Barry Zito is a man striving for excellence both on and off the playing field....

Sometimes destiny finds the person but in Barry Zito’s case, the person made their destiny. A lifetime of dedication to his craft has netted him with what many baseball pundits have described as the most wicked knee-buckling left handed curve ball since Sandy Koufax.  Of course, he’s also been described as intense, focused, well-rounded, a humanitarian, loyal, a patriot, a surfer, a scholar, a photographer, a leader, eclectic, passionate, an animal lover, and at times, the owner of some wickedly crazy hair.

He embodies the phrase “live your life to the fullest and experience it all"

Baseball has long been his escape, his challenge, his craft and above all, his love.

Between his music, his photography, his family and his work in the community and with various charities, Barry Zito has a long list of passions he needs to feed. What makes him really tick though is standing atop a mound sixty feet, six inches away from the batter’s box with a baseball in his left hand and the baseball world waiting to see what unfolds.

Over the years, Zito has emerged as one of the most dependable and durable pitchers in all of baseball. His left arm and intense drive to win helped make the Oakland Athletics one of the game’s most consistent winners as they perennially battled for the playoffs. His status as one of the game’ elite pitchers emanates from a journey that he and his family embraced during his childhood in California.

Barry and his parents, Roberta and Joe.

A Dream is Born
Long before he first realized his dream by stepping on the mound for the first time in July of 2000 and well before his wicked curveball became his calling card among professional hitters, Zito was putting in hours in his backyard, working diligently to learn about the game and the art of pitching.

Barry was blessed to have parents that recognized and nurtured his passions and dreams at their first signs of blossom. Being musicians - Joe being a composer and Roberta a singer – Barry’s parents were familiar with the type of dedication it takes to hone a craft. So when they saw their son engulf himself in the art of pitching, Roberta and Joe Zito started putting aside grocery money to spend on pitching lessons for their only son. When Barry was 13, the Zito’s enlisted the help of 1976 Cy Young winner and former San Diego Padres hurler Randy Jones.  Barry began taking weekly lessons from Jones and the makings of Barry’s curveball as we know it today were under way. Despite his many interests, Zito made baseball a central part of his curriculum and his family’s extraordinary commitment helped cultivate the talents tucked within his left arm.

So after many years of videotaping his son training in the family’s backyard or at his little league and high school games, it was only fitting to see Joe as he videotaped his son being presented the AL Cy Young Award in New York City following the 2002 season. 

The Path to the Majors
After an all-conference career at San Diego’s University High School and an amateur career that included appearances in the 1994 Colt World Series, the 1995 Palomino World Series, and the 1996 Connie Mack World Series, the Seattle Mariners selected Zito near the end of the 1996 First-Year Player Draft, in the 59th round.  Instead of signing, Barry decided to attend the University of California-Santa Barbara and earned All-American selection honors as a freshman. To make himself eligible for the draft again, Zito transferred to Pierce Junior College for his sophomore year where he delivered a stellar 9-2 season while posting a 2.62 earned run average. Barry’s success starting turning heads. His draft status took a meteoric spike, and in 1998 the Texas Rangers tabbed Zito in the third round.

It was getting closer but Barry still had something to prove to himself. For his junior season, he followed in the footsteps of such legendary hurlers as Tom Seaver and Randy Johnson at USC. Donning the uniform of one of college baseball’s most prestigious programs, Zito was a consensus All-American, putting up a 12-3 record, a 3.28 ERA and 154 strikeouts in 113.2 innings. He also earned the Pac-10 Conference’s Pitcher of the Year honor.

Now he was ready. After being the 1,587th player chosen in 1996 and going 83rd in 1998, Zito was selected by the Oakland Athletics with the ninth overall choice of the 1999 draft. Within two weeks of being drafted, Zito had a contract in hand and had his bags packed for the minors.

He blew through the Oakland system. He debuted in Single-A and ended the season at the Triple-A affiliate in Vancouver. In Vancouver, he pitched three postseason games helping Vancouver to the Pacific Coast League Championship and the Triple-A World Series title.

Zito began the 2000 season at Triple-A Sacramento and built on his previous year’s success. Through 18 starts, he delivered an 8-5 record to go with a 3.19 ERA. In July, he got the call from the big club. The A’s were in the midst of a playoff hunt, seeking their first postseason berth since 1992. On July 22, the 22-year-old Zito joined fellow young hurlers Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder in the starting rotation. Zito fit right in with the young and upstart team who received a boost from their curveball specialist. He didn’t disappoint. In his debut against the division rival Angels, he delivered a two-hit, one-run effort over five innings to earn his first major league victory. 

The Time Arrives
The A’s gambled and slotted Zito into the starting rotation for the stretch run. In the heat of a pennant race, he repaid the A’s confidence with a sparkling September where he went 5-1 with a 1.73 ERA. The rookie’s dazzling month included a five-hit shutout and a 10-strikeout game. He finished the regular season by holding opponents to a microscopic .195 batting average. On the final day of the season, The A’s clinched the American League West title.

The 2000 season marked the first time that baseball fans were introduced to Oakland’s “Big 3” of Zito, Hudson, and Mulder. In the coming years, opposing fans would become intimately familiar with the imposing staff and with the A’s as staples of the postseason.

