Scott Olsen settles onto the home dugout bench at Dolphin Stadium, shades and ballcap on, both legs fidgeting, staring straight ahead at a field beginning to stir with pregame activity.
He's ready to talk about himself. Ready to proclaim, with absolute conviction, he's the same guy he was last year and the year before.
The guy who got a black eye from a close friend. Who showed up his superstar teammate. Who flipped off the city of Milwaukee. Who incited a feud over a defective jersey. Who got beaten and shocked by police and spent a night in jail.
Same guy, just a different approach to the game, more willing to heed advice, more respectful of others, making wiser decisions.
By all accounts, not the same guy at all.
No matter how much he insists otherwise.
''Everybody just thinks I'm grown up because I was 3-0,'' said Olsen, who takes a 3-1 record and 2.70 ERA into Tuesday night's start against the Milwaukee Brewers at Dolphin Stadium. ``If I started off 0-3, everybody would be bringing [stuff] up from last year. I'm still the same person, I just know how to learn from my mistakes.''
Those who know him see a changed man this year. Subtle changes, maybe. But changes that signify a maturity in a player who at 24 had long been labeled ``troubled.''
''What I see, and I tease him about it, is little things,'' said reliever and close friend Justin Miller. ``He's eating better, he's in the weight room more, he's taking his body more seriously. You can tell he's not letting things get under his skin.
''I think subconsciously, last year he learned a lot,'' Miller said. ``It's something probably no one wants to go through. It's how you handle them and how you rebound from them. And obviously he's rebounding from them pretty well.''
UNTAMED STREAK
Olsen brought his fiery, occasionally untamed streak with him to the majors. He had it at Crystal Lake (Ill.) High, where coach Jim Beck said Olsen had ''personality issues'' and was ''not real coachable'' during his senior season.
He also had it in American Legion ball, when -- in a game his team led by 10 runs -- he was annoyed enough with an opposing player to hit him in the back with a pitch.
''Parents started fighting,'' Olsen said.
Olsen, who lived with his mother, and whose older brother died when he was young, rarely received stern lectures after such acts.
''Not many people would try,'' Olsen said. ``My mom would help, but coaches, sometimes coaches would never say anything.''
Maybe it wasn't much of a surprise that Olsen straddled the line between extreme competitive behavior and unsportsmanlike conduct into his professional career.
During a 2004 game in the minors, reliever Logan Kensing recalled, a batter was awarded a home run against Olsen on a bad call by the umpire. The batter ``kind of pimped it, so the next time up, I think [Olsen] smoked him like three times in a row. That's the kind of team we were. We wanted to fight everybody.''
As a Marlin, Olsen's fights began to include teammates. There was the fray with his buddy Randy Messenger during a night out that resulted in the black eye: ''We were out at a bar, we had done some talking, we were on the way home and were talking some more, and we ended up getting into a little scuffle,'' Olsen said.
Later, Olsen and star third baseman Miguel Cabrera had to be separated in the dugout: ''I thought he should've dove for the ball,'' Olsen said. ``That's what I told him, and he didn't like it too much.''
And then there was the time Olsen tore off his jersey and tossed it at someone in the dugout, leading to a confrontation with fellow starter Sergio Mitre and a two-game suspension: ``The button kept coming undone and it was [ticking] me off. So I took it off, and I saw what I thought was one of our training staff. In the heat of the moment, I just tossed the jersey to him. Mitre saw that and tried to be the veteran, the common-sense voice at the moment. And I just didn't want to hear it.''
The pattern, it appeared, wasn't going to end anytime soon. At least until an off-field incident jarred Olsen a bit more.
ARRESTED
Last July, Olsen was arrested and charged with driving under the influence, resisting arrest with violence and fleeing and eluding an officer. Aventura police said they tried to pull Olsen over for speeding, but the pitcher drove home, got out of the car and sat in a plastic chair. When they tried to arrest him, Olsen kicked at police, who used a stun gun to subdue him.
''Sitting in jail? Yeah, that's not fun,'' Olsen said. ``So you try to do anything you can for the rest of the time being to avoid that situation at all costs.''
Still, Olsen won't admit to changing. Not much, anyway.
It takes others to assert Olsen has learned from his mistakes. ''If he says no, I'm going to say yes,'' catcher Matt Treanor said. ``I think that a lot of times guys don't see a change. . . . But I notice a difference in the clubhouse behavior. . . . He's really becoming a professional player.''
Some teammates viewed Olsen's previous blowups as selfish. This year, he has shown signs of becoming more team-oriented. He's working faster on the mound -- for his own benefit -- but also to keep his teammates sharp. ''It keeps everybody else in the game, too, the umpires, our bench, our defense, our coaches,'' Olsen said.
Even those away from the Marlins clubhouse have picked up on Olsen's new vibe. Olsen's now-retired high school coach Beck has observed little hints -- like when he saw Olsen pitch seven-plus innings in Milwaukee earlier this season.
''After the game, he came out of the locker room and the first thing he did was go to his mom and give her a big hug,'' Beck said. ``I had a broken ankle, and he asked me right away how my foot was. He had his concern aimed outward instead of inward, and I thought right there was a big sign that he has changed.''
Olsen still keeps a bad-boy image. Maintaining his smoking habit doesn't hurt. ''Twenty years ago in baseball, people went behind the dugout and smoked all the time,'' he says. ``Now they don't do it, so now it's frowned upon. Whatever.''
So maybe he hasn't changed altogether. And in some respects, that's OK.
''In the clubhouse, he's the same guy,'' Miller said. ``Once you get to know him, you're going to love him.
``We've all been proud of what he's accomplished this year. He's got five more months of it, so we're just hoping he's on the right path.''
