Right-handed pitcher, Ryan Dempster was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys on Saturday.
Dempster was drafted in 1995 and played for sixteen years in the majors, winning a World Series ring with the Boston Red Sox in 2013
Dempster was both a starter and a closer at different times in his career.
He says he preferred starting because he liked the four days off between starts. But he adds there was nothing in baseball like the adrenaline rush he got from closing.
“I get to work on my golf game and nap. But the adrenaline rush of closing was like nothing else in the game. When people say oh, you just take somebody who's really good in the seventh and plug him into the ninth, it's not true. It's a whole different beast and it was some of the most fun moments I had in my career. But, definitely two different animals and they're evolving.”
He notes they're two very different roles and even in today's game they're evolving. He remembers a time when a starter was expected to go the whole game and it didn't matter how many runs he gave up as long as the team won.
“Then you started to see the three-inning reliever, a guy come in and do that, and then guys like Bruce Sutter, the first closer into the Hall of Fame. He was throwing three-inning saves, you know, they weren't come in and get three guys out, he was going through a whole lineup once, sometimes twice.”
But he says the roles continue to evolve and now you see pitchers who specialize in getting righties or lefties and they might come just to get one batter out.
Dempster says he was excited and very humbled to be inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame alongside Jason Bay, Rob Thomson and Gord Ash.