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Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Analyst
BRADENTON, Fla. — “F—— s— f—!”
That’s the oldest man in baseball yelling, to no one in particular.
It is mid-morning on an interchangeable Florida day, late February at the Pittsburgh Pirates’ spring training facility. And there is Rich Hill, the soon-to-be 43-year-old left-hander with perpetually tired eyes and a patch of gray hair peeking out from beneath his Pirates cap, cussing up a storm.
Hill’s bullpens have been a cult classic for years, a not exactly PG-13 event worth a front-row seat — just don’t bring your kids. On each offering, Hill rocks back onto his plant leg, tilting his front side toward the sky, before launching his whole self forward toward the catcher. As his torso swings around itself and the ball flies from his hand, Hill lets out a full-throated grunt, one that would make Serena Williams proud.
If the pitch is to his liking, Hill takes the rock back from his catcher and repeats the process. If the pitch is substandard, well, that’s why a Hill bullpen requires a parental advisory warning.
He throws a heater off the plate. The next phrase out of his mouth is not fit for print.
These are the true sounds of spring: the thwack of impacted maple, the puttering of a John Deere mower, mediocre country-pop escaping from stadium speakers, and Rich Hill cursing.
A big-league camp in February is an environment of low-effort preparation, meaning Hill’s guttural screams and four-letter cannon-blasts stand out. His manic energy is a departure from the typical serenity of a Florida/Arizona backfield. But that irrational intensity, that commitment to precision, is a massive reason why Hill is preparing to play yet another season of Major League Baseball, instead of filling out a real estate license application or coaching youth soccer or any number of other respectable post-career pursuits.
To survive in the bigs past 40 is to not simply believe in the delusional, but to abide by it, to make it your code.
Throwing on the mound next to the man lovingly known as “Dick Mountain” is Mitch Keller, a 27-year-old pitcher from Cedar Rapids, Iowa who has never chewed tobacco in his entire life and who will likely start on Opening Day for the lowly Pirates. Keller met his new teammate just a week before but already has an admiration for the singular level of focus Hill brings to his craft. This is Keller’s first time pitching alongside him.
A wayward Hill slider kisses dirt: “S— f—!”
Keller recoils, surprised by the outburst.
“Sorry” Hill offers, realizing he’d startled a fellow Pirate.
This interaction is the epitome of Hill: an unhinged outburst, followed by a genuine apology. A man of intensity and grace. A competitor. An odds-beater. A teacher. A maniac. A “dude.” And now, after 21 seasons of professional baseball, the oldest active player in MLB.
Hill’s career arc is the stuff of legend: a nine-year run as a mediocre back-end starter turned oft-injured lefty reliever; an unceremonious release from the Nationals’ Triple-A roster in 2015; a humbling yet dominant stint with the Atlantic League Long Island Ducks; a renaissance for the ages as a 35-year-old on the back of a majestic rainbow curveball; and then, inexplicably, seven years of MLB success into his early 40s.
Quite simply, the guy gets outs. He dodges danger on guile, grit, fastball command and sheer desire. For Twins skipper Rocco Baldelli, who managed the crafty lefty in 2020, there’s one specific start from that year which he’ll always remember as the Rich Hill-iest.
It was the first week of the shortened COVID season. Hill was slated to make his first start for Minnesota, at home against St. Louis, despite a lingering case of shoulder tendonitis that had limited the then-41-year-old at the club’s ramp-up camp post-lockdown. During warmups that evening, Baldelli tuned in to Hill’s pregame bullpen on the dugout TV and saw something he’d never forget.
“He was fighting through his shoulder.” Baldelli recalls. “And after every third or fourth pitch, he was horse-kicking the wall behind him in the bullpen, kicking it hard. And we’re watching him on the tiny monitor in the dugout, just absolutely going to town — MF-ing this, MF-ing that.”
A typical pre-start bullpen for a pitcher is usually between 20-25 pitches, 30 at the most. But that night, unable to get his arm loose enough for his liking, Hill kept throwing and throwing and throwing. Wes Johnson, the Twins pitching coach at the time, saw what was happening, but got out of the way and let the veteran hurler cook. By Baldelli’s estimation, Hill’s bullpen ended up around 95 pitches.
“Before first pitch, Wes came up to me and said: ‘I don’t know how long he’s going to be able to go in this one.’”
Somehow, Hill gutted through five scoreless innings on just 68 pitches. He allowed only two hits, struck out just two batters and didn’t throw a pitch over 89 mph. The Twins won 3-0.
