Plopped down in rural America, unable to speak or understand English, the 18-year-old pitcher felt so lonely and isolated that he desperately wanted to return home to Montreal.
Fortunately for him -- and the Los Angeles Dodgers -- Eric Gagne stuck it out.
"It was the toughest thing I've experienced in my life. I was away from my family really for the first time, in a different culture, and it's a lot harder when you don't speak the language," Gagne recalled.
Those were the early days for Gagne at Seminole State College in Oklahoma, long before he became a Cy Young Award-winning closer. He picked the school because several other Canadians had gone there.
"I didn't really have any contact with anybody besides my teammates and coaches, and I couldn't even talk to them. It was hard just to leave the house. I just wanted to go home. I was crying and asking myself, `What am I doing here?'"
That's difficult to picture, now that the burly, bearded and be-goggled former youth hockey player from Quebec has become baseball's most intimidating closer.
The 28-year-old Gagne has a remarkable save string going, a major league record streak of 70 in a row dating back to Aug. 28, 2002.
He's 7-for-7 on save chances this season, with a 1-0 record and 2.31 ERA in 10 games.
"It's pretty amazing what he's doing. His consistency is unbelievable, phenomenal. It's usually 1-2-3, lights out," said John Franco, the New York Mets pitcher whose 424 career saves are the second-most in major league history.
Gagne's teammates think he's special, too.
"He's incredible," Shawn Green said. "He's the most dominant closer I've seen. When he gets into trouble, which he rarely does, even if the bases are loaded, it's not that big a deal because you just expect him to come through."
In 77 appearances and 82 1-3 innings last year, Gagne had a 1.20 ERA, struck out 137 for a major league mark of 14.98 strikeouts per nine innings. He was perfect in 55 save chances -- the one he blew in the All-Star game does not officially count. Gagne became the first pitcher to record two 50-save seasons, reached the 100-save mark faster than anyone in big league history, and was the ninth reliever to win the Cy Young Award.
"Gagne's awesome," Mets slugger Mike Piazza said. "He's really improved his game and he's got nasty stuff."
Gagne considers his year in Seminole -- a town of some 6,900 about 93km east of Oklahoma City -- a turning point.
"I think that made me who I am. I learned a lot about myself," he said. "That's the thing that told me, `Hey, I really want to be a baseball player because I'm going to make every sacrifice.' I knew then that I loved the game so much, I was going to fight for it, keep trying to get better at it -- and better at English."
Dodgers manager Jim Tracy knows of the challenges Gagne faced when he arrived from Montreal.
"I know those were tough times for him, and I believe that's when Eric's real character began to show, the strong character that we see in him now," Tracy said.
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