A New York state of mind

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Dave Righetti saw the talent right away. That part, he said, was automatic. When Al Leiter joined the Yankees in 1987, at age 21, he had major league stuff.

But something else stood out more to Righetti about Leiter, the pitcher he would come to call his little brother. Long before it was fashionable to want to pitch for the Yankees, Leiter relished it.

"He was not afraid of New York," Righetti, now the San Francisco Giants' pitching coach, said in a telephone interview on Thursday. "He grew up in Jersey, so he understood it and embraced it. Right there, that was half the battle, because most guys back then didn't want any part of New York. But he was the opposite."

Righetti thought Leiter would have a long, successful Yankees career, and he was half right. Leiter has pitched in the majors for 19 seasons, growing with the Toronto Blue Jays after a trade from the Yankees, then enjoying success with the Florida Marlins before flourishing with the Mets for seven years.

But his return to the Marlins this season, after the Mets halted free-agent negotiations last winter, was disastrous. Leiter was 3-7 with a 6.64 earned run average in the first half, and he struggled to understand what was happening.

Maybe, Leiter said, it could have simply been the change of scenery. Maybe the kid who had craved the New York intensity had gotten so used to it that he needed it to succeed.

"I think a lot of things happened," Leiter said. "For seven years, I was in this fishbowl with this intensity, with all the stuff that went on with the Mets."

Did he miss it? "Oh, yeah," Leiter said.

Leiter's success with the Marlins, in 1996 and 1997, was at a different point in his career. In this stint with Florida, his best start was the one he made in New York, when he gave up one run over seven innings against the Mets' Pedro Martinez on April 16.

"You may think that whether you play one year or 20 years, and your job is to pitch every fifth day, you wouldn't have to worry about your arousal level for each start," said Gil Patterson, the Yankees' Triple-A pitching coach, who has known Leiter for 16 years.

"But pitching for the Yankees and Mets and being in New York, it is different. As much as people maybe sometimes don't want to think that, it is. It's almost like Al was made for it or born for it. Maybe that was a key for him."

In his first start after the game at Shea Stadium, Leiter gave up eight runs in three innings against the Mets in Florida. As his problems continued, the prevailing opinion around baseball was that he was finished at age 39.

His command had deserted him.