Baseball unplugged

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EVERY MOVE, BIG-LEAGUE PLAYEJISj:

RAISED HfL, TOOK DRUGS AND PAID LLETJtJj" ATTENTIOJf TO THE CONSEQUENCES. HERE'S^! LOOK AT t|[e GAME BACK WHEN MEN WERE MEN *ND PARTIES WERE PARTIES, -—^

hen Buzzie Batrasi was general manager of what was then known as the California Angels, he would welcome a reporter into his

office on a winter (lay, even order­ing in sandwiches. In the midst of a storytelling session, when his phone would ring, he would wink at the writer.

got to take a phone call," would say. "Whatever I say, not saying it to you. Now,/ if you happen to overhear some-j .thing,..well, I can't control that."/

the phone and

start a discussion on trades, such as when he was attempting to acquire right-hander Craig Swan from the Mets, who wanted a

shortstop. Bavasi offered short­stop Dickie Thon, 21 at the time, but HIets owner Lorinda de Rou-let killed the deal.

"She thinks Thon is too young?" said Bavasi over the phone. "She wants an older shortstop? Hell, tell her she can have [37-year-old] Bert Campaneris." The infor­mation was in the newspaper the next day, quoting a source, and Bavasi shrugged It off.

"For someone to know what I said in a phone conversation, he would have had to be sitting in my office," Bavasi explained.

Baseball has become a casualty of the electronic revolution, the emer­gence of all-sports television stations, the proliferation of talk radio and bloggers and the instant nature of cell phones and the Internet. It wasn't like that in Bavasi's day, back when base­ball was unplugged.

Does anybody have a number for the descendants of Ty Cobb? We haven't heard anything from them. Roger Maris's family has weighed in with outrage that Mark McGwire was on ste­roids when he erased Maris's home-run record from the books. But we've heard little concern expressed about Pete Rose breaking Cobb's all-time hit record.

We could argue that the amphet­amines Rose used were actually more

responsible for Charlie Hustle's suc­cess than steroids were for McGwire's. Amphetamines, after all, increase a person's alertness and decrease the fatigue factor, which are both key aspects to hitting a baseball.

Oh, that's right—Rose said he was using them to lose weight. Yeah, right. That's like McGwire saying he used steroids only to facilitate healing. Amphetamines were the stimulant of choice in sports—not just baseball— locker rooms in the 1960s and 1970s. Trainers had jars of amphetamines, which looked like jelly beans, available for everyone, including the media.

Here's the kicker: Rose has blasted steroid users, saying, "If you did an analysis and compared them to ste­roids, one thing amphetamines aren't going to do is make you stronger." No, amphetamines only give you more energy and help you focus better.

We wonder if Rose wants Dock Ellis's 1970 no-hitter against San

Diego expunged from the record books because Ellis later admitted he'd pitched the game under the influence of LSD.

Base-stealing whiz Maury Wills has his own problems. After being fired as manager of the Seattle Mariners in 1981, he went through a rehab pro­gram, which made his brief and inef­fective time in management a little easier to understand.

Hired on August 4, 1980 and fired on May 6, 1981, Wills had 26 wins in his 82-game managerial career, and that was the good part. This was a guy who in preparation for spring training in 1981 said he wouldn't be surprised if Leon Roberts wound up being his cen­ter fielder, not realizing that Roberts was part of a trade with Texas that had been finalized five weeks earlier.

He yanked catcher Brad Gulden

during an exhibition game with a 3-1

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ROGUES' GALLERY

BASEBALL UNPLUGGED

(continued from page 58) count on, saying it was Gulden's fault "because he knows he doesn't hit against left-handed pitchers. He should have told me a left-hander was pitching. I can't keep track of everything." During a September night game in Milwaukee, Wills went to the mound and signaled for a left-hander from the bullpen. When right-handed vet­eran Dave Roberts trotted out instead, Wills demanded an explanation. "Well," Roberts said, "you didn't have anyone warming up, and I figured you'd rather risk my arm than [young lefty Shane] Rawley's." As umpire Ken Kaiser put it, "He was absolutely the worst manager I've ever seen. He didn't even know how to argue."

