Why I kept Octavio Dotel’s baseball card in my wallet: Meisel

One morning during spring training in 2013, Octavio Dotel and I sat at a table in the Detroit Tigers’ clubhouse in Lakeland, Fla. One by one, he started to rattle off the team names.

Mets. Astros.

Athletics, Yankees, Royals, Braves.

Not even halfway through the list, he paused.

White Sox, Pirates. Dodgers, Rockies.

Another pause.

Blue Jays, Cardinals. Tigers.

Dotel beamed as he reached the end, having aced the pop quiz. In 43 seconds, he named all 13 teams he played for — and in the proper order.

He was once a struggling starter, then a setup man who piled up strikeouts, a journeyman middle reliever, a hired gun for playoff hopefuls and a veteran nomad hanging on as long as teams kept calling. And they did, up until he approached his 40th birthday. Only 75 pitchers in big-league history have appeared in more games than Dotel’s 951. Only one player, Edwin Jackson, has played for more teams. He was proud of his legacy and grateful that so many teams appreciated what he had to offer.

Dotel died this week at age 51 after a roof collapsed at a concert he was attending in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

I had eagerly awaited that morning in the Tigers’ clubhouse 12 years ago, not just for the opportunity to test Dotel’s memory, but because it was the first time I was interviewing someone I grew up admiring.

How does a Cleveland kid wind up rooting for a guy pitching the seventh or eighth inning for Houston?

I idolized Sammy Sosa because of his imposing stance and muscle, and because the Cubs were always on the national WGN broadcast after school. I mimicked David Justice’s smooth, left-handed swing because he tormented opposing pitchers on behalf of my hometown team.

But Dotel? Well, that’s one of the many beauties of sports: Sometimes, we develop connections to random athletes for a bizarre reason, a level beyond “remembering some guys,” America’s true pastime.

With Dotel, I can trace it back to 1999, when the Mets outlasted the Braves in Game 5 of the NLCS. Dotel, New York’s ninth pitcher of the heavyweight bout, stitched together the final three innings and earned the win when Robin Ventura socked a 15th-inning grand slam, er, walk-off single over the right field fence. I can vividly recall shirking homework duties to stick with that marathon game until the end.

That winter, the Mets included Dotel in the trade package to land ace Mike Hampton from the Astros. Houston was my favorite National League team, since our golden retriever was named Astro, so I started following Dotel more closely, especially once he paired with eventual Hall of Fame closer Billy Wagner to form one of the league’s most lethal late-game tandems.

From 2001-04, Dotel averaged 94 innings and 121 strikeouts, to go along with a 2.64 ERA. I always traded for him when playing video games. He’d sling sliders and heaters toward the plate and I’d never worry about the eighth inning.

One day, when I was in high school, I swiped the top baseball card from a stack that belonged to my then-girlfriend’s brother. (Hopefully there’s a statute of limitations to protect me here.) When I returned home, I pulled it out of my pocket to see whose card I had, um, acquired.

There he was. Octavio Dotel, in his red No. 29 Houston jersey.

You would have thought I had grabbed a T206 Honus Wagner. I stuck it in my wallet, where it remained for about five years, until the edges were worn and the stats on the back were faded and his career was reaching its end.

As Dotel embarked on his final season in 2013, the Elias Sports Bureau calculated that he had appeared in a game with nearly one-quarter of the players across the league at the time. He was traded six times, including three times in a span of 361 days from July 2010 to July 2011. He pitched in the postseason for five different clubs. He dazzled in October as that 25-year-old rookie forced into action in 1999, and as a reliable righty in 2012, when he logged six scoreless outings for Detroit on the way to a World Series appearance.

Many of his stops along his big-league journey were quick. The Astros were the only team with which he lasted more than two years in the majors. So, for fans of the 13 different teams that employed him, there might be a vague memory or two that stands out. But for a kid in a city he never represented, he made an indelible impression.

(Photo: Ezra O. Shaw / Allsport)