Growing Up Is Key to Tanana’s Success : Tigers: After his wild days as an Angel, the left-hander has finally settled down with Detroit.

These are the days of serenity for Frank Tanana. After more than 17 years in the major leagues--the past five with the Detroit Tigers--he is at peace with himself.

The brash attitude, the drinking and the philandering--some of the things that characterized Tanana’s seven somewhat stormy and mostly successful seasons with the Angels--are gone.

Gone, too, is the fastball--the one that once was compared to Nolan Ryan’s. It has been more than 12 years since Tanana has thrown hard enough to make a catcher’s mitt or a batter’s eyes pop.

But Tanana has managed to get along without the velocity, on the mound and in his life.

“Back then, all I loved was myself,” said Tanana, who will turn 37 on July 3. “I didn’t care about anyone else. I didn’t do anything unless it advanced me or gave me pleasure. I look back at that guy and realize that he was someone else.”

Earlier this season, this Tanana picked up victory No. 200, a feat few--including Tanana--felt he would accomplish when he left the Angels 10 years ago. He ranks fourth among active pitchers in victories and third in strikeouts.

Tanana has done nearly half that work since being traded by the Angels, and most of it in Detroit, where he has won 65 games since being acquired in a trade with Texas in 1985.

He has learned to pitch, nibbling at corners and setting up batters, instead of relying on the fastball. As a result, Tanana has become a consistent starter, winning at least 10 games in each of the past six seasons.

This season, he is 5-4 with a 4.59 earned-run average.

The change in Tanana as a person has been just as remarkable. Sitting in the Tiger dugout before a recent game, he was talking about his maturing process when Erik Hanson, a pitcher with the Seattle Mariners, walked by.

Tanana stopped in mid-sentence to congratulate Hanson on his pitching. The previous day, Hanson had beaten the Tigers, 5-2. Tanana was the loser in that game, giving up four runs in 4 2/3 innings.

“The ‘old’ Frank Tanana probably wouldn’t have talked to a pitcher who had just beaten him,” Tanana said. “In fact, there’s no question about it. I would have sulked and pouted after a loss. I was selfish.”

But then, those were the days of rage for Tanana.

Tanana was destined to become a great pitcher. All you had to do was ask him back in the early 1970s.

In 1974, his first full season with the Angels, he was named the American League’s rookie pitcher of the year. The Angel players called him, “The Phenom,” and the 21-year-old Tanana lived up to it with his pitching and his swagger.

“I was so cocky and confident, I actually thought I should have been (in the major leagues) a year earlier,” Tanana said. “I had an arm injury my first year in pro ball and I figured that cost me a year of getting to the show. That was my attitude back then.”

Tanana quickly established himself as a premier pitcher. He was 16-9, 19-10 and 15-9 over the next three seasons. He led the league with a 2.54 ERA in 1977, and in strikeouts in 1975 with 269.

It was the only time from 1972-79 that anyone besides Ryan led the American League in strikeouts.

“I saw Frank for the first time at the All-Star Game in 1977, and I thought he had the finest left-handed arm I had ever seen,” said Detroit Manager Sparky Anderson, who was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds in 1977.

“I had (Don) Gullett at that time and he threw bullets. But he didn’t have the stuff that Tanana had. Frank reminded me of (Sandy) Koufax.”

Tanana’s numbers might have been even more impressive had he not pitched for the Angels, who had limited offensive abilities and a weak bullpen during his glory years.

At one point during the 1977 season, Tanana pitched 14 consecutive complete games and had a 1.89 ERA. However, he lost five of those 14 games, one of them when the Angels were no-hit by Dennis Eckersley, then with Cleveland.

Tanana’s reaction to the lack of support varied. At times, he would berate teammates for their play or glare at them from the mound. At other times, he would vent his anger in the clubhouse after being removed from a game, throwing shoes, gloves, bottles--anything that was handy.

Even opposing fans caught Tanana’s wrath. There were instances when he made obscene gestures to jeering crowds after being removed from the game.

“That’s what happens when you consider this your world and somebody disturbs that world,” Tanana said. “You fly off the handle and lose control.”

Tanana had little control off the field. He became known as much for his drinking and philandering as he was for his pitching.

Tanana was hardly private about his private life and would sometimes boast to the media about his off-the-field exploits.

