Stephen Strasburg stood in the Washington Nationals’ clubhouse after his dominating return to the majors Tuesday night at Nationals Park and declared to reporters, “Seize the day.” That’s what Strasburg chose to do after he suffered torn ligaments in his pitching elbow last year and underwent Tommy John surgery.
Pretty good quote for a guy who has looked in the past like he wanted to seize the throats of the media who only want to worship at the altar of Strasburg.
“Everything happens for a reason,” Strasburg said. “There’s a reason why I went down, and I just had to take the positives from it and seize the day.”
Time magazine thought enough of it to name it one of its quotes of the day on its website.
It’s what Robin Williams character tells his students in the film “Dead Poets Society.” The American Film Institute ranked it among the top 100 quotes in U.S. film history.
“Seize the day, boys,” John Keating told his students. “Make your life extraordinary.”
On Tuesday night on a rain-soaked field at Nationals Park, we witnessed another step in the extraordinary life of the right-handed pitcher.
Strasburg threw 56 pitches over five innings, 40 of them strikes, allowing just two hits and no walks. At times he seemed to be toying with whoever stepped in the batter’s box to face him.
It may not have been as dramatic as his June 8, 2010, debut against the Pirates, when he struck out 14 batters in seven innings on national television. But Tuesday night’s outing against Los Angeles — coming more than a year after he last pitched in the major leagues — was just as impressive in its own way.
“If you don’t like what you saw tonight, you don’t like great pitching,” said Nationals manager Davey Johnson, who has played with Jim Palmer, faced Sandy Koufax and managed Dwight Gooden. He knows great pitching.
Strasburg seized the day, only the day he was referring to actually was the 368-day span between the time he underwent surgery and when he took the mound against the Dodgers.
“I’m still on a mission here,” Strasburg said. “I wanted to get stronger mentally and physically through this process. I had something new that I wanted to work on every single day here. I didn’t waste a minute waiting for this time to come because I knew it was going to be sooner than later.”
Not even the wet and dreary weather, which nearly postponed Strasburg’s return and resulted in a small crowd, bothered Strasburg.
“You’ve got to go out there and pretend it’s sunny and not a cloud in the sky,” he said.
Sunny skies. Seize the day. The zen of Stephen Strasburg.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