Like a scene from a movie, Zito, the rookie and in his first trip to the playoffs drew the match up against future Hall of Fame fireballer Roger Clemens, owner of 300+ major league wins. Awestruck but determined, Zito displayed his big game mentality. While facing the powerhouse New York Yankees, winners of 3 of the last 4 World Series, Zito out dueled Clemens not once but twice. The second win came in front of raucous sold-out and raucous Yankee Stadium – one of the greatest stages in all of sports.

Zito tried to treat it like any other game. The youngest player on the A’s roster reminded himself to locate his pitches, mix up his speeds, trust his stuff, and to ignore the dire consequences – elimination – of one more Oakland loss.

Staked to a 3-0 lead in the first inning, Zito pitched the A’s into the sixth inning, allowed only one runner past first base through five innings, fanned five, and limited the vaunted New York lineup to one run. Zito’s start silenced the 56,915 fans at the House That Ruth Built and forced a fifth game.

Despite playing only half the year in the majors, Zito finished 6th in the voting for Rookie of the Year.
Perhaps coming down off the high of his first playoff experience, the 2001 season began on an uneven note for Zito. As of July 24, his record was 6-7 and his ERA checked in at 5.01. But over his final 13 starts of the season, Zito shook the sophomore slump and dominated with an 11-1 mark and a 1.32 ERA. He was the American League Pitcher of the Month for both August (5-1, 1.02 ERA) and September (4-0, 1.33 ERA) and became only the fourth Oakland pitcher ever to eclipse 200 strikeouts in a season. In the postseason, the A’s again drew the Yankees in the Division Series.

Oakland took the first two games from the Yankees in New York, and the three-time reigning World Series Champions faced elimination heading back to the Bay Area. Zito rose to the occasion again and tossed a gem in Game Three, allowing two hits and striking out six over eight innings against the major’s most potent offense. It took a Jorge Posada solo home run and a now immortalized flip by Derek Jeter to keep the A’s from scoring the tying run.
In 2002, Zito and the A’s enjoyed a banner year. He prepared intensely prior to the start of the season and came out of the gated on fire. In fact, he simply bordered on unbeatable from the start of the season to the finish. He led the A’s to the AL West crown and a franchise record-tying 103 wins. Individually, Zito delivered his finest season at any level with a dominating 23-5 record and a 2.75 ERA. The A’s went 28-7 in the 35 games he started, and Zito earned a win in the 2002 Division Series. Most impressive, he became the youngest pitcher to win the Cy Young Award since Clemens earned the honor in 1986, and his 23 wins were the most by an American League left-hander since Frank Viola won 24 in 1988. Barry Zito wasn’t just making it in the major leagues, he was thriving.

Zito was again a workhorse in 2003, pitching 231 innings good for 4th in the league. Despite the workload, he still managed a 3.31 era and Oakland reached the postseason where Zito struck out 13 Red Sox batters in 13.0 innings in the Division Series. Following the departures of Hudson and Mulder after the 2004 season, Zito welcomed a leadership role among Oakland’s stable of young pitchers and the A’s maintained their winning ways.

After missing the playoffs in 2004 and 2005, the club earned another A.L. West title in 2006. In a classic match up featuring two elite pitchers Zito out dueled fellow Cy Young winner Johan Santana to beat the Twins in Game One of the Division Series. Zito’s win was the launch of an Oakland sweep, and the A’s reached the American League Championship Series for the first time since 1992.

Following the 2006 season, Zito entered the free agency period for the first time in his career, and the left-hander’s accomplished résumé and future upside made him the most sought-after pitcher on the market. He received heavy interest from destinations throughout the baseball landscape.

On December 29, 2006, however, Zito concluded that he did not have to venture far to find the best place to continue his career, agreeing to a seven-year contract with the San Francisco Giants and allowing him to remain in the Bay Area. The Giants coveted him not only as a postseason-tested ace left-hander, but also as a leader for their core of young pitchers.

Zito, who has never been on the disabled list in his 8 year career. While with the Oakland Athletics he made at least 34 starts and threw at least 213.0 innings in each full season of on top of going to the postseason five times in seven years, his Oakland teams averaged nearly 95 wins per season since his major league debut. With the San Francisco Giants, he took the mound 34 times and threw 196.2 innings in his first full year in the National League.

All the while, Zito never veered from being himself. He surfs, he plays the guitar, he is a published photographer, he has acted and danced, and he has been unafraid to challenge the conventional wardrobe of the modern ballplayer. In recent years, he has taken a particular interest in supporting the men and woman of the United States Armed Forces and Marines through his “Strikeouts For Troops” foundation, a non-profit program that provides comforts of home to rehabilitating soldiers. Zito has received the assistance of more than three dozen fellow professional baseball players who make donations to the non-partisan program based on their statistical achievements. Funds have also been raised by hosting special events and fan donations at www.strikeoutsfortroops.org.  To date, Strikeouts For Troops has raised nearly one million dollars for America’s war-wounded troops being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC, National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, MD, Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, TX, Naval Medical Center, San Diego, CA and other military hospitals nationwide.

Strikeouts For Troops has raised nearly one million dollars since it’s launch in April 2005 from contributions by over 50 professional baseball players, fundraising events, fan donations, and corporate partnerships.

The 29-year-old Zito is likely to find other interests along his journey. Professionally, however, Zito remains most committed to taking the mound every fifth day and anchoring the pitching rotation of a winner. With a baseball in his left hand, his passion for the game, and a life spent pursuing his dream on the diamond, he is living proof that anything is possible.