It was hot as hell the day Eddie Guardado’s life changed, probably 90 degrees as he ran from foul pole to foul pole on a summer day in 1992, trying to sweat out the struggles that had the young right-hander questioning his baseball-playing future.
Guardado, then 21 years old, was years away from being known as “Everyday Eddie” for his pitching stamina during a lengthy run as the Twins closer. He was a starting pitcher and he stunk. He didn’t like baseball much when he stunk, so he decided to run himself to the point of exhaustion, to see if that would help.