Square One : Janicki, Healthy Again, Is Ready to Resume His Angel Career

ANAHEIM —  Pete Janicki couldn’t believe it was happening. God, not again. How is it possible to work so hard to be in total control, and have no control at all?

He was trying to live out a childhood dream, only to have a nightmarish throbbing in his elbow.

April 9, 1993, was supposed to be the most glorious night of Janicki’s life, the dawning of a professional baseball career. Everyone was there. His entire family. Friends. Neighbors. Coaches from high school and Little League. No one wanted to miss this moment.

Janicki’s professional debut already had been delayed six months because of a stress fracture diagnosed during the 1992 Olympic trials, but on this night, pitching for Palm Springs, he felt invincible. He wanted to show the world why the Angels selected him in the first round of the 1992 draft, and why in a few months he would be pitching at Anaheim Stadium.

“There was no doubt in my mind I was going to be there before the year was over,” said Janicki, who led UCLA’s pitching staff in strikeouts his final two seasons. “The way I was feeling, nothing was going to hold me back.”

Janicki recalls being nervous, walking the first Riverside batter he faced, and he vividly remembers the sound of his 30-member cheering section

screaming wildly after his first professional strikeout.

He walked to the mound in the second inning, exuding confidence, but suddenly, he felt himself losing arm strength. He shrugged it off, but on the very pitch he struck out a batter, he heard a loud pop.

“It was the same sound I heard during the Olympics,” Janicki said, “but I thought it was just old scar tissue popping out of the joint. I said, ‘Hey, cool.’ ”

Janicki stood defiantly on the mound, not about to let anything ruin this night, and concentrated on the next batter. The moment he released the ball, pain seared his body. He wasn’t sure just what happened, but this definitely wasn’t cool.

He summoned the trainers and walked down the right-field line to the clubhouse, stunning his family.

“We were crushed, absolutely crushed,” said Deidre Dunkin, who married Janicki three months later. “No one knew what to say, so we cried.”

While Janicki’s entourage stood in silence outside the clubhouse, Janicki was inside acting like a crazed man. He started screaming, throwing chairs, wildly tearing off his uniform until teammate Dominick Johnson grabbed him.

“He was as distraught as I’ve ever seen a player,” Johnson said. “I mean, he lost it, he just lost it.

“It was as weird and scary a moment as I’ve ever been involved in. All he could say was, ‘I did it again.

“ ‘God, I did it again.’ ”

Janicki finally emerged from the clubhouse. Everyone piled into the family motor home. People spoke in hushed tones, wondering whether Janicki would pitch again.

Pete and Deidre never heard them. They were sobbing in the back of the RV, more scared than at any other time in their lives.

He went to see a doctor the next day in Palm Springs, and the news was even worse than he imagined. The magnetic resonance imaging test revealed that the ulnar bone in his elbow actually had snapped.

The news reached the Angels quickly, and although no one dared to say anything publicly about Janicki’s future, the whispers and facial expressions divulged their belief: Janicki’s baseball career was over.

There was only one problem: Janicki refused to listen.

*

Janicki and his wife awoke early this Wednesday after a restless night, fought through rush-hour traffic and were sitting in Dr. Lewis Yocum’s office by 9.

This was the day he was to undergo a CAT scan of his right elbow. The examination, and Yocum’s diagnosis, would determine whether Janicki would be packing his bags for spring training in two weeks.

The result: The ulnar bone is perfectly healed.

Janicki is cleared for spring training.

Hello, baseball world. It’s Pete again.

“I wasn’t trying to be naive through all this,” Janicki said. “I knew it was serious. I know it’s not normal just to throw a pitch and have your elbow break.

“But I really believed that I could be back. I just knew it couldn’t end like this. I mean, I’m a good pitcher with a good arm, but I have bad luck.

“Really, the most frustrating part of the whole thing was that nobody could zero in on why it happened.”

Certainly, Janicki heard all the possible reasons: poor pitching mechanics . . . doesn’t drink enough milk . . . threw too many split-finger fastballs in college . . . the man upstairs simply doesn’t want him to pitch.

The timing was rotten. Here he was, engaged to be married, and he might be without a job. Deidre reassured him that nothing had changed. She’s a 4.0 student in business school, and with her brains, they’ll do just fine.

“His whole being in college was baseball,” Deidre said. “That’s all he had. That’s what made this so hard because he’s dreamed of this so long. We told ourselves that things would work out in baseball, and if they didn’t, we’ll still be just fine.”

If either ever entertained the notion that Janicki would have to seek an alternative career, the words were never spoken. Even when doctors advised Janicki that he likely would have to undergo major surgery--complete with screws, pins and bone grafts--their optimism never wavered.

Instead, Janicki pleaded for the doctors to wait. If it wasn’t healed by the end of June, he’d go ahead with the surgery. If it could heal by itself, Janicki knew he’d have a much better chance of returning.

The bone scan in May revealed no progress had been made.

In June, it was healing nicely.

In July, Janicki and Deidre married.

In August, he had bone spurs removed from his ankle.

In December, he was pitching off a mound, in front of all of the Angels’ top executives.

In two weeks, he will be returning to spring training.

“I want to show people that I belong,” Janicki said. “I want to show them that I was the best pitcher in the draft, and they’re still getting the same guy.”

The Angels, who are paying $155,000 to Janicki this season, remain cautiously optimistic. Janicki has been working out in front of scout Darryl Miller, and Angel farm director Ken Forsch has been working on his delivery.

They believe Janicki is ready to resume his career, where he likely will start at Class-A Lake Elsinore this season. Their biggest fear is the unknown. Will it happen again?

“There’s nothing that should keep him from coming back,” Angel General Manager Bill Bavasi said, “but our concern is that he stays back.

“It really looks like everything’s going to be fine, but of course, we thought the same last year.

“If he’s healthy, I really believe he’ll have one hell of a career.

“We may be soon finding out.”