from the New York Daily News

Thursday, July 26, 2001

By Vic Ziegel

Matt Gahan is either the oldest or youngest of the Brooklyn Cyclones. There are all sorts of fascinating statistics on the way but the only one that matters has to do with birthday candles.

Gahan is 25, "with the same experience as an 18-year-old," said pitching coach Bob Ojeda before the Cyclones beat the Staten Island Yankees 3-2 last night at KeySpan Park. "But not an 18-year-old from Southern California. Let's say an 18-year-old from Idaho."

Gahan doesn't speak Idaho. He's from Australia. He's an accountant. An accountant with a fastball. A fastball and a dream, and a wife who spent three weeks in Brooklyn before heading back to Gonellaban, which is a suburb of Lismore — statistic on the way — and a 10-hour-drive from Sydney.

Lismore, says Gahan, has one of the top five baseball fields in Australia. When the Japanese and Australian national teams play each other they always use the field at Lismore. Maybe this is more than you need to know about Lismore. Maybe you think a 25-year-old from Australia pitching in A-ball in Coney Island, dreaming about a big league career, is the longest kind of longshot. Gahan might even agree with you.

But if you listen to Ojeda, who can tell the difference between dreams and reality, Gahan's story begins to make sense. "Experience-wise, and as far as the nuances of the game, he's still learning," the coach says. "He was frustrated in spring training because the other pitchers knew things he didn't know. On bunt plays, he was running the wrong way."

Ojeda remembers a spring game, a man on second, nobody out. "The batter's going to try to hit to left," Ojeda told his pitcher.

"Why?" Gahan wanted to know.

"To move him over."

Gahan's response was an echo. "Why?" he wanted to know.

"As far as baseball goes, he's still coming out of the jungle," Ojeda says. "The game does move faster than he expected. But this isn't brain surgery. He's hungry to learn and he is learning."

Gahan starts tonight against the Hudson Valley Renegades. Last Sunday, his first start, he gave up a run in six innings, and his earned-run average ballooned to 0.61. His 29 innings have produced 36 strikeouts, three wins, no losses, four saves. Opposing batters are hitting.141 against him. This 25-year-old is treating the rest of the league like small boys.

"I'm not blown away by my statistics," Gahan says. "I'm not big on statistics. At the moment, I'm pretty happy with the way things are going. But there's a lot of room for improvement. My ability to learn and succeed has to exceed everybody else's."

Last December, when accounting came first, there was room for baseball only on the weekends. He was competing in a Lismore tournament and Mark Dewey, a Mets' minor-league pitching coach, was impressed. "He thought with the stuff I had, and considering the little amount of training I had, I could give baseball a go," Gahan said.

The next month, because his firm owed him vacation time, he played the same tournament full time. "I did it purely for fun," he says. "I didn't think anything would come of it."

The fun became serious when Dewey contacted the Mets and they invited the pitcher to Florida. "It's happening quickly, but it has to," Gahan says.

The heavy tax season, like all the seasons in Australia, is very different from ours. September to February is when Gahan's firm will want him back, and that gives him all the time he needs to find out if baseball becomes part of his schedule. "If the Mets want me back, if I move up the ranks, I'll be back," he says. "If not, I'll go back to my job."

Pressure doesn't seem to be this pitcher's problem. A teammate, pitcher Wayne Ough, is from Australia, and that helps. So do the calls he keeps making to his wife. "I've lost tab of how much I've spent on phone cards," he says. The accountant's estimate is $700.

The best thing going for him, Ojeda says, is "a live fastball, and an excellent breaking ball." The coach is teaching him a changeup. "He wants it now, so he gets hard on himself. I tell him, 'You got enough people who want to beat on you; don't beat yourself up.' But him being 25, I don't think that's an issue. I signed for 500 bucks and a bus ticket to Elmira and two years later I was in the big leagues. If he can get up there in four more years, what's wrong with that?"

Not a thing. The world is always ready for a 29-year-old rookie.