Editor's note: This is part two of an exclusive one-on-one interview with Chicago Cubs pitcher and Gibsons native Ryan Dempster conducted on Tuesday, Jan. 8, while Dempster was home for a post-Christmas visit with family and friends.
Coast Reporter: Spring training is right around the corner. When do you report to Arizona?
Ryan Dempster: I'm going down on Feb. 16. Pitchers and catchers report first and then the whole team reports a week later. I'm looking forward to it. I'm excited because it's going to be a huge challenge for me. It doesn't happen a lot where guys go from starter to closer and back to starter again. It's a huge challenge for me and my career. People in Chicago and maybe even people around the league, some of them, say [the Cubs] will be lucky if they can get 180 innings out of me and 10 wins. I have bigger and better plans than that, so therefore I'm excited to get down there and start the ball rolling in the process to going out there and having a really good year.
CR: Do you have a number in your head in terms of wins and/or goals?
Dempster: No. If I can make 32 to 34 starts and throw 200-plus innings, wins come with that. In the past, I won 14, 15 ball games on teams that really weren't that good. I think we have a really good team, so if I can make all my starts, we can have a really good season.
CR: This is the last year of your current contract. Does that factor in at all in how you are approaching the season?
Dempster: Obviously, it's like anybody. You're up for a new contract in your job, so you hope you have a really good year in sales or whatever. But at the same time, I just want to re-establish myself as a starting pitcher in the league and just go out there and do well and hope I have a chance to contribute along the way to us winning a World Series. If I do that, if I go out and make all my starts and help us win as a team, I'm a believer that the rest of the things will take care of themselves. I don't concern myself with dollars and years and contracts. You go out there and stay healthy and be a good teammate. If everyone came to the field every day and said to themselves 'what can I do to help our team win today' - if everyone had that motto, you'd have the New England Patriots. When you watch that team, see their interviews, everyone comes out every day and is focused on the team and winning and playing their part. They all ask 'what is my job and what do I need to do to win?'
If we can do that we're going to win and I'm going to have a great year. You never see a team win and then say this guy or that guy had a terrible year - it just doesn't happen. Guys just don't have bad years when a team does great, so I think if I do my job and prepare every day and be prepared to go out there and win, then good things will happen.
Hopefully I'll be back in Chicago. I'm enjoying it -I love playing there. We have a home there, Brady was born there, my wife loves it there and we love the city, and the fans there are great.
CR: What's your opinion on steroids and the Mitchell Report, and will it have a negative impact on the game of baseball?Dempster: I have mixed emotions about it. Part of me totally 100 per cent understands what they are doing. You can't allow records that people set doing things the right way to be tarnished by people who went out there and put performance-enhancing drugs in their system. At the same time it's very easy being on the other side - to sit back and listen to the radio and say, these guys are idiots, man. How did they do this? I always say put yourself in their shoes.
It was easy for me. I was 21 years old in the Big Leagues and a 23-year-old all-star - that option wasn't there for me. I could have, I guess. I could have said 'I should take steroids - maybe I'll be better.' I wasn't 28 and in my eighth or ninth season in the minor leagues and taking steroids to put myself in the Big Leagues. There are millions of dollars to be made on something that didn't have a drug testing policy. There was nothing against it, other than the fact that obtaining steroids was illegal, so there are a lot of different emotions. I'm glad they've cleaned it up. What they've done with the drug testing policy is terrific, it really is. People say it doesn't work because there have been four, maybe five guys with one big name. No one tests positive for steroids any more. Once they can have a test for human growth hormones and stop that, it will be a perfect system. I just wish sometimes they'd focus on getting ahead of the curve rather than always chasing it. I look at these Olympic committees and they are always trying to catch up on the latest drug testing policy instead of looking forward and finding out what the next drug might be and stopping it before it happens. Come up with a test for something five years from now. You go out chasing these things in the past, for what reason? To me you could have spent $60 million on a lot more things that could help the game right now rather than things that talk about the past, but at the same time I understand you have to protect the integrity of the game. There are a lot of uncovered things that need to be addressed and not talk about these guys like they're criminals. They talk about guys who are doing steroids like they are the worst people on earth. There were athletes and baseball players doing a lot worse things than that, but unfortunately, things like steroids tarnish the game.
And it sucks for me being a player who plays in this era. I'm always going to be linked to that. When I say I played in the late 90's and 2000s [people will] think, oh, he probably did steroids. I have kids and one day I'll have to explain to them that Daddy didn't do that, so that's sad to be put in that situation and have your time in the Big Leagues linked to the steroid era.
