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From NYT a couple of weeks ago;
Seeking a Spot, a Mets Pitcher Has to Be Creative
By KAREN CROUSE
Published: March 4, 2008
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Pitcher Nelson Figueroa Jr. likes to go headhunting. It is one of his favorite ways to unwind when he is not trying to nail down a roster spot with the Mets.
When Figueroa played for Dorados Chihuahua in Mexico, he designed computerized scoreboard illustrations of his teammates that were displayed on the scoreboard when they came to bat.
At home in front of his computer, Figueroa will manipulate photos, taking the heads of his teammates and superimposing them on the bodies of actors or models. He prints out the photographs and then tapes them up in the clubhouse, picking his spots as carefully as he locates his pitches.
Baseball and the graphic arts afford Figueroa twin canvases for his craftiness. As a pitcher, he does not possess overwhelming power or a money pitch, so he has to mix up the speed of his delivery and vary his release point to stay ahead of hitters. As an artist, he likes to change up images to keep people off guard.
“I like to be creative,” he said Monday after pitching two scoreless innings in the Mets’ 3-2 extra-innings exhibition victory against the Atlanta Braves. “I like to try new things. That’s always with me, whether or not I’m playing baseball.”
Figueroa, a 33-year-old right-hander, is an impressionist painter trying to survive in a black-and-white world. A 30th-round draft pick of the Mets in 1995, he has a 7-17 record in the major leagues. His last big-league appearance was in 2004, with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Since then he has had two operations on his throwing shoulder and traveled the world auditioning for his next major league opportunity. This past year he played in Mexico, Taiwan and the Dominican Republic, pitching enough innings to be noticed by the Mets, who signed him to a minor league contract.
Figueroa, who is trying to earn a roster spot as a long reliever, has looked solid in two spring training appearances. On Monday, he faced eight Atlanta hitters and gave up two hits and struck out one. He threw a wild pitch in his second inning, the sixth, but then came back and forced two groundouts.
“From Day 1 I’ve liked him,” Manager Willie Randolph said. “He’s got a real rubber arm.” Randolph also praised Figueroa’s poise and said, “He has a real feel for pitching.”
That feel is putty in the hands of the Mets’ pitching coach, Rick Peterson, a virtuoso when it comes to the art of throwing. Peterson has talked to Figueroa at length about unleashing his creativity the way a flamethrower does his power.
“We’ve talked about the different ways of being creative,” Peterson said. One way is by changing one’s tempo, something Figueroa tried a couple of times Monday by throwing quickly to a hitter. It is the pitching equivalent of a no-huddle offense, trying to throw off a batter’s rhythm.
“By changing the tempo, you create the illusion that your fastball is faster than the actual velocity,” Peterson said. “You also create the illusion that your off-speed stuff is slower than what it actually is.”
Figueroa, a Brooklyn native, went to Abraham Lincoln High School, as did the former Met Lee Mazzilli. Figueroa later became the first student at Brandeis University to make it to the major leagues. But he is not one of those creative types completely lacking common sense. “All I can do is all I can do,” he said. “It’s not like all of the sudden I’m going to invent a 95-mile-an-hour fastball.”
His personality is that of someone whose smile never gets lost behind the clouds, his sunny disposition belying the dark junctures in his journey. “There were definitely times when I thought that maybe my career was done,” Figueroa said.
In 2006, he recalled, he contacted every major league team to offer his services. “And nobody had any interest,” he said.
Figueroa toiled in baseball’s backwoods, filling up his passport. “As long as someone was going to give me a jersey, I was going to play,” he said. “It may not have been big-league baseball, but I was getting to travel the world. It was an opportunity to go outside the box and reinvent myself.”
With every new program Figueroa installs on his computer, the horizon for his flights of fancy grow ever broader. He has become, in his words, “the Cyber geek.”
“Some guys, when they’re done here, they go golfing,” he said. “Some guys go fishing. I go home on the computer and see what I can do. It gives me some time away from the game. I get to sit there and be creative.”
His artistic forays are fairly versatile. When he is not manipulating photos, Figueroa makes business cards and invitations for weddings, birthdays, bar mitzvahs — you name it, he designs it. In Mexico last year, he designed the computerized scoreboard graphics for himself and about half-a-dozen teammates. He gets steady work from word-of-mouth recommendations.
“When you get the final product and they love it, it’s a great feeling,” Figueroa said.
The one invitation Figueroa cannot wait to design is for a party celebrating his success with the Mets this season. He can see that one clearly in his mind.
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This comes from a Gannett article: