Life as a pitcher is over for Calvin Maduro.
The native Aruban pitched his last professional game, a 4-1 loss, in Bowie on June 10 for the Double-A Baysox. By the end of the following week Maduro was hired as the pitching coach for the Orioles short season Single-A team, the Aberdeen IronBirds.
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“They called me and gave me two days to think about it,” Maduro said this week in Aberdeen. Maduro said he consulted his wife before making the decision, but that it was an easy choice.
“It was hard to just stop playing,” Maduro said. “But the other way to look at it is that I am still in baseball.”
Maduro?s career spanned 15 years and began and ended in the Orioles farm system. He made his Major League debut in Philadelphia in 1996, then came back to the Oriole system in 1999.
“I have been with the Orioles all together for 11 or 12 years. I know the system pretty well,” said Maduro, who played for the Orioles from 2000-02. “I have to teach the kids the things I have been taught.”
Maduro, 31, can still relate to the younger pitchers, as he told them when he became their coach: “The last time I threw was last Saturday.”
At Aberdeen, Maduro will be working with several pitchers coming out of college. “It is a learning process. Go out there and do your best. You cannot be out there and show body language that you are upset. That is the key,” he said.
Maduro said he wants his pitchers to focus on repetition in practice and games. “The most important thing is when you play catch and when you throw in the bullpen, because when you do it in those situations it will go into the game. You will do what you learn,” he said.
“Doc Watson is here, so he is breaking me in and he is helping me out and telling me what to do,” Maduro added. Watson, the Orioles roving pitching instructor, will help Maduro manage the Aberdeen pitchers.
“I am going to get them used to the system,” Maduro added. “I still have more to learn.”
THE MADURO FILE
» Maduro spent 11 years in the Orioles system, starting in 1992 with the Orioles rookie class affiliate and ending this month with the Double-A Bowie Baysox.
» He pitched in 68 major league games, and had a career record of 10-19, with an ERA of 5.78.
» Maduro speakes four different languages, and was knighted into the Order of the Dutch Royal house with fellow Arubans and former Orioles Eugene Kingsale and Sidney Ponson.