Once, after earning a victory on his birthday, Tanana told reporters, “I probably won’t remember in the morning how I celebrated. I’ll probably get smoked out of my gourd.”

Another time, he critiqued the cities in the American League for a sportswriter--which cities had the best bars and which ones had the best women.

“Really, I was rating where I had the most fun,” Tanana said. “Then it got down to the ‘fox’ score. I rated that, too.”

Tanana’s life of excess caught up to him late in the 1977 season, when he began to suffer from an inflamed tendon in his left elbow. He pitched with a sore arm during the 1978 season and, although he won 18 games, his ERA jumped to 3.65, the highest in his career to that point.

“I had pitched a lot of innings early in my career, but the injury was probably due more to my off-the-field habits,” Tanana said. “I was a lush. I was practically drunk half of the time. Because I was young, I was able to get away with it for a while, but it darn near ruined my career.”

In 1979, the Angels won their first divisional championship, but Tanana missed most of the season with a shoulder injury. He was on the disabled list for nearly four months, although he did return in time to pitch the division clincher, a 4-1 victory over Kansas City in Anaheim Stadium.

Tanana finished the season with a 7-5 record and a 3.90 ERA. He knew his hard-throwing and hard-living days were over.

“I had to change,” Tanana said. “Not only as a pitcher, but as a person.”

There are still some traces of the old Tanana, which surface occasionally. Earlier this season, in a game against Seattle, he had a three-hit shutout with one out in the ninth inning when Anderson removed him from the game.

Tanana, upset about being taken out, walked straight into the clubhouse without shaking hands with his teammates.

“Yeah, I still get a little selfish sometimes,” Tanana said. “But there’s a difference between being disappointed and breaking things.”

The change in his personal life was easy. He got married in 1978, and his wife, Cathy, brought stability to his life.

Tanana’s life changed even more in 1983, when he turned to religion.

“That totally turned my life around,” Tanana said. “I have better perspective, not only in my life and how I live it, but in how I evaluate my work. I work harder at my job now than I ever have in my life.”

Tanana has taken better care of his body, using a rigorous workout schedule he got from Philadelphia Phillies conditioning coach Gus Hoefling, whose program had been used by Steve Carlton. Tanana has modified the program to suit his needs.

As a result, Tanana said he is in better shape today than when he first came up with the Angels.

“But you can’t take any better care of yourself than Frank does,” Anderson said. “He does conditioning all the time. I don’t have to worry about Frank at all. When the game is over, I know exactly where he is: in his room.”

In 1981, the Angels traded Tanana to Boston, along with outfielder Joe Rudi and pitcher Jim Dorsey, for outfielder Fred Lynn and pitcher Steve Renko. The following year, Tanana was signed by Texas as a free agent.

From 1981-83, Tanana never won more than seven games. In 1982 as a Ranger, he led the league in losses with 18.

“I had some serious doubts in my mind whether I could do it anymore,” Tanana said. “The only thing that gave me confidence was that I was making 30-35 starts every year. You must be doing something right if they keep sending you out there.”

Without the fastball to rely on, Tanana became a control pitcher. He experimented with new pitches such as a forkball and a screwball.

He mixes in those pitches with his fastball. It may not have the velocity it used to, but with batters looking for his junk, Tanana can sneak it past them.

“I can bring the fastball inside just hard enough to keep them honest,” Tanana said.

Returning to Detroit, where he had been a two-sport standout at Catholic Central High School, has also helped.

After going 15-15 in 1984 for Texas, Tanana was traded to Detroit in the middle of the 1985 season. He finished 10-7 for the Tigers.

Tanana won 12 games for the Tigers in 1986 and 15 in 1987, including another division clincher. He shut out Toronto, 1-0, on the last day of the season to give the Tigers the American League East title.

“Frank’s control is so good that he can throw a pitch that really isn’t a strike, but the batter thinks it is,” Detroit pitching Coach Billy Muffett said. “He really knows how to pitch.”

But for how long?

Anderson said Tanana is good for another four or five years. Tanana doesn’t know, but says he’s grateful to still be around.

“I’ve been fortunate to have been able to take what talent I had left and continue with a baseball career,” he said.

On April 29, Tanana’s career reached a milestone. He pitched seven innings in the Tigers’ 13-5 victory over Milwaukee for victory No. 200.

“Sparky said that to get 200 wins, you either have to be awfully good or hang around for a long time,” Tanana said. “I’ve done both.”