For the first time in his life, Nick Adenhart was hearing things. He heard his name on the radio and read it on the crawls below cable TV sports shows. The Internet inundated him, and as he came to his first major league spring training, the trade rumors were a steady reminder that he was all grown up now, and he wasn’t in Maryland anymore.

Professional ballplayers are supposed to be able to ignore such things. But Adenhart was human and not immune to letting his imagination stray. He was a young man, and if he were to believe what he was hearing, he was going to be traded for a superstar. It wasn’t bad for the ego, but it had nothing to do with pitching. The rumors made it sound like leaving the Angels was a forgone conclusion, but Adenhart shook out the rumors like dust from his glove.

Adenhart had a scar on his right elbow to remind him that baseball is business. He was six months away from his 22nd birthday, but it didn’t change the fact that he didn’t want to be traded. He wanted to finish what he started when he began. When he dug deep and looked around, he didn’t want to leave.

“You only think about the fun parts,” Adenhart said, describing the notion of being traded. He discussed moving to a new city and becoming a part of another organization with a new set of ideals and colors. He concluded it was a “hassle.” Standing near the lockers of his fellow pitchers, he hated the thought of being elsewhere. “You don’t think,” he said, “about all the friendships you leave behind.”

It was Just One Pitch

The scouts never wanted to be left behind when Adenhart pitched as a 17-year old high school senior. Adenhart was going to be a first-round pick and he knew it. His high school games were more bullpens than real games because he knew that’s all they needed to see. He would come out in the first inning with 20 radar guns on him, throw his first pitch at 94 mph, then pitch at 91 for the rest of the game. It wasn’t all he had, but it was all he had to prove. He was doing it to show he was healthy. He said he never felt a twinge in his right elbow.

After the first inning fastballs, the scouts would wait for something else they wanted to see. Adenhart’s fast arm would blur by his ear but the ball would come out of his hand 15 mph slower. Change-up. Few high school starting pitchers can throw one. He’d drop in a curveball to remind them that he had the potential to become a three-pitch major league starter. The scouts were easily sold, though Adenhart was going to be pricey talent. He decided not to worry because he wanted to spend one last spring with his friends.

“I like to get out and be with my friends and enjoy the high school experience as much as I can,” he said in 2004, as pitcher for Williamsport High School. “The easiest time is out on the field.”

The field is the sanctuary, his major league manager would say five years later. Adenhart understood everything else was out of his control. He called the draft a “crapshoot.” “There’s nothing you can really predict,” he said.

On May 11, 2004, a month before the baseball draft, Adenhart’s first pitch in the game was his last as a high school pitcher. The scouts lowered their radar guns. He left the game after he heard a pop in his elbow, the sound of a ligament snapping. Instead of planning to be a first-round pick, Adenhart planned for surgery.

His stepfather, Duane Gigeous said, “It’s like a lightning strike. Why does it strike one tree and not another? That’s unexplainable.”

“It was just one pitch,” Adenhart explained. “There wasn’t any foretelling.”

One scout said every scouting director in the country knew Adenhart was hurt within 10 minutes. They changed their plans and urged him to change his. Adenhart could have honored his commitment to play college baseball at North Carolina. Instead, the Angels decided he was the best 14th round pick money could buy.

Adenhart had reconstructive elbow surgery performed by Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Alabama. Pitchers call Andrews the “Tommy John Doctor” because the joke goes that he leads the league in performing elbow surgeries. Adenhart signed with the Angels for $710,000 on July 26th, getting low-first round money. “Somebody had to be the one to take the chance,” Adenhart said.

He went right to rehab. He didn’t pitch competitively until early September, 2006. The Angels didn’t flinch. Neither did Adenhart. They were a perfect fit.

Power and Perspective

The Angels arranged for Adenhart to take classes at Arizona State while he rehabbed his elbow at the Angels’ Tempe headquarters. He listened to lectures and pitched in Arizona rookie league games. On the field, he was a baby, where battle-scarred veteran pitches going through the rehab grind taught him how to survive. One of those pitchers was Dustin Moseley, also an injured former first-round pick who had to fight his elbow-surgery scars to pitch in the majors.

He liked watching Adenhart and was engrossed in his talent. “I couldn’t believe the arm I saw,” Moseley said. “I was drawn to him. He was one of the coolest, most unique guys around. He had style. He could do mannerisms, voices and looks. Not just baseball talent.”

Adenhart’s confidence gradually returned with his fastball. Fifteen months after elbow surgery, Adenhart was ready to go out for one start at the end of the season. He pitched six innings and struck out seven in a September rookie ball start, hitting 94 mph just like he did in high school.

Orem, Utah, is a long way from Anaheim, but Adenhart decided he was on the right track. His energy billowed.

“I’m feeling good, probably the best pitching the best of my career right now,” he said.

Nobody was ever happier to be in the Pioneer League.

Adenhart had the Angels and the Angels had him. He had endured a difficult spell to begin his career. The Angels believed in him. He returned their faith.

“The Angels are professionals and they do this every day,” he said. “I have a lot of confidence in the organization.”

By 2006, Adenhart jumped back on the fast track. He went 10-2 with a 1.95 ERA for Cedar Rapids, pitching like the first-round pick he was supposed to have been. One night in Dayton, Ohio, he threw a four-hitter in seven innings.

In Anaheim, reading the day-after reports filed by the minor league managers, Angels manager Mike Scioscia would have noticed something similar to what Dayton manager Billy Gardner Jr. told his overmatched kids.

“I told our guys they faced a major league pitcher tonight,” Gardner Jr. said of Adenhart’s performance. “His fastball was good, he seldom throw down the middle, and his out pitch was a very good breaking ball.”

