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Utley comes back strong from knee trouble

The Phillies' Chase Utley has battled back from knee issues and will start in tonight's All-Star Game.

Phillies second baseman Chase Utley. (Jeff Roberson/AP)
Phillies second baseman Chase Utley. (Jeff Roberson/AP)Read more

MINNEAPOLIS- Benjamin Utley, according to his dad, can do it all.

Hit, field, throw, run. The hitting for power will come, surely.

"He's an active little guy,'' the elder Utley said of his 2 ½-year-old son. "He likes to throw everything - not just baseballs. Everything.''

As the subject matter changed during a recent conversation, from his own health to his son's baseball activities, Utley couldn't help but break out into a smile.

"He's doing everything,'' Utley said. "Well, it's not like I have him doing drills or anything.''

Utley laughed. All in good time, probably.

The father planned to watch last night's Home Run Derby with son in tow.

It'll probably go down as one of the more memorable nights in the young life of Benjamin Utley. And a pretty good one for Chase, too.

Nine days ago, Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. asked Utley to come into the visiting manager's office at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. For the first time in four seasons, Utley had been selected to play in the All-Star Game, and Amaro and manager Ryne Sandberg broke the news to the 35-year-old second baseman.

Utley had made five straight trips to the All-Star Game from 2006 to 2010, but this time was a bit different.

"You ought to feel proud with where you are right now, compared to 2 years go," Amaro told Utley, who will start and bat seventh in tonight's game.

Two years earlier, in 2012, Utley missed the first 76 games. He was placed on the disabled list before the season began with what was termed a "deterioration of the cartilage behind his left kneecap."

The year before that, in 2011, he had missed the first 46 games with right knee tendinitis.

Utley's career appeared to be in jeopardy when one injury-plagued season turned into two, then the pain shifted from one knee to the next. But he never let himself think that way.

In the diligent manner he uses to prepare for a game's starting pitcher, Utley brainstormed and worked at it until he figured out a way to get back on the field and, remarkably, has returned to not just regular, everyday duty, but also to playing at an All-Star level.

"If you know Chase, you wouldn't really be surprised," shortstop Jimmy Rollins said. "We know Chase, we know his work ethic. If it took him out of the game, he'd find a way to get back, I really believe that. He's a little crazy. He was going to do whatever it took. And he's done that."

Before the second of three consecutive multihit games last week in Milwaukee, where he broke out of a hitting skid and helped guide the Phillies to a sweep over the first-place Brewers, Utley reflected on the unlikely path he'd taken to return to an All-Star Game.

"As far as my knees, they're really good right now," Utley said, tapping on them for good luck.

He said they feel as good as they were before the issues began in spring training 2011. Which has to be at least mildly surprising, when you think about all that's gone on since then, right?

"Not in knowing how much work and effort I put into it," Utley said. "I feel like I deserve to feel good."

Utley first found a path to better health in his legs when he left Clearwater, Fla., for Phoenix in late March 2012, during the second straight spring when he wouldn't play a single game. For more than a month, he worked with Brett Fischer, a renowned physical therapist, athletic trainer and strength and conditioning specialist.

"We tried different things," Utley said. "I'd say once I came back and started playing after that, I felt like I had a good grasp on everything. I'm not saying everything was 100 percent. But it was easily playable and much more comfortable than it had been in the previous 2 years."

Utley devised a regular, daily stretching and conditioning routine.

He said he doesn't arrive at the ballpark any earlier than normal - he was already arriving earlier than most. But the pregame preparation changed in an effort to put himself in the best position to play pain-free each day.

"He figured out bio-mechanically what was right for him, what he needed to do for it," Amaro said of what he termed a team effort, which also involved the Phillies' own medical and training staff. "And as he always does, Chase was very detailed and regimented about it."

Utley returned in late June 2012. He hit .256 with 11 home runs in 83 games - the same number of home runs he hit in 2011, but in 20 fewer games. When the offseason arrived following the 2012 season, Utley stayed active, taking ground balls and hitting regularly at the baseball facilities at the University of San Francisco.

In 2013, his first full season back, Utley hit .284 with 18 home runs, 69 RBI and an .823 OPS in 131 games. Other than an oblique injury that cost him a month in the season's first half, Utley was healthy in 2013. His knees weren't an issue and his bat was productive.

"There were a lot of pundits out there saying he's never going to be on the field again," Amaro recalled. "I always felt - and I know Chase always felt - that he would find a way to get back on the field if it was physically possible. And we're seeing the results."

