SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Before a redeye flight home from Seattle in December, Rockies reliever Adam Ottavino shared a photo of an old friend on Instagram. By the morning, he had dozens of texts, peppering him with questions about the big baseball news he broke on social media: Tim Lincecum was throwing again. And he looked utterly swole.
“I really didn’t expect it to be like that,” Ottavino said at Rockies camp this week. “I didn’t think I would totally blow his cover. I felt like, in the picture — it wasn’t obvious where it was, you know what I mean?”
Lincecum, one of the most recognizable, most beloved, and for a while, most dominant pitchers of his era, last saw Major League action with the Angels in 2016.
Some fans spotted him at a women’s rights demonstration in the wake of Donald Trump’s inauguration, but he did not play anywhere in 2017, and a Mercury News reporter sent to track him down in September turned up nothing.
Ottavino and Lincecum go back to 2005, when they pitched together on the Harwich Mariners of the Cape Cod League. And when Lincecum heard that Ottavino was coming to Driveline Baseball in Kent, Washington to hone his repertoire, he was there to surprise his old friend upon arrival. Lincecum, a Washington native, had contacted Driveline founder Kyle Boddy months earlier, had been working out there since and, by that point, could clearly no longer be contained by sleeves.
“Tim started coming in three days a week, and then four, an then five, until he was basically there every day,” Boddy said. “He was there seven days a week for two straight months, all on his own accord. He was an incredible worker.
“He came in pretty big — he weighed 206 when he came in, and cut down significantly. He was lifting before he came to us, so he was really strong, just a little overweight. His body is not naturally 200, so when he cut weight, he looked pretty good.”
Adam Ottavino (Matt Kartozian/USA TODAY Sports)
After a week of working out and hanging out with the two-time Cy Young Award winner, Ottavino returned to his home in New York, but not before posting a photo of Lincecum that he figured vague enough to avoid causing a stir. But the appearance of the enigmatic pitcher, fully yoked, wearing a baseball glove caught the world’s attention. By the next morning, TMZ had dubbed him “Gym Lincecum,” and the whole world knew Tim Lincecum was efforting another comeback.
“I think initially he probably would’ve rather it been kept under wraps,” Ottavino said. “But, he kind of needed a nudge, I think, in the right direction and in the direction of, this is real, I have to throw in front of other people. I know the Driveline people were kind of wondering how they were going to get that information out there.”
Lincecum threw for scouts at the facility less than two months later and signed a one-year Major League deal with the Rangers in early March. And, according to Ottavino, he did not hold a grudge over the unauthorized leak.
“He just said that at least he looked jacked in the picture,” Ottavino recalled. “So he was OK with it.”
