TAMPA, Fla. – All Dustin Moseley can do about 2009 is shake his head, shrug and offer a laugh.

It was more frustrating than funny, though.

“It was a tough year, man,” Moseley said, smiling through the harsher reality. “But it definitely makes you thankful for the good or bad when you do go out there, and you come off the field still healthy.”

Walking off the field healthy is something Moseley has been able to do throughout this spring training, as he hopes to earn a spot in the big leagues with the Yankees and erase the memories of a rocky 2009 with the Angels.

It started off in the big leagues, and essentially, it ended on a trainer’s table in Arizona, with the former first-round draft pick surrounded by players who didn’t speak his language, himself facing an uncertain future and hoping a new treatment would get him back on the field before he had lost too much time.

In between, he battled health problems – hip soreness that led to a sore right arm and a lost season that ended with surgery and a series of experimental Platelet Rich Plasma injections to repair a torn labrum in his hip. He also battled tragedy – the death of his friend and fellow Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart in a car accident after making his first regular season start last April.

That pain hasn’t subsided.

Luckily for Moseley, the physical pain did.

The 6-foot-4, 190-pound right-hander spent parts of the last four seasons with the Angels, posting an 8-7 record and 5.41 ERA in 64 career games. After struggling to a 6.79 ERA in 2008, last season started off like it was going to be his best: He allowed three earned runs in six innings in his season debut against Oakland on April 7, then beat the Red Sox five days later when he surrendered only two runs in 5 ²/³ innings.

He’d leave his next start against Minnesota after three innings with a sore arm, though, and that would be the extent of his season. A lingering hip problem altered his mechanics, which caused the arm soreness. And even when the arm stopped bothering him, the hip didn’t.

“I’d think I’d be over it, and then I’d get out there and start going, and it would bother me again,” Moseley said.

By August, he settled on the inevitable. Surgery was necessary. But even after the surgery – the same one Alex Rodriguez went through last spring – the pain persisted.

Never mind staying in decent shape, Moseley’s hip ached after short jogs. He could throw well enough, but th
e mere physical process of doing so caused just about every other joint in his body to ache. To make a start every five days would have been impossible.

That’s why, even as the offers rolled in from interested organizations, Moseley wouldn’t entertain them.

“I signed the day before camp started, and it was because I told my agent, ‘I can’t have you tell them I’m ready when I’m not,'” Moseley said. “I would never have someone question my honesty or integrity. I finally got healthy, and I called him and said, ‘Dude, I can run sprints. I can run bleachers. I can throw. I can do everything now – finally.'”

His hope is that he can earn a spot on the Yankees’ opening-day roster. If not, he’ll go to Triple-A “with a smile on my face.”

This spring, he says he feels as healthy as ever, looking forward to life in a new organization and facing a new start.

“After these last two years,” he said, “I’ve got to be destined for a good one soon.”

***

Oy.  Not wild about his injury history. Another one with a bum hip, never mind an arm? He says he’s healthy now. But that’s what Nick Johnson said.