Did a quick search on Google for Contreras; found interesting article

[Gregory Pratt]

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Baseball/MLB/200...1651258-ap.html

 

He points to one moment, one conversation with his pal from Cuba.

 

Jose Contreras was struggling, and his friend Orlando Hernandez wanted to know what had happened to the pitcher who triggered an auction between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox before ever slipping on a major league uniform.

 

So El Duque asked: "Why'd you stop throwing sidearm?"

 

The answer was that a coach in Cuba had told Contreras to stop, saying the herky-jerky motion would scratch valuable years off his career.

 

Contreras smiles.

 

"I regret it all the time, because I lost four years," Contreras says through an interpreter.

 

The way Contreras is pitching now, it's almost easy to forget that he was an example of "unfulfilled promise" not too long ago. The turnaround is as sharp as his splitter. Contreras dropped his arm angle and started living up to the hoopla that accompanied him to the United States and the major leagues.

 

Now look at him.

 

The right-hander was 7-0 and third in the AL with a 2.96 ERA entering Friday's start against Houston. He was 15-0 in 20 regular-season outings since losing to Minnesota last Aug. 15, and shared the club record for consecutive victories with LaMarr Hoyt (1983-84) and Wilson Alvarez (1993-94). It's the longest such streak in the majors since Minnesota's Johan Santana won 17 consecutive decisions from July 2004 to April 2005.

 

Contreras is a leading candidate to start the All-Star game, after struggling for several seasons to find some consistency.

 

The Yankees gave up on him. Chicago fans were frustrated early last season.

 

But the White Sox were patient with Contreras, and he led a surge to the city's first World Series title since 1917.

 

"Let me tell you something," pitching coach Don Cooper says, pointing toward Contreras' locker. "That one there, I've never seen anybody improve that much. Thank God he did, because we've all got rings."

 

Contreras' raw skills never were questioned.

 

He played seven years for the Cuban national team and went 7-0 with a 0.59 ERA in his last three major international tournaments against professionals - the 1999 Pan American Games, the 2000 Olympics and 2001 World Cup. He also pitched eight shutout innings of relief and struck out 10 in Cuba's 3-2 11-inning victory over the Baltimore Orioles in March 1999, three years before defecting.

 

Contreras established residency in Nicaragua and became a free agent, sparking a bidding contest between the Yankees and Red Sox. Contreras signed with New York for four years and $32 million US.

 

He made six minor-league appearances before going 7-2 with a 2.78 ERA in 18 games (nine starts) with the Yankees in 2003, but was 0-2 with a 5.73 ERA in the post-season. And he continued to struggle the following season.

 

His ERA ballooned to 5.64 before the Yankees traded him to Chicago for Esteban Loaiza at the 2004 trade deadline, and Contreras didn't fare much better with the White Sox, posting a 5.30 ERA the rest of that season.

 

Cooper says Contreras was in "turmoil" - on and off the mound.

 

He was adjusting to a new country, starting with New York's blinding spotlight. His wife, Miriam, and daughters, Naylan and Naylenis, did not join him until June 2004. And Contreras has not seen his mother, siblings and other relatives since he left Cuba.

 

Although he says his family's situation had little to do with his struggles on the mound, he adds, "Put yourself in my shoes. Sometimes, when you see a pitcher pitching on the mound, you don't see the other side."

 

Cooper says, "If my family's not with me on a road trip for 10 days, I'm not quite the same. Compound that by saying they're in another country, they're in exile and you're not sure about their safety. Think how hard that may be to deal with."

 

On the mound, Contreras was a tease. Cooper saw a devastating splitter, fastball and curve. He also saw flawed mechanics and a pitcher tipping hitters while falling behind in the count.

 

That pattern continued through the first half of last season. Contreras went 1-1 in his first eight outings and was 4-5 with a 4.26 ERA before the all-star break.

 

Cooper remembers showing Contreras what righties and lefties were batting against him, then asking, "What does this mean to you?" The averages were low.

 

So Cooper had another question: "How about you throw it over more?"

 

But the turning point probably was that talk with El Duque.

 

Contreras started dropping his arm and rediscovered his form, going 11-2 after the all-star break and winning his final eight regular-season starts. He helped the White Sox hold off Cleveland for the AL Central title and started the first game of each post-season series, going 3-1 in four outings.

 

His reward was a $29 million, three-year contract extension that runs through 2009.

 

"You look at what he's done and the turnaround and the adjustments he's made, he starts with confidence," catcher A.J. Pierzynski says. "He's worked his way up. He's been awesome."

 

Contreras gets ahead of hitters now. He had 60 strikeouts and 22 walks going into Friday's game - an improvement over his first 2 1/2 seasons, when his strikeout-to-walk ratio was about two to one.

 

"There are some great guys on this staff, but he's the guy who's impressed me since Day 1 last year," says pitcher Brandon McCarthy, who debuted last season. "He has unbelievable stuff, but he also has a great idea how to pitch. He also just has that extra thing in him that gets him out of jams. He avoids that little pitfall that a lot of other guys can run into."

