Ray Burris pitched in the major leagues for seven teams from 1973 through 1987. This article is based on my interview with him in 1983.
Ray Burris finished off the 1981 season in high style. His team, the Montreal Expos, had won the division championship that year and then faced the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series. In game two at Dodger Stadium, he pitched against Fernando Valenzuela and beat him, 3-0. Burris pitched the final game and went eight innings. The game was tied, 1-1, when they took him out.
“We eventually lost it, 2-1, but those two performances were very special to me — my most exciting moments in baseball,” Burris recalls.
Photo courtesy SABR.org
The following spring, when he won five games without a loss in exhibition season, it looked like 1982 would be even better. “I had no idea what was in store for me,” the 6’5” righthander says, “In my first three games of the season, I gave up just one run but lost all three games, 1-0, 1-0, and 2-1. I had the best earned-run average in the league, but my record was 0-3!”
After that, Burris began to think a lot. “I began to worry. I would go out to the mound thinking, ‘Well, what’s going to happen today? How many runs are they going to score for me? Are they going to make the plays for me today?’ “I began losing my concentration. I would defeat myself before I even took the mound. I was thinking, believing, and my mind was in a rut. Although I was a Christian, I wasn’t allowing Christ to work in my life, and it showed up even on the mound.”
By mid-May, Bµrris had yet to pitch a winning game. His record was 0-7, and he was dropped from the starting rotation. “I did a little better as a relief pitcher, but I lost four more games as a starter and ended the season with a disastrous record–4-14,” he recalls. “I knew my attitude had not been what it should have been as a Christian. So that winter, I sat down and analyzed what happened. As I looked at the films of the games I had pitched, one stood out from all the rest. It was the game in the 1981 playoffs against Valenzuela in Los Angeles.”
As he watched that tape, Burris could “re-experience” that game. “I remember exactly how I was mentally, what I went through, what I was thinking on every pitch.”
Burris saw himself doing everything a big-league pitcher should do—being aggressive, throwing strikes, staying ahead of the hitters, keeping the ball down, and staying within his game plan. That game told him what he didn’t do regarding mental preparation in 1982.
Ray Burris: So that winter, I began to tell myself, I’ve got to block all those negative things out of my mind. If I’m going to throw a pitch low and away, I pick that target out and I throw it! I don’t try to guide it. If I throw it there, even if I miss the target, I’ll have that extra hop on the ball, and the batter might pop it up. I have to allow myself a chance to be successful. I also prepared on the physical level. I had gotten into some bad eating habits and weighed 230 pounds when I lost my job as a starter. It was almost impossible to get the snap I wanted on the ball. So I stopped eating between meals and just for the sake of eating. When the 1983 season began, I was at 195 pounds and physically and mentally ready. In spring training, I could feel the difference. Pitching was fun again!
Although he wasn’t given a spot in the starting rotation, Burris didn’t find himself worrying about it. “I told myself, ‘I’m in the ballclub, and I’m contributing even by coming out of the bullpen. I’m just going to go out, give my best effort, do what I know I can, and let everything else take care of itself.”
As the season progressed, Burris encouraged the starting pitchers. “I wanted them to do well. If they do well, everybody benefits. I enjoyed seeing them be successful.”
Then, in June, the Expos began to use Burris as a starter again. In a game against the New York Mets, he pitched eight innings and only gave up one run, though the Mets won in 17 innings. But the big moment came on June 20 against the Philadelphia Phillies in Montreal. Burris pitched the entire nationally televised contest—the first time since that day in Dodger Stadium against Valenzuela. He only gave up three hits and ended the game by striking out future Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt.
“I leaped off the mound in joy, and the fans at Olympic Stadium gave me a standing ovation,” he recalls. “We won 5-0, and I was especially pleased because I had maintained my concentration throughout. It was a confirmation to me that I had recaptured the right mental attitude.
Ray Burris: In 1982, I had not allowed Christ to be in control of me. So he couldn’t do anything good for me. Now I’ve given him back control of my life. And now he’s making good things happen for me, and it shows up even on the mound. There are people constantly watching you to see how you handle adversity, to see how you handle trials and tribulations. God has brought trials and tribulations my way, and he’s given me the strength to hold them and to know that he’ll always be there with me. The season I went through last year, on a mental level, was challenging.
Burris learned that it will pay off if you do what you know you have to do well enough.
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This article first appeared in Venture (March 1984).
