Doug Creek went fishing over the winter
for a baseball team.
Now, he's just plain gone fishin'.
When the native of Martinsburg cast his net over the
winter in search of a major league baseball team and found no
takers, the 37-year-old Creek decided the time had come to just cast
a line.
Creek has retired from professional baseball to fish
professionally.
Creek - who has his captain's license and just started
running a charter fishing service based in New Port Richey, Fla., on
the Sunshine State's gulf coast - will compete on the FLW Redfish
Tour and Professional Tarpon Tournament Series.
Given his surname, fishing's almost ordained for him.
"It got to be that time," Creek said by telephone. "I
wasn't able to
find a job. It wasn't the quality of job I was finding and the
opportunity
that I was going to be able to help a ballclub.
"If it wasn't shaping up to something at this juncture
in my life, I wasn't willing to do that anymore - if I couldn't find
a job where I could
compete and really feel like I beat somebody out so that I would
make the club.
"I have two children at home, a wife and I've been
doing that 15 years. Sooner or later, the stars line up and
you want to try something different."
Besides doting over 3-year-old Colton and almost-2
Aubrie Jane, Creek now studies the celestial bodies for their
effects on tidal currents. Much of his fishing is done in the bays
and estuaries connected to the Gulf of Mexico.
In his debut charter venture this week, Creek - who's a
rookie again -
took out a bunch of ballplayers who had some free time from spring
training. He's networking, using some word of mouth and has
established a
Website to introduce his business.
"Fishing's something I've always loved to do," Creek
said. "When I came down here in 1991 to Tampa Bay when I was with
the Cardinals, I took up some bass fishing because the lakes are
outstanding. I had a friend who introduced me to saltwater fishing.
The inshore fishing here is absolutely phenomenal."
He caught the bug when the Cardinals' training facility
was located in St. Petersburg, Fla. Hooking up with the Tampa Bay
Devil Rays for 21/2
seasons augmented that new passion. At the very least, it convinced
him to
take up permanent residence in the region.
"When I was with Tampa Bay, I fished every day," Creek
said.
He really got hooked on redfish and tarpon, preferring
to work the
shallower waters compared with deep-sea fishing. His fervor was such
that Creek jokes his general manager with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays
saw Creek so often on the water that it probably facilitated his
trade to the Seattle Mariners during a pennant chase in 2002.
In Seattle, he resisted a temptation to toss a line
during a salmon run because of the crowds.
Creek figures he could've succeeded against the salmon,
as a picture shown on his Website -
www.dougcreekfishing.com - from an outing with Wade Boggs in the
San Francisco Bay would attest.
"I have a knack for it - just like baseball," Creek
said. "I can take
different bodies of water and find fish and make them eat." |
|
 |
|
|
Now he gets to do it full time. Time and
distance the last couple of
seasons haven't allowed him to hook into a tarpon - which he
describes as a "prehistoric fish" caught strictly for the sport
because of its fighting
spirit.
"Tarpon season is mostly in the summertime," Creek
said. "It starts
mid-April and gets hot in May, June and July."
Creek expects to run his new 23-foot Ranger bay boat -
he's a member of the company's pro staff - in a range of "120
nautical miles" up and down the coast. He's also sponsored by Red
Baron Pizza, a relationship cultivated over time from his
association with his friend and high school catcher, Jeff Nichols,
who works for the company.
On weekends, he'll be chasing the fish in competition.
More than
$200,000 in prize money is available in the redfish tour, for
instance.
"There's an aspect of hunting to it," Creek said. "To
be able to see the action and feel it, you double the senses. It's
pretty exhilarating to see a redfish turn on a bait you presented to
it."
To Creek, it's not unlike pulling the string on a
batter to get a third
strike.
"If I made it through the big leagues, there's not a
whole lot I can't do," Creek said. "I'm not being cocky, just being
honest."
The lefty pitched in 279 games in the Major Leagues and
totaled 289 innings.