“He is one of the most memorable people that I’ve ever spent time around in this game.” Baldelli said. “Every person that knows Rich, that has spent time around Rich, they have stories that they will never forget about Rich.”
Four days out of five, Hill has a reputation as a supportive teammate, a calming presence, a hilarious conversationalist. His start day, however, is a different story. That’s when his intensity turns to fury and a bad inning can lead to a tsunami of temper tantrums, outbursts and thrown equipment. But while those four-letter bullpens seem like manic behavior, Hill himself will tell you that his approach is purposeful.
“It’s not pure madness, running around like a chicken with its head cut off,” Hill explained to FOX Sports after his profanity-laced ‘pen in Bradenton. “[The swearing] is a concerted effort to focus on that particular moment.”
Baldelli agreed that while Hill’s fiery persona catches headlines, he’s much more than an angry old pitcher with a dirty mouth.
“Yeah, he’ll break some things,” Baldelli said, “Yeah, he’ll scream some things. But he cares. He cares about his craft and he cares about people.”
That sincerity toward his teammates and that genuine desire to pass his baseball knowledge down to the next generation played a major role in the Pirates guaranteeing Hill an $8 million deal for his age-43 season. And while general manager Ben Cherington has reiterated that he and his front office still believe that Hill can get outs, he acknowledged that even if he runs a sky-high ERA he’ll still be a positive presence for the team’s younger pitchers — and they’re all much younger than Hill.
Chase De Jong, a 29-year-old Pirates hurler who, like Hill, was forced to venture into the wilderness of independent ball before battling back to MLB, takes inspiration from Hill’s story.
“He has adapted and adapted and adapted. The game has changed, like, four times since he debuted. There’s a lot to learn from that.” De Jong said. “That dude is immortal.”
While there’s obviously much to learn from a Justin Verlander or a Jacob deGrom, the supernaturals can’t always communicate greatness to mere mortals. Ted Williams was an awful manager; he just wanted guys to hit the damn thing. Hill’s winding path and his cerebral approach to pitching are hyper-relevant to every fringe big leaguer and waiver-wire journeyman.
And while there’s a limit to his knowledge — Hill cannot clap his hands, show a few pitch grips, blurt a few expletives and turn every Pirates pitcher into an All-Star — he can foster improvement, incrementally, day after day. Hill has seen it all and done it all. From the specifics of a curveball grip to advice on enduring the ardors of life off the diamond, Hill has a singular perspective to share. It’s one that he and the Pirates hope will leave a lasting impact.
That sunny day in Bradenton, after his obscenity-laced bullpen, Hill faced three innings worth of hitters on the field. Only a few made solid contact. At one point he blew a mid-80s heater by Carlos Santana, another veteran addition, and let a wide smile stretch across his face. When a particularly crafty sequence left a certain Pirates hitter flailing at air, a few young pitchers outside the fence watching the show, some of whom throw 15 mph harder than Hill, laughed and shook their heads in disbelief.
“That guy rules, man,” one quipped. “I’d go to war behind him.”
Once the live BP session ended, all the Pirates streamed back to the locker room. Another day’s work done, a step closer to Opening Day. Hill made his way to the gym for a post-throw workout, then to the locker room to talk with the media.
At this point the backfields are completely empty. A half-hour earlier it was a bustling hub of energy, now it’s a ghost town. Think the county fair at dawn, well, except for a pair of people playing catch. It’s Hill and his 11-year-old son Brice. The two long toss for a few minutes, light work for Hill after a day of dicing up his teammates.
Eventually, Hill summons his son to move closer, say, about 60 feet, six inches away. Hill squats into a crouch, a bizarre sight, the left-handed catcher two weeks from his 43rd birthday. Some of Brice’s pitches are sharp and pop leather, others bounce away or roll past. After 10 or so tosses, Hill strolls out to his throwing partner, extends his arm out — ball in hand with that trademark curveball grip — and reminds his son of the family recipe.
After a few moments of conversation, the younger Hill nods and mimics the grip, and his father returns to a squat. The son rocks back and delivers a perfect strike … accompanied by a very recognizable grunt, the clean version.
Rich Hill will not pitch in the big leagues forever, but in some ways, he just might.
Jake Mintz, the louder half of @CespedesBBQ is a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He’s an Orioles fan living in New York City, and thus, he leads a lonely existence most Octobers. If he’s not watching baseball, he’s almost certainly riding his bike. Follow him on Twitter at @Jake_Mintz.
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