Shaner's is a tally in the win column for its owner and namesake

Walking into Shaner’s Pizzeria, located in Gulf Gate at 6500 Superior Ave., I was greeted by the most intimate restaurant of its ilk I’ve ever entered, and I’ve entered my fair share. There is barely enough space to walk between the bar and the tables lining the adjacent wall. Pictures of a (usually) clean-shaven man on a pitching mound line the interior, along with photographs of baseball stadiums, Topps cards, and pennants featuring team logos from different eras of the game. There are no giant television screens or arcade games. It's almost quaint. This is how owner Shane Rawley likes it, though he adds that he does wish he hung onto more of his own memorabilia. It’s hard to think about your legacy while you’re living it, he said.

Rawley, that clean-shaven man from the pictures, was an major-league pitcher from 1978, when he broke into the league with the Seattle Mariners, until 1990, when he retired after a year with the Minnesota Twins. In between were longer stints with the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies.

Rawley has lived in Sarasota since 1982. While playing for Seattle, he became good friends with Edward Friar, the president of the Washington Bar Association. Friar moved here, and when Rawley came to visit him, he fell in love with the place. He may not have grown up here, but Rawley is an all-in Sarasotan now.

After retiring, Rawley could have sent his life in numerous directions. Why choose to open a restaurant?

“I like to eat,” he said.

Good reason. I applaud him for following his dreams.

Rawley said he sought to differentiate the pizza at Shaner’s from most of the other pizza in the area. He wanted to bring the thin, crispy style of pizza that reigns supreme in his childhood home of Racine, WI.

The warm vibe the restaurant emits is key to what Rawley is trying to achieve. He’s seated more people in his restaurant before, when it was located downtown, but he feels that Shaner’s current locale is perfect. Making money is secondary, he said. He wants strangers talking to each other from separate tables, hopefully no longer strangers by the end of the night. Rawley himself wants to pop into conversations while he works behind the bar, which he does roughly six nights a week.

He’s equally happy to talk food and baseball, and while I had the chance, I couldn’t help but to ask him about his playing career. Like his restaurant career, Rawley played the game because he loved it and was good at it, not to rake in cash. He made $21,000 his rookie year in Seattle, he said. He made the All-Star team with the Phillies in 1986, which he called an “incredible” experience, and won 17 games the next season on a team that went 80-82.

One of Rawley’s favorite memories is getting a hit off Dwight Gooden in the bottom of the eighth in a 1-1 game on Sept. 17, 1984, and scoring the eventual game-winning run after Gooden balked with him on third. Rawley returned to the mound in the ninth and finished the complete game.

That’s all interesting, but I was more curious about the hijinks that occurred off the field; baseball is known for its penchant to attract pranksters. Rawley said most of his nights were spent with teammates in hotel bars watching ESPN, but he did share one particularly entertaining story about his time with the Yankees. While on a road trip to rival Boston, Rawley and a few teammates somehow got ahold of a water-balloon launcher, and decided to trek to the roof of the bank next to their hotel and fire them at the passers-by on the street. Everyone had a good laugh until Boston police descended, thinking the large group on top of the bank was trying to rob it. Once the police realized who (and what) they were dealing with, they told Rawley and company to scatter.

Rawley is a believer in lifelong learning. As a player, he said, he would pick the brains of such players as Mike Schmidt to try and gain the perspective of a star hitter, and Schmidt would do the same in reverse. It takes more than talent to be successful in the majors. The public has no idea how hard baseball players work to earn and keep their spots, he said.

He brings that same attitude and work ethic to the restaurant business, and believes that his customers appreciate it. It’s a pride thing for him.

“I want customers to thoroughly enjoy themselves,” Rawley said. “Have a great time, good food, good atmosphere. That’s what it’s all about. I want people to be able to forget their troubles here.”