"I've gotten some big outs and did my job in some tough
situations
- what you're supposed to do," Creek said.
Creek pitched for seven different Major League teams,
finishing his
career with the Detroit Tigers, as it turned out, by putting away
the only
two Minnesota Twins batters he faced on Oct. 1 last year. He didn't
know that was his last pitch at the time.
"Of course, it went the way I hoped," Creek said. "I
don't know you can ever expect to play for 15 years - 9 or 10 of
seasons in the big leagues."
Somewhat fittingly, Creek, known as a power pitcher,
struck out the last hitter he faced, giving him 292 for his career -
more than a strikeout per inning over that time.
"Looking back in retrospect, that was a good way to go
out," Creek said. "I kind of got to go out on my terms. Every
career comes to an an end and there's no bitterness over that I
didn't get a chance, I didn't get a shot.
"I played my last game in a big league uniform and the
last guy I faced, I struck out. It makes it easier to swallow."
A former high school state player of the year his
senior season at
Martinsburg High School, Creek went on to become the all-time
winningest
left-hander at Georgia Tech and was named to the school's athletic
Hall of
Fame.
He pitched for Team USA in 1987 and '89. He was pursued
heavily by
several organizations after a successful run with the junior
national team the summer after graduating from high school, then was
drafted twice while at Georgia Tech.
Possessing a lively arm, Creek made his Major League
debut in 1995, pitching in six games for the Cardinals without
allowing an earned run.
Short on specific highlights from his career, one thing
that does stick
out for Creek was having his grandmother, along with his parents, in
the stands at Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Stadium to watch him right
after he received that first promotion to the Majors. |
|
|
|
"That had to be a proud moment for them - and
that makes me feel good," Creek said.
From there, it was on to San Francisco for two seasons,
then the Chicago Cubs. He spent two-plus seasons with the Tampa Bay
Devil Rays before being dealt away to Seattle during their pennant chase
of 2002.
"We won 95 games and didn't make the playoffs," Creek
said. "The
American League West was an absolute monster that year.
"That was an awesome opportunity to go out there, and
I'm quite certain I did the best I could. I did a pretty good job for
them. When you're traded in a situation like that and the team doesn't
make the playoffs, you're basically a hired gun, a short-term investment
for the betterment of the team."
He pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2003 and then,
after earning his captain's license while sitting out 2004 following
Tommy John surgery,
joined Detroit last year. Creek also pitched a season with the
Hanshin
Tigers of the Japanese league earlier in his career.
His experience in Detroit didn't hasten his retirement
necessarily, but it soured him somewhat and gave him a perspective when
he sat down with his wife, Allison, to chart his future.
"It was tough with the situation in Detroit, the way
the bullpen was
run," Creek said. "I'll say nothing good or bad, but there were
times when you'd go 12 or 14 days between appearances and you're being
asked to get big league hitters out. It was a difficult, difficult role
to take."
There was that other lure being dangled in front of
him, too, that
became too difficult to resist.
Creek won't put baseball totally behind him. He plans
to offer clinics
and lessons and would like to coach college baseball at some
point.
First, there's the fishing. In the fall, he plans to
finish up his
degree work at Georgia Tech.
The changes are happening rapidly for Creek, who
equates this period "to growing up."
"If you asked me 15 years ago how long I'd play ball, I
don't know if I would've said 15 years," Creek said. "The thing that is
most comforting to
me is I have a direction after baseball. So many guys, after
their career is over, say, 'Oh, my gosh, what am I going to do?' I am
realistic, and tomorrow is never promised. I have a wife and family that
I have to make sure they're taken care of."
He's missing baseball a little, but he's also too busy
propping up his
new business to be overwrought over something vastly different
in the spring for the first time since around when he was Colton's age.
"It's been a heckuva ride," Creek said. "I have no hard
feelings. In my
mind, I certainly felt I had something more left - I'll always
feel that
way.
"Now it's time to turn the page, start a new chapter,
start something
new and fun."
Like using that left arm for casting instead of
pitching. |