Chad Bradford has moved from one end of the bullpen phone conversation to the other, from waiting for a call to go in the game to the one making the call.

He was baseball’s travelling man, pitching for six teams in his 12-year career. But every year, when the gloves and cleats were put away, he returned home to Raymond for the offseason.

Now the former Major Leaguer — who was Central Hinds Academy baseball coach Todd Montgomery’s top assistant after retiring from baseball — has returned to the place where it all started for him as an assistant to Hinds Community College baseball coach Sam Temple. Bradford helped lead the Eagles to two consecutive junior college World Series appearances.

When Temple was a graduate assistant at Delta State, he was sent to recruit Bradford, who was Hinds’ top relief pitcher at the time. Bradford decided to go to Southern Miss instead.

“I’ve always spent every offseason in Raymond. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else,” Bradford said.

As for being a coach, Bradford felt he had something to contribute, passing on his experience to the next generation.

“It’s fun to work with the kids and see them make strides and understand the game,” Bradford said.

The former submarine relief pitcher, whose unusual release with his arm just inches above the ground made him an unforgettable sight, became known outside baseball fandom from the book and the Brad Pitt film “Moneyball.”

From journeyman reliever to household name, Bradford’s journey is something Temple thinks will make Bradford a great mentor to his pitching staff.

“I feel like as long as I’ve known him, whenever he’s had his back against the wall, he’s answered,” Temple said. “He found a niche by doing what he had to do. In JUCO, we’ve only got the kids for two years. They’re always hearing that you’ve got to be able to do it or it’s over. What better place for him to have an impact than at Hinds.

“Chad is someone who has such a passion to help the individuals in his life, and I think that’s how he’s going to make a big impact on our program. He has such great experience at the art of training a pitcher, both with mechanics and with the mental side. He’s just an amazing person and he’s got a great future in coaching.”

Bradford learned his trade in the pitching game at Byram High School, working under the tutelage of legendary baseball coach Bill “Moose” Perry, who now coaches at Rebul Academy.

Perry, who was Bradford’s minister in addition to his coach, also performed Bradford’s marriage ceremony. In the book “Moneyball,” Perry was depicted as teaching Bradford his unique delivery, but the veteran coach said that wasn’t entirely the case.

“I taught him to throw low sidearm, but he taught himself to throw submarine,” Perry said. “Chad was a gangly kid and he was about 6-2, 6-3 in the ninth grade. He threw one good curveball I saw in my whole life and he had perfect control. But his perfect control had hit-me speed all over the ball. We knew we had to find him some movement somewhere, so we kept dropping him down until we found movement and we found movement as we kept dropping him down. The whole credit goes to Chad Bradford, because I’ve worked with other people dropping them down and nobody’s ever done as well as he has.”

When Bradford came to Hinds, his three-quarter delivery, with a fastball topping out in the upper-80s, continued to evolve. He got lower and lower, like a limbo dancer squeezing under a stick, until his release point went lower than the New York Stock Exchange after the 1929 crash.

It worked brilliantly. His fastball, while not fast by major league standards, was a rising, swirling pitch that went up on a right-handed hitter’s hands. At best, hitters pounded it harmlessly into the dirt.

His unconventional release and lack of elite velocity didn’t win him the favor of scouts. It wasn’t until 2000, when he was traded to the Oakland Athletics from the Chicago White Sox, that his career began to blossom. General manager Billy Beane saw something in the lanky reliever on the stats sheet. When Bradford inherited runners, he kept them from scoring. He induced plenty of dead groundballs and gave up few home runs.

He didn’t get a lot of strikeouts, but got plenty of other outs whenever he took the mound.

In 12 seasons, Bradford had a 36-28 record. He pitched 515 2⁄3 innings, and finished with a 3.26 ERA and 313 strikeouts. In 561 appearances, Bradford’s control was pinpoint, as he issued 137 walks and hit only 29 batters.

Bradford became Oakland’s go-to situational reliever, at his best in the playoffs. In 24 career playoff games, he gave up just one run.

In July 2005, Bradford was traded to the Boston Red Sox. The next season, he signed as a free agent with the New York Mets and made one of his many trips to the postseason.

In 12 big league seasons, Bradford appeared in the playoffs seven times. He played for six different teams, and the only one for which he didn’t appear in a playoff series with was Baltimore in 2007 and 2008.

Bradford’s contract was sold to Tampa Bay in August 2008. He finished his career with the Rays and helped them reach the 2008 World Series — his only appearance in the Fall Classic in all those Octobers. Bradford appeared in two of the five games in the Series as the Rays lost to Philadelphia.

“It was a risky move for them, but Tampa had luck and momentum on their side,” Bradford said about the move to the Rays. “It was a team that created its own luck. When Joe Maddon (Rays manager) had us rolling like that, I knew we were going pretty deep in the playoffs. I don’t think I’d ever held the ball that tight in a ballgame.”

It wasn’t his most exciting postseason moment, though. Bradford called Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series, when he was with the Mets playing against the St. Louis Cardinals, one of the best games he’s been a part of.

“Playing in that game, it seemed like there was momentum riding on every pitch,” Bradford said. “Every pitch, every single out in a game like that means so much. You wake up the day of a playoff game with butterflies because there is so much at stake. You play 162 games just to get to the playoffs, when a handful of a games mean so much. The intensity is cranked up so much it’s electric, but it’s a fun place to be. It’s the most fun you can have pitching.”

The worst part of the majors, Bradford said, was the time imprisoned in the bullpen, waiting for the call to enter the game in relief. No matter what the situation, answering the phone and opening the gate to enter the game was actually a relief.

No pun intended.

“The worst part is the nervousness,” Bradford said. “The waiting game. When that (bullpen) phone rings, you start thinking about the hitters. When you go out to the mound, you’re back in your comfort zone. When you’re pitching every seven or eight days or so, you’ve got to make adjustments quickly.”

But like all good journeys, Bradford’s in the majors, which included surgeries on his back and elbow, finally came to an end.

Regrets are few for Bradford and he’s happy that he’s still a part of the game as a coach with a bright future tutoring pitchers in the art and science of pitching.

Now he’ll be the one calling the bullpen for a fresh arm.

“It was 12 great years,” Bradford said. “I really enjoyed it and hated it was over, but I knew it was.”