Making his presence felt

Ryan Doumit becomes a vital part of the Pirates scene

The following article is reprinted from the Pirates Insider Magazine, July 2008 with permission of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The article belongs to the Pittsburgh Pirates, but is reprinted here for the many Ryan Doumit fans that aren't in traveling distance of PNC Park to get a copy of this magazine.

By Jim Lachimia

Faith and Peter Doumit were in the stands at PNC Park on June 24 when the youngest of their four children - Pirates Catcher Ryan Doumit - gave them a thrill they will never forget.

In front of a sellout crowd of 38,867 fans that seemed locked into every pitch, the Doumits' baby boy started behind the plate and went 3-for-5 with a double, a home run, two RBI and two runs scored in Pittsburgh's storybook 12-5 victory in the opening game of a longanticipated series against the New York Yankees that had the town all abuzz.

The following afternoon, Peter Doumit - who was Ryan's coach all the way through high school out of the state of Washington - eloquenty framed what witnessing that raucous scene and his son's performance meant to the family.

"It was a defining moment as far as a lot of dreams, hard work and prayers and so forth," he said. "When I was growing up, I was a Yankees fan. The 1960 World Series, I was 10 years old, but I was a Yankees fan. I had kind of a soft spot for the Pirates too, but I was a diehard Yankees fan at that point. To fast forward to now, with my son catching against the Yankees on a beautiful night with a full crowd and so forth, that was a moment my wife and I will cherish for a lifetime."

Then in a gesture that speaks volumes about his family's values, Peter Doumit made it clear that this was about more than just Ryan's skills as a baseball player or his major role in one particular game - as fantastic as it was.

"The thing that we've been the most proud of is the number of people who have commented about the type of person that Ryan is," he said. "The fact that he's a major league ballplayer and a good player is a wonderful thing, but all parents would rather hear about, 'Hey, your kid was raised well. He's very polite. He treats people the way they should be treated. He's compassionate. He's a good guy.' That happened yesterday too. So that was part of the whole experience that we had yesterday. It was a very humbling experience and definitely a day that we'll remember the rest of our lives."

When Ryan was asked what his parents said to him immediately after that June 24 contest, he said: "The same thing they would have said if I was 0-for4 with four strikeouts, 'That was fun. We're proud of you.' Typically in the past, I haven't had my best games when my parents were in town. Maybe I was putting extra pressure on myself. So it was nice to have a big one in front of them, and doing it against the Yankees in that fashion was pretty special."

Presented with the opportunity for a fresh start with a new general manager and manager on board, the 27-year-old switch-hitter asserted himself like never before and forced his way into the Pirates line-up this year. Through June 29, he was batting .346 with 10 homers and 25 RBI in 44 games, despite missing time with a fractured thumb and a mild concussion.

Doumit's end-of-the-season meeting with General Manager Neal Huntington last year got the process rolling. After he hit .274 with 9 homers and 32 RBI in 83 games for Pittsburgh in 2007, starting more games in right field (33) than behind the plate (28), Huntington delivered a fairly blunt message to him.

"Ryan's body needed to be reconfigured," Huntington said. "He had become bulky and non-athletic and that wasn't going to work whether it was catching, first base or the outfield. The body just wasn't going to work. He had become too thick. I talked to him about becoming more athletic and giving himself a chance to play any one of those three positions successfully, and that as we went through the off-season we would make a determination on his future."

So how did Doumit respond to that frank assessment of his situation with the ballclub? Did he take it in the spirit in which it was intended? Did he take his conditioning to a whole new level?

"Absolutely I did," Doumit said. "I was about 20 pounds overweight, and this was back when we were talking about me in the outfield. I was like, ' I need to ditch this catcher's body and get a little more svelte so I can run down some of these balls.'

"I worked out five times a week. You know, I dieted. I really watched what I ate. I laid off off-season food. I laid off fast food, the burgers. I ate a lot of chicken and a lot of salads. It was hard at first, but once I got into it and once I started seeing the results, I was hooked from there."

By the time the Pirates mini-camp in Bradenton, FL rolled around in early January, Doumit had reconfigured his body and the fact didn't go unnoticed by Huntington or new skipper John Russell.

"Ryan came into mini-camp with a much different body," Huntington commented. "He had become more athletic. He kept his strength, but he'd become more athletic. We spent some time trying to acquire a catcher to either supplement or back up Ronny Paulino (including Johnny Estrada, who eventually signed with Washington). We weren't able to acquire maybe a more established major league veteran, but knowing that we had Ryan Doumit there allowed us not to stretch and not to overextend.

"Because we held the line on some players we didn't acquire and saw what Ryan had done with himself in mini-camp, it gave a much stronger comfort level that he was ready to be more than just a 30-game catcher. Toward spring training, the realization was there was enough bat and enough upside with Ryan as a catcher that we wanted to give it everything we had to see if it could work. He came on like gangbusters and really out prepared and outperformed Ronny Paulino."