The Angels sensed Adenhart was coming quickly.

“He’s still building his arm strength,” then-farm director Tony Reagins said. “I think there’s more in there. The thing I like about him is how easy he does it.”

Reagins was describing Adenhart’s smooth delivery and how powerful the ball looked coming out of his hand.

When Adenhart reached Double-A Arkansas to begin the 2007 season, his path was on a pace with his fastball. He collected raves as he racked up strikeouts.

“His curveball pretty much falls off the table,” Angels minor league manager Bobby Mitchell said.

“I love his delivery,” instructor Kernan Ronan said. “The ball just explodes out of his hand. Sneaky, live fastball with a plus change and a plus curve.”

“He had a good angle on his fastball, he was throwing to both sides of the plate, keeping the ball down and mixing his pitches,” his Double-A manager, Bobby Magallanes said after one impressive outing. Adenhart won 10 games and made the Texas League All-Star team.

His elbow surgery was becoming a distant memory, but Adenhart understood the scar would always be part of his future, as a reminder that everything can be taken away in an instant. As a teenager he pitched with power. As a young adult he threw with perspective.

“I was 18 and I was rehabbing with guys in their mid-20s,” Adenhart said. “I got veteran tutelage early. Once I got to playing, I’d already learned a lot about what it meant to be a professional.”

As Adenhart climbed the organizational ladder, he was reunited with Moseley, who was also trying to establish himself as a major league pitcher.

“I just thought his maturity was off the charts,” Moseley said. “I knew he looked young, but he didn’t act young. He didn’t talk a whole lot, but he listened and asked questions.”

Ronan summed up the organization’s outlook. “What’s not to love?” he said.

Good Thing Going

When Adenhart came to Spring Training in 2008, he had heard all the rumors. He wanted to pitch in the major leagues and he would go wherever he had to go to fulfill that goal. But the elbow scar was there to remind him how far he had come with the Angels, and how many friendships he had formed in the organization that took care of him when 29 other teams told him to pitch at North Carolina.

“(Pitching) in the big leagues is something I’ve been trying to realize since I was a little kid,” said Adenhart, who was born in 1986. “It’ll be my goal until it’s completed.”

Scioscia said it would be with the Angels.

“It’s going to take a pretty strong package for us to move a talent like this,” he said.

Adenhart heard his name, but the Angels didn’t answer the calls to trade him. He began 2008 in Triple-A, and one month into the season, he was summoned to Anaheim to substitute for John Lackey and make three starts. Adenhart walked into the locker room, where Jered Weaver was waiting. “Congratulations and welcome,” Weaver said. “We got a good thing going here, so don’t mess it up.”

It wasn’t a rude awakening. It was the same advice Weaver heard from Lackey when he arrived. It was the same greeting Lackey heard from Jarrod Washburn six years earlier. Like Lackey, Weaver and Joe Saunders before him, the Angels knew Adenhart was coming.

“I’ve known pitchers who came up for three starts,” Scioscia hinted, “And stayed for 17 years.”

Adenhart made his major league debut on May 1, at age 21. He was the youngest active player on a major league roster. His stuff was ready, but his command was not. His first inning was flawless, his second forgettable. He was hard on himself when it was over.

“It snowballed on me,” he said. “I walked guys and then maybe started thinking too much and trying to do too much, trying to aim the ball a little bit and let myself get a little overwhelmed.”

Adenhart learned the curse of his talent. He was good enough to reach the majors without ever slumping and had to learn to face failure under the lights. In his final start for the Angels in 2008, he started to get it. The Angels scored 10 runs. All Adenhart had to do was pitch like he was capable of, letting the worry fly out of his hand with his fastball.

He pitched 5 2/3 innings against the Chicago White Sox on May 12th, settling down after a shaky start to scatter five hits and four runs. He broke three bats against the White Sox lineup. He had only one strikeout, a lesson that he didn’t need firepower to create firewood. He only needed to trust his stuff.

“His stuff definitely plays in the big leagues,” Scioscia said. “It was good for him to come up here and cut his baby teeth.”

Adenhart knew he was going back to Triple-A when the game was over. Lackey was healthy again.

“It was a good start and a good win,” Adenhart said. He didn’t want to return to Triple-A. (Who does?) But he understood that it wasn’t his time.

He took some of the baggage back to Triple-A with him. He worked to find his focus and consistency. His summer was long and he struggled. He did not pitch for the Angels again in 2008. When he came to Spring Training in 2009, 2008 was behind him. This time, the only time he heard his name was as a starting pitcher. It was his turn.

He won a rotation spot and made his first start of 2009 against Oakland on April 8 and pitched six scoreless innings. When pitching coach Mike Butcher went to the mound, Adenhart told him, ‘I got it, Butch,’ and Butcher was proud. The kid got it. He left winning the game, but ended up with a no decision. The final score would be forgotten in a few hours.

Moseley saw Adenhart after the game. He patted him on the shoulder because he knew how hard his friend had worked for that moment and understood what it felt like to pitch well and not earn a victory. Pitchers with wounded wings always seem to understand each other.

When he left the Stadium that night, Adenhart was hearing things again. This time, it was about his command performance. It was about how he had come so far and how he had matured. It was how he had conquered adversity. He had a long career awaiting him, with Lackey, Moseley, Weaver and Saunders. Adenhart was pleased. He was finally a big league pitcher. He left the ballpark that night, a better pitcher for his experiences, a better person for the friendships he left behind.

Author’s Note: In writing this article, the following sources were referenced: The Baltimore Sun, The Williamsport Capital Gazette, The Desert Morning News, The Dayton Daily News, The Washington Times, Knight Ridder News Service, The Orange County Register, The Salt Lake Tribune, press conference notes, and author’s notes.