 

When he was struggling, Cooper says, Contreras' problems were self-made. In a way, so is his success. Cooper marvels at Contreras' work ethic and says, "If you follow him around, you'll be tired - never mind trying to do what he does."

 

During spring training, Contreras shows up around 7 a.m. Between starts, the routine includes extensive running, weightlifting and various throwing drills. On game nights, he simply wears out the opposition.

 

Now he's relaxed and confident.

 

"This is the best moment I've had as a professional baseball player," he says with a grin.

 

Good read.

 

I found an even better one here, from last May, http://www.sportingnews.com/exclusives/20050518/620459.html :

 

Contreras is stable and ready to take off

Posted: May 18, 2005

 

By Nick Miroff

For Sporting News

 

 

Most of the White Sox players ignore the kids clamoring for autographs near the visitors' dugout in Oakland. But Jose Contreras stops and squiggles his name for practically every youngster there, chatting in his broken English.

 

Just before he reaches the clubhouse tunnel, a Hispanic teen holding out a ball brings Contreras to a halt. "Hey, Titan," the teen asks, "can you sign this?"

 

The Titan of Bronze -- his old nickname, bestowed upon him by Fidel Castro himself. Contreras laughs and graciously obliges.

 

"Wow," the teen says, "I can't believe that's Jose Contreras."

 

Sure, it's the same Jose Contreras who once stood tall on the mound for his Cuban homeland, dominating hitters with a 95-mph fastball and a world-renowned splitter. But Contreras somehow looks different in the United States, standing on a major league mound with his cap pulled low and his broad shoulders slumped. With runners on base, he often heaves a deep, troubled sigh and cinches his cap down a little farther.

 

It has been more than two years since Contreras signed with the Yankees, and perhaps for the first time all the pieces are in place for him to succeed. His family is settled in Tampa. His arm appears sound. He is getting a fresh start with the White Sox, the team with the best record in the majors. And he's pitching alongside the greatest Cuban defector of them all, Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez. The two were teammates on the Cuban national team and with the Yankees last season.

 

"We eat lunch together every day," Contreras says, "and when we're alone, we always talk about Cuba."

 

Yet as compatriots, they're something of an odd couple. El Duque grew up in Havana and is tough, brash and fearless, the owner of three World Series rings. Contreras is a soft-spoken country boy -- a campesino, he says -- from a remote rural area of western Cuba and is the youngest of nine children.

 

What Contreras and El Duque have in common, however, is the trial of defection, the sharp schism that ends one life and begins another. "When the season is finished, you see how the Venezuelans, the Puerto Ricans, the Dominicans all go home," Contreras says. "We don't."

 

For instance, when Contreras' father died last year, he "attended" the funeral from his cell phone. "We set up a picture of him on the table with two candles next to it," he says, "and I stayed on the phone with my mother the whole time." That day, Contreras says, was his most difficult since leaving Cuba.

 

But unlike Hernandez, who rejects questions about Cuba, Contreras doesn't seem to harbor a grudge toward his home country. Baseball here is "more of a business," he says, and, curiously, he still thinks of himself as part of Cuba's national team.

 

"I have a clause in my contract that says I can still pitch for them, you know, if they're playing outside of Cuba," Contreras says wistfully. "I'm Cuban, and I always will be."

 

For years before his defection in October 2002, Contreras pitched in broken-down ballparks in which foul balls were returned and reused. Duct tape occasionally would hold his cleats together. But whenever Cuba's national pride was on the line, he got the call. He once threw 162 pitches in a complete game. He pitched eight shutout innings on one day of rest to beat Team USA at the 1999 Pan Am Games.

 

But after signing a four-year, $32 million contract with the Yankees in 2003, Contreras struggled. He was inconsistent at best and was abysmal against the rival Red Sox -- 0-4 and a 16.44 ERA in five games.

 

He agonized over the separation from his wife and daughters until he was reunited with them last June. A speedboat whisked them across the Florida Straits, and like all Cubans who reach U.S. soil, they were allowed to stay.

 

Contreras won his next start, but after consecutive bad starts in July, he was traded to the White Sox. He finished last season 13-9 with a 5.50 ERA.

 

His fastball rarely hits 95 anymore, but pitching coach Don Cooper says Contreras, 33, can be effective as long as he has good command. That's because of his fearsome splitter, which Cooper calls "the forkball from hell." Contreras has pitched well, holding opponents to a .197 batting average with a 3.18 ERA in his first seven starts. His control, however, still is lacking -- he gave up 21 walks in his first 39 2/3 innings.

 

"Contreras has the best arm on this team," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen says. "He just has to trust his arm and not worry about anything else."

[jenksd]

i lurv tear-jerkers

[Gregory Pratt]

Let's make Contreras life into a chick flick.

[jenksd]

ozzie will undoubtedly be the bad guy somehow

[Gregory Pratt]

Maybe we could make it into a lovestory featuring El Duque and The Count, with Livan as an opponent of their love?