Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland remembers Edinson Volquez's emotional effort

Pitching coach Dave Eiland was one of the few Royals in uniform who knew that Edinson Volquez's father, Daniel, had died before Game 1 of last year's World Series.

I contacted Eiland on Wednesday night to ask his memories of the Series. For nearly 15 minutes, he spoke almost uninterrupted about the two games that Volquez pitched in the Series. He also shared his own story of loss, talking about how he pitched for the Cardinals' Triple-A affiliate in 1996, knowing his father was about to die.

First, Game 1:

"I knew an hour, an hour-and-a-half, two hours before the game what the reality was, what was going on," Eiland said. "But I also knew the request of the family was for Eddie not to know. They wanted Eddie to pitch, and they would tell him after the game.

"We go into his pregame ritual in the clubhouse. Everybody involved is wondering through social media or somebody texting him from the Dominican with the news . . .  what if he finds out before he goes out? But it was like, if he finds out, he finds out. This was his dad. This was family.

"I meet with him. We go over the hitters, him, Salvy (catcher Salvador Perez) and myself. We do that an hour before the game. A half-hour before the game we go to the bullpen. Everything is normal, everything is fine. From the time we went to the bullpen, I was under the assumption that he did not find out. If he did, obviously he would have had a much different reaction.

"We were trying to keep things normal. We've got to go on because it's the World Series. But in the back of your mind, you're thinking, 'Yeah, it's the World Series, but his dad just passed away.' This is bigger than that. Family and life, as big as the World Series is, this is much bigger.

"The whole time he's pitching, you're trying to concentrate on the game, talk to him about hitters, the game plan. Everyone is flowing like it normally does. But you're going, 'Gosh, as soon as he's out of the game, he's going to go upstairs and it's going to be a life-altering experience for him.'

"It was different. It was tough. You know what's waiting on him. The biggest moment of his professional life -- he's pitching Game 1 of the World Series, and as special as that is, you know when he goes upstairs and his wife is waiting on him, that he's going to go from the ultimate high from being a major-league baseball player to a very low moment finding out he loses his dad. You're going from one end of the spectrum to the other.

"It tugged at me. It tugged at Ned, the few of us who knew. It put things in perspective."

After the game ended, Eiland began thinking ahead to the rest of the Series, knowing that Volquez was scheduled to pitch Game 5, if necessary.

Not only did Edinson Volquez start Game 5, he pitched wonderfully.

"That was on the back-burner. Game 5 was on the back-burner. At the forefront of your mind was Volquez the person," Eiland said.

"I talked to Eddie later that night. At 1 or 2 in the morning, he sent me a text. I called him. It was probably 2-2:30. We had gone 14 innings and won. He said, 'I'm going to the Dominican tomorrow. I'm really happy we won. I knew my boys would win.' I'm like, 'Let's just take baseball out of it. You go home. Take care of your family. If you come back, you come back.'

"He said, 'No, no, no, I'm coming back.' Everything was still raw and maybe not real for him at that point. First and foremost, you're concerned about him, his well-being, his emotional state and his family's. We'll deal with Game 5 a little bit later.

"I was in contact with him through texts every day. We had that day off in New York between Games 2 and 3. I was at dinner with a family member. I got a phone call, looked down and it was Eddie Volquez. I was a little bit surprised. We started off talking, saying, 'How you doing?' -- all the normal things. And he said, 'Dave, I'm going to be back. I want to pitch.' I said, 'Eddie, are you sure?' He said, 'Yeah, I'm going to pitch. It's what I want. It's what my dad would want.'"

Eiland had a sense of what pitching under such circumstances might be like for Volquez, after losing his own father in '96.

"All of us as players, there's a special relationship, a special bond, with baseball and our dads," Eiland said. "I know it was for me. I know it was for Eddie, from talking to him. I don't want to speak for anybody else, but our dads are the ones who introduce us to this game, teach us this game. All of us, we relate this game to our dads.

"My dad, he had cancer. We knew it was bad. We left for spring training. My dad was persistent. Our Triple-A team was in Louisville. He said, 'I want to drive to Louisville with you. I want to be with you.'

"We drove up there. You could tell it was bad. He got worse by the day. We were staying in a hotel the first few days. I went to the ballpark to pitch that night. I had been in the emergency room with him all day. I got a call that he had gone into cardiac arrest. He was on life support.

"I tried to go out and pitch that night knowing good and well after the game that we were going to take him off life support, that it was over. I was OK for three innings and then I lost it. It was a disaster after that.

"Through my experiences, I knew how hard this was for Eddie in Game 5. Obviously, his dad was already gone. It was the same, but it was different. I had a little bit of an experience with all this. With Eddie during that Series, (Royals pitcher) Chris Young earlier in the year, I could relate to all that. As much as baseball is a major part of our lives, it's not life and death."

Volquez rejoined the Royals in New York for Game 4, arriving right around game time.

"The next day, Game 5, you come to the ballpark and you're a little hesitant, but you have a job to do. We go through our normal routine, go over the scouting report, what we need to do. It was really hard for me to look at him, knowing what he was going through and trying to envision the magnitude of it all.

"We walk to the bullpen. Usually from the time we leave the dugout, all the way to the bullpen, we're talking, keeping it light, joking around. That walk from the dugout to the bullpen was a little bit different that night.

"You could tell there was a lot of emotion in him. I just kind of backed off, backed up a few steps once we got to the third-base line, let him have his space. We really didn't have that light conversation. I could tell there was a lot on his mind.

"He went through his warmups. You could tell he wasn't as locked in as he usually is. But we went through it all. I really made it a point to continue to do what I normally do with him, to make it as normal as possible.

"He gave up the leadoff home run to (Curtis) Granderson but he got through it. He ended up getting a hit in that game. I tried to keep it light, just talk to him, knowing the emotions he had going on, me trying to respect him but also trying to keep it normal. We did the best we could with that. Obviously, it worked out pretty well for us.

"Knowing what he was going through and what was on his mind, in his heart, the level of respect -- I had a great deal of respect for him already. But seeing what he did, as strong as he was, to go out and do what he did under the circumstances in that moment, as big as it was, it's something I'll never forget."