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Alumni Alumni Dr. Larry Pedegana ’63, Since 1977, Dr. Larry Pedegana ’63 has kept the Mariners center, is pictured with Mariners officials on healthy enough to Opening Day of the 2006 baseball season. Shown left to right are: Howard Lincoln, CEO; John Ellis, chairman emeritus; Pedegana; Chuck Play all in the interest of provoking the good Armstrong, president; doctor. and Bill Bavasi, general Noting that life often turns on pivotal manager. Armstrong moments, Pedegana is ready with stories said of Pedegana: “We shall miss his skill about the circumstances that first turned and expertise and his him to Whitman and later to the Mari- presence.” Pedegana is ners. continuing his private After graduating from Issaquah High practice, Orthopedics School in 1959, he enrolled at Whitman at International, in Seattle. the somewhat blunt suggestion of a school administrator. Summoned one day Ball! to the principal’s office, he approached Ben VanHouten By Dave Holden gana knows star athletes can act in ways the meeting with a “lot of fear and trepi- that a pampered movie star might find dation as I did have an occasional beer well connected in the sports world, (the team physician) was right because He never threw a pitch, caught a fly insufferable. Yet he admires and respects while in high school,” he says. having helped future Hall of Fame base- he kept taking ‘water’ off my knee (using ball or swung a bat, but Dr. Larry the way most players have kept their “I sat down in his office, and he said, ball pitcher Sandy Koufax with his elbow a needle and syringe).” Pedegana kept Pedegana ’63 played a critical role in fame, fortune and egos in perspective — ‘Larry, I have been watching you the past problems in the 1960s — picked up a playing until the knee was severely the success of the Seattle Mariners base- even as player salaries skyrocketed to couple of years, and you’re going to phone and made a few calls. Within injured late in the season. An orthopedic ball team for nearly three decades. what he calls “stupefying” levels. His Whitman College.’ He went on to tell me minutes, Pedegana was the fledgling surgeon at that game diagnosed torn Pedegana, who still nurses a bum fondest memories relate that the admission was Mariners’ first team physician. “I was medial and lateral menisci. The physi- knee from his days as a Whitman football to being treated just like taken care of and there stunned at the time,” he recalls. cian, Ernest Burgess, later became one of player, stepped down this spring as one of the guys. would be some financial Given his own injury-hampered foot- Pedegana’s partners at Orthopedics director of the Mariners medical staff, Norm Charlton, a aid for me.” ball career at Whitman, Pedegana was International. having served as the team’s physician Mariners left-handed After graduating from well equipped to empathize with the After missing his junior season, Pede- Photo courtesy of Larry Pedegana ’63 relief pitcher who Whitman and earning emotional trauma he later saw in the gana returned to play what he remem- since the club’s inception in 1977. Pedegana and three of his Phi Delta Theta To mark his retirement, the Mariners retired a few years ago, his medical degree at faces and psyches of seriously injured bers as a “mediocre” senior season. “I fraternity brothers call themselves the honored the doctor during pre-game was a first-class prac- the University of Mariners players. had lost some quickness and never “Geezers,” and they meet once a year for ceremonies on Opening Day of the 2006 tical joker in a sport that Alberta, Pedegana spent “There were many times when I felt I regained confidence in my knee.” Mean- a vacation. Shown on a recent summer season at Safeco Field in early April. treats prankish behavior two years in the Navy was as much an amateur psychologist as while, he majored in biology and remem- excursion are, from left to right, Pedegana, A handful of senior team officials huddled as an art form. Two and completed his resi- I was an orthopedic surgeon,” he says. bers retired professor Arthur Rempel Morrie Shore ’60, Pat Smith ’61 and Jerry Hillis ’61. around home plate, presenting the weeks after performing dency at the University “There is a lot of emotion involved when with great fondness and respect. He also orthopedic surgeon and former Whitman extensive surgery on of Washington in 1976. an athlete is injured. I know I was a remained active in his Phi Delta Theta football star with a “Silver Scalpel.” Charlton’s throwing With his own health basket case when I suffered a serious fraternity, serving as president and rush In parting ways with professional shoulder, Pedegana was taking a momentary hit injury during my sophomore year at