October 20, 2011
For Giants' Wilson, fear strikes back
N.H. experiences motivated San Francisco closer
by Dan Guttenplan/
Brian Wilson (Londonderry, N.H.) is the face of the San Francisco Giants - and perhaps the most recognizable in baseball. (photo: Getty Images)
MORE IMAGES 
Brian Wilson stood on the mound for the San Francisco Giants with two outs in the ninth inning in Game 5 of the 2010 World Series.
The Fox broadcast showed a split-screen with Texas Rangers slugger Nelson Cruz on the right side, standing in the batter’s box and fidgeting with the bat as he gazed out at the mound. On the left side of the screen, Wilson stared back, appearing almost cross-eyed, with a black-dyed beard, the remnants of a grown-out mohawk dripping out of his hat and a noticeable vein popping out of his sculpted neck.
With a shift of the head, Wilson appeared to shake his eyes back into alignment. He suddenly started a herky-jerky motion, bringing the baseball over the top. His right-handed grip looked as if he was attempting to squeeze the cork center through the seams of the baseball. The pitch cut in on Cruz’s hands. Swing and a miss. Strike three. Season over. Wilson was the last man standing.
Wilson turned to the outfield, looked up to the sky and, in a mixed martial arts move, crossed his forearms over his head. He then turned back toward charging catcher Buster Posey. Less than five seconds after Wilson brought an end to the season, he was lost in a sea of jumping teammates.
At that moment, two questions figured to be on the minds of baseball fans everywhere: Who is this guy, Brian Wilson? And where is he from?
‘For those who don’t like me …’
Brian Wilson is from Londonderry, N.H., but it’s not really fair to say he’s the pride and joy of Londonderry. He moved to Londonderry from Winchester, Mass., in second grade, and when he left for Louisiana State University in 2000, he was, by many accounts, gone for good.
Wilson hardly would remember the Londonderry portion of his life as the apex. In fact, it is likely remembered as the nadir. Wilson’s father, Mike Wilson, an Air Force veteran, was diagnosed with cancer shortly after his family moved to Londonderry. Brian was 12. Mike battled cancer for the better part of five years before losing the fight after Brian’s junior year.
Wilson’s final message in the 2000 Londonderry High yearbook was not one of mixed emotions.
“I’ll be leaving this town, but I’ll be successful ha ha ha,” Wilson wrote. “Too bad for you. For those who don’t like me … You’ll be pumping my gas. July 31st — miss you, don’t ever forget that dad. I’m done.”
Wilson currently owns three homes — one in San Francisco, one in Los Angeles and one in Arizona.
‘He was pretty quiet’
Chris Moran befriended Wilson when they were Londonderry Athletic Field Association All-Stars together at 11. Moran remembers Wilson being “a clean-cut kid with a military dad.” From the first day Wilson moved to Londonderry, Moran remembers, he “threw the hardest, hit the ball the farthest and was generally the most athletic.”
Moran, who lived a few streets from the Wilsons, used to see Brian and his father practicing for hours on the neighborhood baseball diamond. The Moran and Wilson parents soon became friends, and Chris started spending more time with Brian.
“When we were 12, I had no idea his dad had cancer,” Moran said. “Brian never let that come into his mindset. I found out through my parents, but Brian always put personal stuff aside. I do know that it deeply affected him.”
By the time Wilson reached high school, his reputation as an athlete preceded him. Mike Hogan coached the Londonderry baseball team from 1988 to 1998. The final two years overlapped with Wilson’s freshman and sophomore years.
Hogan doesn’t remember Wilson being physically imposing as a freshman — maybe 5-foot-7, 140 pounds. However, he does remember Wilson being the talk of the town after throwing a no-hitter in an American Legion game as an eighth-grader.
“Eighth-graders don’t usually play Legion,” Hogan said. “So I knew I had a kid coming up who was pretty good.”
What Hogan remembers of Wilson as a freshman is a quiet young man who was immediately placed on the varsity squad.
“When you see all of the things he’s doing now with the silliness, I didn’t see any of that,” Hogan said. “He was a kid who knew how to carry himself on the baseball field. He loved the game, but he was pretty quiet.”
‘Here comes Brian Wilson’
Art Psaledas saw another side of Wilson in school. He taught Wilson’s freshman health class before becoming an assistant principal the following year. He said he spent plenty of time with Wilson, both as a teacher and in the role of school disciplinarian.
“Brian was mischievous,” Psaledas said. “Certain guys sit up front and listen; they’re attentive. Then the door bursts open, and here comes Brian Wilson. He was never mean or nasty — he’s just a high-energy person. He would keep a running banter with teachers; it was funny, but it wasn’t always in the best interest of the class.”
Hogan started to see Wilson come out of his shell more as a sophomore. After logging a pitching record of 4-2 as a freshman, Wilson asked the coach if he could have a spot in the batting order.
Hogan agreed to the request. Wilson worked hard at his hitting and turned routine practice drills, such as shagging fly balls, into competitions with teammates.
Mike Wilson’s health took a turn for the worse during Brian’s junior year. Doctors found a tumor near his brain and informed Mike that there would be no cure.
There is a scene in the Showtime series “The Franchise” — a reality show based on this year’s San Francisco Giants — in which Wilson talks openly about the loss of his father. He does so in a matter-of-fact tone, which is the way he says his father talked to him about his own health.
