spots.
Here’s where Long bucks the norm, because he was out of the game entirely three years ago, let go by the Rays after two lowlevel minorleague seasons.
“Being released by them left the question what was next. At that time, I just didn’t feel like baseball was it,” Long said. “Moving on from baseball was a little tricky; that was the first time in my life that I’ve ever really had had nothing to think about, baseball being taken away was sort of growing up . ... Once it went away, it was like, wow, I have a lot of time now.”
Long’s uncle is a firefighter in South Lake Tahoe, so Long began taking classes to be an EMT, with the ultimate goal of joining a firehouse and helping Sacramentans for real. But, he said, he couldn’t entirely shake baseball and when he began working out at the Optimum Athletes facility, everything changed. A back injury had limited Long’s effectiveness, but physical therapy and hard work addressed that problem. His velocity shot up.
“Sam was starting to do firefighter training or whatnot when he came in the gym one day looking for a place to throw, and he opened all of our eyes — he was hitting 9293 mph first day, in an indoor facility,” said coowner and former bigleague pitcher Ryan Mattheus. “We were like, Whoa, what’s going on here?’ ”
Evan Hauger, a physical therapist, began working with Long in earnest. “Sam is a tremendous athlete, but his problem wasn’t his effort — he just wasn’t healthy, he had a pretty severe herniation in his back,” Hauger said. “He basically couldn’t touch his toes. Once we got him out of pain and mobility restrictions, we were able to load a really fun strength program for him to build his way back up.”
That EMT student who couldn’t touch his toes went from 170175 to 200 pounds, deadlifts 450 pounds and, after some mechanical adjustments to get him throwing back over the top instead of sidearm, has a fastball that clocks in the upper 90s.
“He’s drastically different,” Hauger said. “He’s transformed himself.”
“He’s becoming a majorleague type player,” Mattheus said. “These guys are big and strong — and he’s that type of guy now.”
The Giants took notice after Long signed with the White Sox two years ago and while 10 teams pursued him this offseason, the Giants “were pretty adamant,” Long said.
He’s throwing hard in camp and wielding a classic lefty 12to6 curveball a la Barry Zito along with a good changeup and a slider. He’s worked 21⁄3 scoreless innings, allowing two hits, striking out four and walking zero with one save; his next outing is scheduled for Friday against the Rockies.
Manager Gabe Kapler mentioned that the team is stretching Long out, and that he’s been “lighting up” the radar gun along with throwing his three primary pitches for strikes. The team would like to see even more of his changeup.
“Really encouraging,” Kapler said.
If Long doesn’t make the roster to open the season, he’ll be a nice option if there’s a need. If not, he’d be at TripleA Sacramento, riding his electric bike to the ballpark, maybe with some derringdo en route.
“He’s just kind of just out there like that in a good way, a funny way,” Mattheus said. “Like that comicbook type story.
“I don’t know if he’s going to do his own stunts, but probably — that sounds exactly like Sam.”