With his impressive showing at spring training camp, the leaner and meaner Doumit did indeed wrestle the number one catcher's spot away from Paulino, who started 117 games behind the plate in 2006 and 119 more in 2007. Huntington and Russell consider Doumit a work in progress who needs to continue to develop, working on things like receiving the ball softer, framing borderline pitches to get more called strikes, blocking balls in the dirt, game planning and game calling.

Nonetheless, Doumit is thrilled to be back behind the plate on a regular basis. He considers it returning to his roots.

"Now that I'm back catching again, it's so much easier to focus on one thing instead of getting to the field and saying 'Where am I going to play today? Do I need to take ground balls? Do I need to take fly balls? It's really hard to become good at something when you're not doing it every day.

"Being able to play those other positions helped get me in the line-up the past couple of years. But I'm a catcher. I've always been a catcher. I was a catcher in high school. I was a catcher in the minor leagues. So it feels good to be able to focus on that again."

Just as the sons of basketball coaches are often point guards, the sons of baseball coaches often wind up as catchers. Hower, Doumit said the fact that he became a catcher had nothing to do with his father.

"I was at a baseball camp when I was like six years old and I thought the gear looked cool," he said. "I was like, 'Wow, look at those guys wearing that cool gear. I want to wear that.' After the first time I put it on, I was hooked ever since."

Even though Doumit's work behind the plate is improving, the big bat of his has always received more attention and has always been the reason his future as a major league player was considerably bright. Less than a week after he returned from his fractured thumb, he went 9-for-11 with four homers, seven RBI and five runs scored during a three-game series against the Nationals at PNC Park (June 10-12). Doumit had 12 total bases in the opening game of that series on the strength of two doubles and two balls that left the yard. It's the potential for that type of output that has him in the clean-up spot of the Pirates batting order most of the time.

"You sit out for awhile, your timing gets off," Russell said. "You don't know how long it might take to get your rhythm back, but Ryan got it back pretty quick. He's worked really hard with Donnie (Hitting Coach Don Long) since spring training on getting himself in a good position to hit. He puts himself in a pretty good position to see the ball and it doesn't take him as long to get back his timing as it might if he was overaggressive, or had too big of a swing. He really simplified his swing."

"Ryan's a legitimate threat when he walks into the batter's box, and he's not just a one-dimensional threat where he might hit the ball out," Huntington said. "Ryan's given us very professional at bats. He's worked counts. He's made pitchers throw strikes as a result he's getting good pitches to hit. That's all you can ask from a hitter."

When you watch Doumit swing a bat, it's hard to believe there were two players on his Moses Lake (WA) High School team that were considered better prospects than him. But it's true. One was oufielder Jason Cooper, who was drafted by Cleveland in the third round in 2002 after playing collegiately for Stanford. He's been with the Indians Buffalo (AAA) farm club since midway through the 2005 campaign, but hasn't surfaced at the big-league level yet. The other was oufielder B.J. Garbe, who was Minnesota's first round draft pick in 1999, but is now out of baseball after peaking at Double-A.

Doumit is officially listed at 6'1" and 210 pounds in the Pirates 2008 media guide, but back in high school he was about 5'10" and maybe all of 165 pounds. That was another reason the scouts didn't seem to be intrigued by him early on.

"I'd have colleges and (pro) scouts call and ask about these two other players," Peter Doumit said. "I would say, 'You know we have a third player that's pretty good.' And they would say, 'Oh yeah? Who's that?' And I'd say, 'Well, as a mater of fact, he happens to be my son.' I could just hear their eyes roll.

"And Ryan, those were his two best friends. Those three guys, every waking moment they had, they went out and played and pushed each other to become great. Ryan, one time as we were going home from practice said, 'Dad, how come nobody knows about me?' Finally, I told just other scouts, 'Just come and watch our team because you're going to be impressed that we have more than just two fine players.'"

Then one day Moses Lake had a game against a Hanford High School team that featured another high round draft pick - outfielder Jason Repko (who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2005 and 2006) - it happened.

"Our kids were in the hitting cage and it was lined with scouts and major league front office people," Peter Doumit said. "A scout poked his head around the corner and told me, 'Coach, I just want you to know I'm here to see your boy today.' And I thought, 'We'll hey, that's kind of nice. Finally we've kind of arrived."

The Houston Astros and Texas Rangers had Doumit on their radio screen, but it was a Pittsburgh scout named James House that put the most time and effort into courting the young catcher during his senior year. Mr. Doumit, however, became skeptical of that interest when he discovered that House had never scouted before the Pirates hired him.

"It was the guy's first scouting job and so I'm going, 'We'll see,' he said. "But I have to give a lot of credit to James House. He saw a lot of potential in Ryan. He told me early in the year 'We're going to draft him.' All through the season, James showed up, and halfway through the season some of the other Pirates executives started to show up. After the game it was always, 'We're going to draft Ryan.' And they were good to their word.

