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Men Of Troy

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By MARC LANCASTER, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 16, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - Barry Bonds had his black leather recliner. Troy Percival has a water cooler.

The venerable apparatus sits alongside Percival's locker in the Naimoli Complex clubhouse with a sign taped to the tank that reads "Percival use only!" It was a gift from the Rays' clubhouse attendants, presented after the veteran reliever complained that he couldn't find a bottle of water anywhere following one of his early workouts at the complex.

It's a fitting totem to the man who seems to have everyone's ear as Rays camp gets rolling.

Chat with any young pitcher in the clubhouse and Percival's name is sure to be mentioned within a couple of minutes. They talk eagerly about how they hope to lean on him this spring and into the season, soaking up the wisdom gained through one of the most successful runs as a closer in major-league history.

"He's huge for our clubhouse," ace Scott Kazmir said. "The guy's done it all. He's had a great career, a World Series ring - it's something that we need for us young guys, to look at him and see how he goes about his business and feed off him."

To say Percival welcomes his dual role as the Rays' closer/mentor would be an understatement. He said Friday he considers his on- and off-field duties equally important.

And it's not just kicking back after practice and listening to the 38-year-old spin yarns about the Angels' run to the 2002 world championship, with Percival converting all seven postseason save opportunities, including Game 7 of the World Series. It's more about instilling the mind-set that helped the Angels get to that point.

"To me, going out and doing your job is not just going out and throwing 200 innings and throwing your pitches," Percival said. "It's having a purpose to everything you do when you go out there, and your purpose is to win. Regardless of how you get it done, your purpose is to win."

That concept is entirely foreign to the players in the room who have come up as Rays, perpetually waiting not just for next year but for a couple of years down the road when all those elusive pieces would be in place.

"You get a team like this, they're hungry for a reason to believe in themselves," Percival said.

He believes the mere presence of players such as himself and Cliff Floyd should be a starting point. Both players are at the stage in their careers where winning another World Series ring (each already has one) usually takes precedence over just about everything, yet both signed with a franchise that has never exceeded 70 wins.

What are they thinking? To Percival, it's a matter of catching a team on its way up - again.

In the fall of 2004, he signed a two-year deal with a Tigers team that had lost 209 games the previous two seasons. He saw something happening in Detroit and his instincts proved correct, even though an elbow injury that appeared to have ended his career kept him from playing a part in the Tigers' resurgence.

When Percival was perusing his options this offseason, he saw similar qualities in a group managed by a man he trusts and believes in, Joe Maddon, and decided to take a leap of faith rather than take more money to be a setup man for the perennially contending Yankees.

"You look at the Yankees - they're obviously a much more experienced team, a very talented team," he said. "But this team ought to go talent-for-talent with anybody if we can get them to believe it. That's something that I relish, getting the opportunity to come in here with you guys and say, 'Look, we can go position-for-position with them.' We can do that. There's not many teams out there that we can't go position-for-position with."

It's a strong statement - among the first of many Percival figures to make this season regardless of what he does on the mound.

Reporter Marc Lancaster can be reached at (813) 259-7227 or mlancaster@tampatrib.com.

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