chairman. “There were many times baseball, Pedegana takes with him horrified when an (surgery for a benign Whitman. That was a very bad time for Those fraternity ties remain as strong enough memories to stuff a locker room excited clubhouse brain tumor), he was me. I almost flunked out of school.” as ever. With the end of his pro baseball when I felt I was as much or fill a book. He hasn’t forgotten the staffer showed him a forced to decline a All was well, however, during Pedega- career, Pedegana is pleased to have more sense of excitement that came with his workout videotape of a fellowship at a Los na’s freshman football season. He started time for one of his favorite Whitman an amateur psychologist first few years in the Major Leagues, and determined Charlton Larry Pedegana ’63 Angeles orthopedic every game as a 5-foot-9, 155-pound full- traditions. He and fraternity brothers as I was an orthopedic time has yet to diminish the thrills of throwing again. As Whitman football 1961 clinic headed by sports back, and the Missionaries won their first Jerry Hillis ’61, Morrie Shore ’60 Seattle’s first-ever surge into the playoffs Pedegana knew better medicine pioneers Dr. four games en route to a 5-3 record. A and Pat Smith ’61 get together once a surgeon. There is a lot of in 1995. He still marvels at the tremen- than anyone, throwing so soon after Robert Kerlan and Dr. Frank Jobe. year later, Whitman got off to another year to revisit the good ol’ days. This emotion involved when an dous natural athlete that was the young surgery would immediately undo all of However, Pedegana was able to spend a good start before injuries sidelined Pede- summer’s venue is a horseback-riding, Ken Griffey, Jr., and at the impressive his surgical repairs. As it turns out, the few weeks working in the clinic, and an gana and other key players. fly-fishing trip to Eastern Oregon. athlete is injured.” work ethics he saw in such stars as Edgar surprisingly ambidextrous Charlton had off-hand comment changed his life. Pedegana’s injury was diagnosed “Among ourselves,” Pedegana notes, Martinez and Alex Rodriguez. the videotape shot with the help of Pedegana expressed interest in Seat- early that season as “water on the knee.” “we’re known as the Geezers.” — Dr. Larry Pedegana ’63 As a veteran baseball insider, Pede- mirrors as he threw with his right arm — tle’s new baseball team. Kerlan — already “I was pretty unsophisticated and knew 26 Whitman Magazine July 2006 27 Whitman Alumni Collection Alumni Eugene Nordstrom ’62 is the author of “The Honeymoon Car” (Xlibris, 2006), a love story about two couples, decades apart, drawn together in an extraordinary way. “Out of the mists of time, a pristine Packard Super 8 pulls up to a fashion- able lakeside resort. How could curious onlookers know its young passengers have come from a wedding that occurred 53 years earlier?” Ben Kerkvliet ’65 is the author of “The Power of Every- day Politics: How Vietnamese Peasants Transformed National Policy” (Ithaca, NY; Cornell University Press, 2005). He teaches at Australian National University. The book is based on research in Vietnam’s National Archives and in the Red River Delta. Dr. George Ball Debra Dean ’80 is the author of “The Madonnas of sports a Whitman Leningrad” (Harper Collins), a historical thriller partly set in the smoldering ruins of World War II. Amazon.com: College jacket. “Russian emigré Marina Buriakov, 82, is preparing for her granddaughter’s wedding near Seattle while fight- Kathryn Farrell Guizar ’95 ing a losing battle against Alzheimer’s. Struggling to remember whom Katie 50th Reunion of the Class of 1956 is, Marina does remember her youth as a Hermitage Museum docent as the ROW 1: Dwyla Donohue, Nancy Allen Clark, Pauline Westling Stearns, Ralph ROW 5: Phil Tjelle, Carole Jo Boston Silvernale, Sylvia Gates Schuler, Jackie siege of Leningrad began; it is into these Stearns, Bob Coffin, Gordon Price. Tjelle, Nancy Huff Wolfe, Ole Smistad, Bailey Kluksdahl, Shirley McLaren ROW 3: Gene Pearson, Judy Lytel Price, Justine Wood, Penny Penrose Bignold, memories that she disappears.” Walker, Roger Strawick, Dean Mock ’57, Karen McCormick Fowler, Jane Smistad Mary Evelyn Dean. ROW 6: Gary Fowler, Arla Daniel Mock, Jan McCowan Box, Anderson, Ellen McGillivray Luhrs (far Peter Gram, Helen Fronk Gram, Ned James Hagen ’82 is the author of Gloria Sells, Lee Sells. ROW 2: Bob right), Shirley Quine Coffin. ROW 4: Lange, Priscilla Alsip Lange ’61 (in front “Community in the Balance: Morality Burton, Barbara Ogden Pearson, Gene Nancy Wright, Bruce Wright, Harry of Ned), Milt Watson, Shirley Watson, and Social Change in an Indonesian Tennyson, Leslie Bennett Tennyson ’59, Foster ’54, Dick Thorson ’55, Ruth Nan Soden Best, Gloria Talbot Derbawka.