The Phillies' faith in Utley's renewed health came in the form of the $27 million the team guaranteed him last August. In re-signing Utley to two more guaranteed years, with the opportunity of retaining him for three additional seasons, too, with three vesting option years in the contract, the front office kept Utley off the free-agent market.

A player whose popularity among the Philadelphia fan base may be rivaled only by his popularity from ownership on down within the Phillies organization, Utley was able to stay with the only major league team he's ever known.

Not every player who has battled injuries has been as fortunate.

In 2010, the New York Mets reportedly threatened to void Carlos Beltran's contract when the All-Star outfielder decided to have surgery on his right knee, against the team's recommendation. Beltran had missed the majority of the second half of the 2009 season with an ailing knee and would go on to miss the first half of 2010 after surgery.

Beltran avoided microfracture surgery, which can take more than a year to recover from, but unlike Utley, still opted for a surgical procedure. He had arthroscopic surgery to clean out his knee in January 2010.

For two seasons, he played with uncertain knees.

"For baseball, it's the basics," Beltran said last month. "If you don't have your legs, you cannot play the game. It will affect you defensively, it'll affect you offensively. And it'll affect you mentally. Coming to the ballpark every day, worried about what's going to happen. The pain, little pain, you start compensating and you hurt something else."

In 2011, his first full season back, Beltran hit .300 with 22 home runs, 84 RBI and a .910 OPS in 142 games. He was traded from New York to San Francisco before the trade deadline that season, and went on to play back-to-back productive seasons in St. Louis (56 home runs, .836 OPS in 2012 and 2013).

Beltran, now 37, is in his fourth season since overcoming knee issues. He signed a 3-year, $45 million deal with the Yankees last winter.

"It's a very frustrating thing when you know in your heart you can still play the game but your body is [not cooperating]," Beltran said. "I was having trouble keeping my knee healthy. Basically, I changed the way I trained, started focusing on my lower body more."

Like Utley, Beltran was lucky that his body, which had once betrayed him, began to cooperate with his mind, which had never surrendered. Grady Sizemore is still searching for regular health.

Sizemore, a three-time All-Star with Cleveland from 2006-08, joined the Phillies last week after he was released by the Boston Red Sox last month. Before this year, Sizemore had not played in the big leagues since 2011 after battling an assortment of injuries, including three different surgeries on his knees.

"The knees in general, you need them for everything, in any sport, you work from the ground up," Sizemore said. "So anytime there's a breakdown in the chain, it makes things hard. I'm still trying to put everything back together."

The 31-year-old Sizemore hit safely in each of his first three games with the Phillies over the weekend. He said he planned to pick Utley's brain in the coming weeks to see whether if he can find a similar game plan to stay on the field.

"It doesn't seem like he's skipped a beat," Sizemore said of Utley's return.

Utley squinted as the bright light from a television camera bared down on him yesterday afternoon at the Minneapolis Hyatt Regency. He noted the sweat that it created on his forehead and jokingly thanked the cameraman when the light went black and he walked away.

Utley played along in the mandatory media session for All-Star players, but would have preferred to be at the ballpark instead of in a ballroom. All around the room, however, were players who admired him for getting to Minneapolis, period.

"The name of the game is to stay healthy," said Los Angeles Angels outfielder Mike Trout, who looked up to Utley as a kid growing up in Millville, N.J. "And we've seen it before with him, if he stays healthy he can put up great numbers. He's doing that this year and he deserves to be here."

"I have respected Chase, I had the opportunity to play with him in the [World Baseball Classic]," said New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter. "Anytime you come back from something it's difficult, especially when it's an injury that forces you to sit out for big chunks of time...It shows he works extremely hard and cares about what he does. I'm glad to see him back."

A few hours later, Utley would be back in his comfort zone. He'd ducked through the raindrops at Target Field and would see how long his only child could make it through the Derby on the eve of his sixth All-Star Game.

The Utleys are expecting their second son in October. Perhaps Chase Utley's first go-round at fatherhood couldn't have come at a better time.

"It's changed my overall outlook on life in general,'' Utley said. "Obviously, once the game starts, my focus is on the game, but prior to the game and after the game, the attention is on him, which I love. I feel like maybe it's made me more patient as a person.''

When asked for a brief scouting report on Ben, Utley offered that he throws righthanded like his dad, but bats from the right side.

"We'll work on that,'' Utley said, "once his patience level is a little bit better.''

More All Stars: Brandon Moss reflects on his time with the Phillies.