Ex-Mets phenom Pulsipher keeps on ticking

Bill Pulsipher is 37 now, in his second season with the Atlantic League's Somerset (N.J.) Patriots, a little grayer and a touch heavier than the lefthanded pitching dynamo who once had the Mets so excited.

Sixteen years ago, Pulsipher and fellow Mets pitching prospects Jason Isringhausen and Paul Wilson were dubbed "Generation K" and were expected to lead the franchise into the new millennium. "Generation K" fizzled as arm injuries befell the trio.

Pulsipher, currently on the 15-day DL with a shoulder injury, last appeared in the major leagues with the Cardinals in 2005. Wilson last played in 2008, for the Reno Silver Sox and Isringhausen, currently with the Mets, has bounced back and found success as a reliever.

Since 2009, Pulsipher has been to off-the-map outposts such as Puebla of the Mexican League and Yuma (Ariz.) of the Golden Baseball League.

"It basically comes down to having to make a living," Pulsipher said before a July 8 game against the Ducks, for whom he played in 2004-07. "You gotta pay the bills, so if this is where I can go to make some money, then that's what I have to do to provide for my family."

So Pulsipher plies his trade in Somerset for a few thousand dollars per month, and has found a kindred spirit in manager Sparky Lyle, former Yankees closer and noted clubhouse prankster. Lyle called his fellow lefthander "the life of the clubhouse."

Before the Patriots signed Pulsipher last year, Lyle says he did not research his past, which includes countless injuries and a battle with clinical depression, something he discussed publicly in 2005. Lyle says he saw a guy with major-league experience and decided to take his chances.

"If somebody says, 'Hey this guy had some troubles off the field,' I'm not going to be the guy to say, 'what exactly were they, let me write this down,' " Lyle said. "I only know the guy from right here, and I like him."

Pulsipher is 2-4 with a 4.57 ERA. Lyle said he counts on him to mentor younger players, a 180 for a guy who admittedly did not embrace veteran leadership in his rookie season of 1995. Brett Butler, an outfielder with the '95 Mets, says it was difficult to penetrate Pulsipher's confident exterior.

"The veterans did not hate Bill," Butler said in an email to Newsday. "Bill was just an insecure kid who was trying to find his way in the big leagues. His way of doing that was by talking all the time. Someone would say something to him, and his response would be 'I know, I know', when, in fact, he did not know."

Maturity issues aside, he had a respectable rookie campaign (5-7, 3.98 ERA in 17 starts) but missed the 1996 season recovering from Tommy John surgery. He went 1-9 in the minors in '97, and the perception of Pulsipher as a future star had vanished.

"I was a cocky kid, and I carried myself that way," Pulsipher said. "Foolishly, but it is what it is. The way I look at it now, everything happens for a reason."

He lives in Port St. Lucie, Fla, with his wife, Michelle, and sons Liam and Leyton. The regrets over a disappointing career, the promise unfulfilled, have faded.

"I don't know if you will ever be completely OK with it because, you know, there are still going to be things you would like to go back and do differently," Pulsipher said

"But I got a wife and two kids and I have to worry about getting people out in the second half. I don't have time to worry about all that stuff.''

After playing, he sees himself coaching, preferably in the Mets organization. He says he is enjoying the twilight of his career, more than a decade removed from the burden of great expectations.

"It was meant to be this way," he said. "I wasn't really supposed to be a superstar pitcher in the big leagues . . . or I would have been."