WHICKER: Los Angeles Dodgers' Joe Blanton is enjoying his post-retirement comeback

LOS ANGELES >> When the cords started feeling like handcuffs, Joe Blanton cut them.

He retired from pitching in 2014. He was 2-14 for the Angels in 2013 with a 6.04 ERA, so maybe the decision really wasn’t his. But he had options to go through the Triple-A wringer, pitch on hot, dusty Pacific Coast League nights with a jumpy baseball. He had put nine years in, been in regular rotations, won 16 games for Oakland one year, won a World Series with Philadelphia in ‘08.

He opted for the league of Real Life instead. He was 33.

“It was the first summer of my life without playing baseball,” Blanton said, smiling at the memory Saturday. “We were doing summertime things that people do. I was having fun doing them. I wasn’t watching baseball at all.”

What things? Dinner outside with his wife LeeAndra and the three kids. Boating on the lake near his home of Gallatin, Tenn. Golfing and hanging out. Weird stuff like that.

And now he’s back in the world of clubhouses, hotels and daily evaluation. This time, Blanton is a Dodgers reliever, getting more prominent every day.

Blanton has given up 17 hits and nine walks in nearly 37 innings. Last year he pitched for Kansas City and Pittsburgh and was just as good. In his second life, Blanton is striking out more than one batter an inning. He never threatened to do that as a starter.

It was a gap year, like the one your son or daughter might take between high school and college. Blanton recommends it.

This is not a story of a guy giving in to baseball-homesickness. More like a guy whose head-butting was getting him nowhere. He decided to give the wall a break.

“It’s tough when you’re struggling,” Blanton said. “Looking back, you see guys struggle and you realize those four days (between starts) can be long.

“You’re searching to the point that it’s not beneficial anymore. You’re diving so deep to find it, it’s almost like you’re going backwards.”

Still, Blanton got to the final day of spring training in 2014 before the Angels cut him. The Athletics, who picked him in the first round of the “Moneyball” draft of 2002 and later traded him to Philly for three washouts, sent him to Sacramento. He started two games, looked down the road at six fallow months, and walked away.

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“My heart wasn’t in it,” he said. “I wasn’t throwing well. Maybe I’m better off if I just call it what it is and move on.”

And life was good. The Blantons toured the country in an RV, and Joe got more involved in a vineyard he’d bought in Napa. He and LeeAndra had taken their first vacation there, gotten married there. Now there are three acres planted.

Blanton’s comeback, unbeknowst to him, began when he started hanging with Zach Duke, a reliever who lived in Nashville and was rehabbing. He told Blanton he needed somebody to catch him. Blanton agreed, and they started catching each other. Then Blanton realized that his arm felt good, and the ball was doing what he asked it to.

Duke urged him to get back on the horse.

“I felt a little unfinished,” Blanton said. “Besides, guys are going to play as long as we can. It’s the only thing we know.”

Blanton and his agents put it out on the scouting grapevine. He was ready to be seen. The scouts converted on a junior college gym, and Blanton was good enough to impress the Royals. When he got to spring training, he ran into Ryan Madson, whom Blanton had known in Philadelphia and Anaheim.

“He had been out for three years,” Blanton said. “Two years he was rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and one year he didn’t do anything. We were in the same boat. It was kinda funny to be together again. We helped each other out.”

Madson excelled for the Royals last year and has 12 saves for Oakland this year.

Blanton is not the same pitcher he was. Thanks to a move to the third base side of the rubber, he sharpened his slider. And the quick-hit nature of the bullpen suits him now. He says it isn’t a “chess game” like starting is, that he doesn’t have to set up hitters as much.

Blanton has thrown 1,680 major league innings with no surgeries. And he has taken a trip to baseball’s afterlife and discovered it’s a nice place to visit. And re-visit.

After all, the best thing you can give wine is time.

Three facts:

1. Joe Blanton pitched a career-high 230 innings for Oakland in 2007 and led the American League with 34 starts.

2. In 200 Blanton ecame the first pitcher in 34 years to hit a home run in the World Series. He also won Game 4 of the Series for the Phillies, who beat Tampa Bay in five games.

3. Blanton has given up 210 home runs, 13th most among active pitchers.