Brian says the one message he took from his father before he died was to work tirelessly to achieve his goals. His father urged his son never to fear failure.
Wilson’s behavior became noticeably more eccentric during his junior year. Whether he simply needed an outlet to cope with his father’s failing health or his personality started to emerge with age, the star pitcher became a major attraction or distraction at Londonderry High, depending on the perspective.
He often wore shorts to school in the dead of winter. The three-sport athlete (golf, basketball, baseball) painted his legs the opposing team’s school colors on the day of basketball games. He stopped doing his homework and made more frequent trips to the principal’s office.
Wilson’s baseball starts became must-see events to local baseball fans, and Wilson often engaged in banter with fans — both friendly and unfriendly — during the course of games. Moran, who was Wilson’s high school catcher, remembers the pitcher dismissively waving at fans and opposing players alike after recording strikeouts.
“I’m sure that once his dad passed, more of his personality came out,” Moran said. “We all started to see more antics in high school. But the tried-and-true form of his father was still right there. He’s always been one of the hardest-working people I know.”
‘He was calm as can be’
Wilson was hardly as talented on the basketball court as the baseball diamond, but coaches and teammates remember his on-the-court energy spilling over into the bleachers. As a junior, he was part of a team that beat a previously undefeated Concord, N.H., team led by future NBA player Matt Bonner. Wilson scored 10 points in the win, 37 shy of Bonner’s 47.
Kenny Stewart was the lone Londonderry player from that team to go on to play basketball in college, starring at Plymouth State University from 1999 to 2003. He says Wilson’s enthusiasm inspired the rest of the team.
“We’d be in lay-up lines, and I’d look down at his legs, and he’d have his legs painted,” Stewart said. “He’d just smirk. He’d show up to school in the dead of winter in Hawaiian shorts and a T-shirt with something dirty written on it. No one ever told him to take it off because he was just a funny guy. When the rest of us were nervous before games, he kept things loose.”
Wilson always found somewhat of a sanctuary on the mound. Bob Napolitano took over as the Londonderry baseball coach during Wilson’s junior year. At first, Napolitano says he was “concerned about how (Brian) would receive me,” due to conflicts the player experienced with other coaches at the youth league level.
Napolitano rarely saw the best of Wilson on the mound, as the pitcher spent various stints during his senior year either injured or absent from games, choosing instead to attend showcases and combines all over the country. Napolitano often gave Wilson a week between starts due to what he believed was a tired arm from overuse in his younger years. Still, one of Wilson’s pitching outings during his senior season sticks in Napolitano’s head.
With pro and college scouts eager to witness a Wilson start firsthand, Napolitano scheduled his ace to pitch the first home game. More than 90 minutes before game time, scouts started trickling into the bleachers behind home plate with radar guns.
“Brian walked down to the field, walked right past the scouts, and sat in the third-base dugout,” Napolitano said. “He calmly ate a sandwich and had a drink. He got himself together and warmed up down the sideline. It was nothing different from what he normally did. On the outside, he was calm as can be.”
Wilson pitched a two-hit shutout in front of 29 scouts.
‘It works for him’
These days, Wilson rarely talks about Londonderry. He’s a larger-than-life figure in San Francisco who provided the inspiration for the Giants’ rallying cry, “Fear the Beard.” He appears on the nation’s biggest late-night television shows with a large man dressed in a leather thong whom he lovingly calls, “The Machine.” He’s the kind of guy who wears orange cleats on the mound, only to be fined by Major League Baseball for a uniform code violation.
Wilson doesn’t exactly scream Londonderry.
“As far as his off-field antics, he draws strength from them,” Napolitano says. “That’s not me. I would never do it, nor do I tolerate my players trying to do it. But he is a man, and it works for him.”
One thing that is evident throughout “The Franchise” series is Wilson’s work ethic. The Giants closer routinely is shown working out in the weight room, doing exercises that no other teammate ventures to attempt. Often, teammates pause from their own workouts to admire his routine.
He also seems to have his heart in the right place. In many interviews, he has shared that he became a devout Christian five years ago. On Memorial Day, he announced the creation of the Michael Wilson Scholarship in partnership with the Air Force Association. The gift was the largest scholarship given by an individual to the Air Force Association in its 65-year history.
“He’s a white kid from New Hampshire who had to work his tail off to get to where he is,” Psaledas said. “He had to sacrifice everything. He went down to LSU to pitch. Do you know why? Not because he loved Louisiana, but because he knew that’s what he had to do to make the big leagues.”
Closers, by nature, are a different breed. In a typical outing, fear plays a major role in the proceedings. For Wilson, there’s no one waiting in the bullpen to bail him out if he struggles. Each time he takes the ball, he will either close the game or blow the game, with no in between.
When Brian Wilson was 17, he lost his father to cancer and decided he would never let fear stand in the way of achieving his goals. Now, he stands on the mound, staring cross-eyed at opposing batters, with a black beard and veins bulging out of his neck.
Wilson appears to have discovered that fear can work both ways.
This article originally appeared in the October 2011 issue of New England Baseball Journal.
Dan Guttenplan can be reached at feedback@baseballjoural.com
