Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald profiles Marlins closer Matt Lindstrom.  Here are some excerpts from the article entitled “Armed and Dangerous”:

  • He walked on at the local junior college, which was then known as Ricks College. The most famous athlete to come out of Ricks was Rulon Gardner, who won gold at the 2000 Olympics in Greco-Roman wrestling, super-heavyweight class.  But Lindstrom didn’t receive a scholarship his freshman year because he wasn’t good enough.
  • (On his Mormon mission to Sweden) ”I took two gloves and a ball over there, but I only used them twice,” Lindstrom said. “Once I played some catch on a soccer field. The other time I worked out with the Swedish baseball team. They were terrible. I was hitting balls over the fence. I was kind of putting on a show.”
  • (On the end of the 2008 season) Lindstrom responded by converting all five of his save opportunities, including the season finale, when the Marlins defeated the Mets in the last game played at Shea Stadium and kept New York out of the playoffs.

It was especially satisfying for Lindstrom, who said he was so excited that he probably overdid it warming up in the bullpen.

”I learned an important lesson,” Lindstrom said. “There were about 50 police officers in the bullpen while I was warming up, I guess to keep people from ripping seats out of Shea, and I was showing off in front of them. I basically burned out all my fastballs before I even got into the game.”

But Lindstrom had enough left to record the final three outs.

”It was pretty emotional because it’s the last game and you’ve also defeated your former team, perhaps showing them they might have made a mistake by trading me,” said Lindstrom, who goes down as throwing the last pitch at Shea.