"The night before the draft (in 1999) they indicated that Ryan was going to be a pick, and I said 'How early?' And they said 'Early.' And that was all they would say. The next day on draft day, we get a call at around 11 o'clock in the morning and it's James House and he says 'Well talk to me.' And I said 'We're just waiting for the call.' And then he said 'This is the call.' And I said, 'Oh that's great. What round?' And he said, 'Second. I told you we were going to draft him early. I told you.' So that was a pretty exciting time for us."

Doumit was in his seventh year in the minor leagues when he finally got a chance to show what he could do in the majors. He was hitting a robust .345 for Indianapolis (AAA) ans was among the International League leaders in home runs (12) and slugging percentage (.630) when he was called up by the Pirates in June of 2005.

During Doumit's journey through the minors, there wasn't much he encountered that was new to him, and he knew why.

"Coming into pro ball, I didn't know any other coach. I had only ever had my dad," Doumit said. "I can honestly say that since I've been playing professional baseball, there are few things that I haven't heard before, but for the most part nothing came as too much of a surprise to me. I wasn't taken aback by much like, 'Wow. I've never heard that before.' And that's a tribute to my dad.

"He's still the guy that after games -- because he has a (satellite) package and watches every game - I'll call him and say, 'How did my swing look?' And he'll always give me that parental constructive criticism, 'Ah, you're still swinging at that ball in the dirt.' But you know, his opinion means the world to me."

Doumit's siblings are 33-year old brother Patrick (who is a high school baseball coach in Washington), 31-year old sister Amy, and 28-year old brother Peter. Young Pete played four years of college baseball - one at Spokane Community College, one at Gonzaga University and two at the University of Puget Sound - and Mr. Doumit said that Ryan and his brother Pete are carbon copies of each other.

"Those two are bookends," he said. "If they stood back to back or with their backs to you, you couldn't tell them apart. Both of them are about the same size and both of them are switch hitters."

In recalling the early days of playing ball with his brothers, Ryan said: "We always pushed ourselves. As kids, there was always a lot of playing whiffle ball in the backyard. You have your sibling rivalries where we would play series against each other. It was pretty intense. We were keeping stats. It made or broke our day, depending on what kind of day we had playing whiffle ball in the backyard. That was all there was. I had no desire to do anything else. A day off of school, recess, whatever - I was always playing baseball. Any break in the action that we had, we were playing baseball."

"Ryan is the player he is today as a result of the fact that he has two older brothers that were very instrumental in starting him early to play," Mr. Doumit said. "His oldest brother - Patrick - didn't have the talent that Ryan or our other son Peter had but he was the one that always took him out to the backyard and always had him around the game. And I was coaching at the time, so he was always around the ballfield with us. I coached all my boys all through Little League and Babe Ruth and things like that, and then I was fortunate enough to be the head baseball coach at the high school a second time when Peter and Ryan were going through school. It was a wonderful thing to watch. Just such a natural thing."

Doumit is a rough-and-tumble kind of guy -- definitely not the "pretty boy" type. Most days you will find him looking a little on the unkept side - unshaven, top couple of buttons of his uniform jersey unfastened - that sort of stuff. He's one tough customer. If you asked him to run through a wall, he'd give it a try, and you're not sure you'd like the wall's chances.

He's very determined and, according to his Pop, a bit on the stubborn side.

"Ryan's the kind of kid that's a little on the obstinate side when he's told he can't do something," Mr. Doumit said. "He'll bow his neck a little bit and say, 'Oh yeah, watch me.'"

That attitude came to the surface when Ryan was asked if his catching skills being called into question in recent years had bothered him much.

"You know what? I'm not worried about what other people think," he said. "I know what I'm capable of doing. I've been a catcher, and I've played baseball my entire life. I know what I can do. You know, if one person doesn't think I can do this, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. If it's 10 people, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it because they don't walk in my shoes. They don't know what I'm going through, so I'm not going to let it affect me. I know what I'm capable of doing."

Russell often refers to Doumit's presence - his presence in the clubhouse, in the line-up, behind the plate, and with a bat in his hands - as a positive quality. And the skipper is right on the money. Doumit's no wallflower. When he's in the room, you notice he's in the room.

"That's something he's always had," Mr. Doumit said. "Even as he was growing up, he was that kind of kid. I'm not going to say that he always had to be in the front, taking charge, Often times he was the kind of guy that just led by example. But he wasn't afraid to get in somebody's face, and he could do it because he backed it up. He didn't do the star treatment thing. 'Hey I'm pretty good, so I don't have to work hard.' Ryan is willing to step up and he's the kind of guy that other people will follow, but he's not going to go campaign for himself. He's who he is and he only knows one way to play and one way to be."

That's not just a father speaking. Huntington has plenty more good things to say about Doumit as well.

"Ryan has confidence, he has a good personality and he's a positive person that enjoys himself and loves the game," he said. "He's really rededicated himself to being the best baseball player he can be. As we went through the off-season, we weren't sure where Ryan Doumit was going to play, but we wanted to get the bat in there. That's been Ryan's carry tool the whole time but what he's done by reconfiguring himself physically and working as hard as he has defensively, he's put himself in a position to be an everyday major league catcher."