For Barmes, timing's everything

Yet again, misfortune seems to have allowed the Rockies shortstop reason to be thankful for all he has

By Jack Etkin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Ken Papaleo / The Rocky

Clint Barmes is hoping to do well in place of Rockies starting shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, who might be out until the All-Star break.

David Zalubowski / Associated Press

Barmes' wife, Summer, shows off their son, Wyatt, at Coors Field on Sunday. She met Barmes during spring training in 2005, they were engaged on Christmas 2005 and married in December 2006.

The broken collarbone resulted from a bizarre, even embarrassing, accident that knocked Clint Barmes' career far off-course. What resulted were unexpected, long-term benefits, ones that outweighed anything associated with baseball.

"I wouldn't be married now and with a baby without the injury," Barmes said. "So in a way, it was a blessing that it happened the way it did."

Barmes and his wife, Summer, got engaged on Christmas 2005. They married the following December, and their son, Wyatt, is nearly 8 months old.

That cascade of events began on St. Patrick's Day 2005, when Katherine Carey, whose husband, P.J., was a longtime minor league manager in the Rockies system, introduced Barmes to his future wife during spring training.

At that point, Barmes' focus, like that of any young player about to begin his first season as a regular in the big leagues, was somewhat narrow. Opportunity beckoned. Dreams he long had pursued no longer were dots on the horizon. They seemed attainable, and they were for two months, in ways Barmes never could imagine, until June 5, 2005, when he stumbled on stairs outside his apartment while carrying deer meat and broke his left collarbone.

A second chance

Three years later, the misfortunes of others have created opportunities for Barmes. He began the season as a utility player for the Rockies but in mid-April replaced faltering rookie second baseman Jayson Nix, who is now at Triple-A Colorado Springs. And when shortstop Troy Tulo- witzki tore his left quadriceps last week, an injury that is expected to sideline him until the All-Star break, Barmes again found himself with the job he lost to Tulowitzki.

"Obviously, things happen, and if anybody knows that, I do," Barmes said. "Going through what I had to go through, to get back to this spot . . . it is a blessing in a way that I have the opportunities that I've got right now."

After earning a September call-up to the Rockies in 2003 and parlaying a robust 2004 season at Colorado Springs into a mid-August promotion, Barmes started the 2005 season as the Rockies shortstop. He began seizing the opportunity immediately, becoming the first rookie in major league history to hit a walk-off home run on Opening Day. It came off San Diego Padres closer Trevor Hoffman, gave the Rockies a 12-10 victory and capped Barmes' 4-for-6 afternoon.

He finished that April with a .410 average and was at .387 on May 17 before slipping to .318 when the month ended. Thanks to a five-game hitting streak, Barmes was batting .329, which ranked seventh in the National League, on June 5 when he took his fateful fall.

Barmes' injury left him with plenty of time. And during the months of what became a lost 2005 season and the start of a definite career descent, Barmes' relationship with Summer grew. Along the way, he realized that concentrating exclusively on his next at-bat, his next game and everything associated with his profession was fine up to a point.

"I understood once I got engaged, that it wasn't just about me anymore and just about my career," Barmes said. "Hey, this is something that's a lot more than that, and it's going to last a lot longer than that."

Barmes, 29, has a deeper understanding of the hitting process now than he did during his torrid start in 2005 and has made some minor mechanical adjustments to his stance. But his greatest change has been coming to grips with failure, an adversary always lurking and ready to drag down inexperienced hitters in the big leagues.

"I think he's found out that it can't be a hit-or-die mentality," manager Clint Hurdle said. "It's just got to be about quality at-bats. He set the bar extremely high in a lot of areas, and when he didn't match up, he took it very hard. And I think he's softened that stance in a very professional and a very positive way."

Barmes said that had he not been injured in June 2005, he and Summer might not have stayed together, since he saw her "a handful of times" during the first two months of that season. They were married Dec. 12, 2006, and their son, Wyatt, was born Sept. 18, blissful events that arose during three months on the disabled list in 2005.

"She definitely helped with not being able to come to the ballpark and watching the games and not being out there and not being able to compete during the season in '05," Barmes said. "And I think, mentally, she helped me - I don't know how to say it, but it kind of helped heal, I guess. She definitely helped mentally."

Bringing them together

How Barmes came to meet the former Summer Dennison is a tale out of matchmaking heaven, although Katherine Carey said, "I had no intentions of setting them up at all. I've never done that before; this is my one and only."

Summer is from Platteville, and during the 2003 season she went to Casper to visit her brother, Chance, who was working there for the Rookie Pioneer League Rockies team that P.J. Carey was managing. On Katherine's visits to Casper, she met Summer and struck up a friendship.

Carey had managed Barmes in 2002 at Double-A Carolina, which was where Katherine met Barmes at a team party to celebrate clinching a division title in the first half of the season.

"Once he was introduced," Carey remembered, "he pretty much spent the whole night sitting with her and chatting with her. I remember leaving the get-together, and Katherine just raved about how nice a kid Clint was."

Fast forward to Tucson and 2005 spring training. Katherine remembers waiting outside the Rockies clubhouse for P.J. on March 6, which is Barmes' birthday, and telling Barmes, who was bound for Denver when the season started, that she had a friend who lived near there, a softball player who is very athletic and who could point Barmes toward restaurants and just be a contact for him.

"He said, 'That's very nice,' and stuff," Katherine said. "But typical guy, he says, 'Well, do you have a picture of her?' "

Katherine did and said she would bring it on her next visit to Hi Corbett Field, a couple of days later.

"Summer and her bloodhound were in a Halloween picture," Katherine said. "They were in hula skirts with leis around their necks. I showed it to Clint. And I know he doesn't know this, but I looked at him, and his jaw really did drop. He just looked at me and goes, 'Didn't you say she was coming to town?' "

Summer flew to Tucson on St. Patrick's Day, arriving in a green T-shirt and going directly to dinner with the Careys, Barmes, assistant trainer Scott Gehret and Gehret's parents.

"P.J. goes to park the car," Katherine said. "Summer and I walk in, and Clint's eyes were like saucers. They sat next to each other, and they just hit it off immediately."

Nothing has been immediate in Barmes' career, save for those first two months in 2005. He admits to being "a pretty bad perfectionist," which, to some degree, helped him grind along and advance his baseball career.

"But I think it held me back a little bit, too, because it added a lot more pressure than what I needed," Barmes said. "Meeting Summer and getting married and having a baby, it kind of changed the perspective of how I looked at it. It's not who I am anymore; it's what I do."

THEN AND NOW

Clint Barmes is batting .280 with seven doubles, two home runs and 10 RBI. Hitting coach Alan Cockrell said Barmes now is better able to keep the barrel of his bat through the strike zone than he was during his hot start in 2005.

Barmes said his approach at the plate then was much more about feel and less about understanding swing path.

Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said, "He's had a couple games where he's started to spin off the ball a little bit, lift the ball up in the air. Then he's kind of got it back on track pretty quickly, which has been a good sign. It's not first-pitch hacking all the time that we saw a lot of early. He's actually laid off some hand-high fastballs and some fastballs higher than that in the zone (and) the slider that hardly ever even looks like a strike. So his plate discipline has improved."

MORE TALK ABOUT BARMES

"He's been challenged at the major league level to get over some bumpy road, and it seems like he's ready when the Rockies need him. That's another testament to his character."

P.J. Carey, Los Angeles Dodgers field coordinator, who managed Barmes at the Double-A level in 2002 and worked for the Rockies from 1993 through 2006, spending all but one of those seasons managing in their farm system.