In June 1978 Jim Fregosi went from being a bench player with Pittsburgh one day to man­aging the Angels the next. His first day on the job, Fregosi stressed that he didn't care for team meetings. So what happened? He started day two with a team meeting. "Gen­tlemen, I don't like these things, but when I gave you the rules yesterday I obviously for­got one," he said. "Nobody sleeps with the manager's wife except the manager."

With that, Fregosi tossed a baseball to Bobby Grich. Grich, who was single, had signed the ball, adding mention of an estab­lishment he planned to visit after the game, and then had it delivered to an attractive woman he'd spotted in the crowd. Turned out it was Fregosi's wife.

During the winter between the 1979 and 1980 seasons, a woman carrying a baby walked into the office of the Texas Rangers' general manager.

"So-and-so still with the team?" she asked the secretary.

"Yes, he is," the secretary replied.

"Well, here," she said, laying the baby on the desk. "This is his. Give it to him."

With that, the woman walked out.

Ah, the beauty of baseball. Time does seem to heal the wounds. Ask Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins, arrested for cocaine pos­session but given a second chance because a judge in his native Ontario ruled Jenkins was of such good character that the charges should be dropped and his criminal record wiped clean. Jenkins is livid about the ste­roid controversy and has even proclaimed that if he'd pitched against Mark McGwire, he "would probably have knocked him on his butt." That's interesting. Jenkins was a noted control pitcher during his career; he hit only 84 batters in 4,500'-/i innings and was known for shaking off catchers who called for a knockdown pitch because he was uncomfortable intentionally hitting a bat­ter. That wasn't the case with every pitcher. Don Drysdale admitted he drilled Willie McCovey of the Giants when he was told to intentionally walk him. "Wasn't going to waste four pitches when I could put him on base with one," said Drysdale.

Stan Williams not only was a headhunter

during his pitching career but also had a combative nature as a pitching coach with the Chicago White Sox. Manager Bob Lemon had to ban him from throwing batting prac­tice because, when the likes of Richie Zisk, Oscar Gamble or any of the other hitters on that 1977 South Side Hit Men team took Wil­liams deep during the pregame ritual, the next offering would be high and tight.

Bob Gibson never worried about making a hitter uncomfortable. Dave Garcia was the third-base coach with the San Diego Padres in 1972, when Derrell Thomas was a rookie. Thomas was a bit of a stylist, to put it politely, and was slow getting ready to hit. He would kick at the dirt for an extended period.

Gibson didn't care for the delay, and, Gar­cia said, while Thomas was rearranging dirt "Gibson walked halfway to home plate and yelled, 'If you're going to dig, dig six feet!' The first pitch was at Thomas's head. The young man never wasted time getting up to the plate against Gibson again."

Late in his career Jim Fregosi was traded to the Texas Rangers. One day he took umbrage at an article by Randy Galloway in the Dallas Morning News. When Galloway entered the clubhouse, Fregosi confronted him.

"Did you write that I booted a routine ground ball?" Fregosi demanded.

"Yeah," said Galloway.

"Well, I thought you knew baseball," Fregosi replied. "Obviously you don't, because anyone who knows baseball would know there's no such thing as a routine ground ball if it's hit to me."

Early in Fregosi's career, his manager with the Los Angeles Angels was Bill Rigney. Rigney was big on curfews but didn't like to stay up at night. At curfew time he would visit the hotel lobby, give the bellman a base­ball and $10 and ask him to get autographs from the players.

Of course, sometimes events made things a bit more challenging. There was the time a fire in the Angels' hotel in Boston forced Rigney to scamper downstairs at three a.m. Standing outside in his bathrobe and slip­pers, Rigney glanced over at Fregosi, Bobby Knoop and Bob Lee, who were still wearing the coats and ties they had on when they left the ballpark.

"Skip, I can't believe you didn't get dressed before coming downstairs," Fregosi said.

Seeing is believing. Mild-mannered Bob Lemon showed a great deal of patience, par­ticularly during his years with the Yankees back in the Wild West days of owner George Steinbrenner. Every now and then Lemon would seek medicinal help. Before game one of the 1978 World Series at Dodger Stadium, Lemon relaxed in the cramped visiting man­ager's office, opened a desk drawer, pulled out a bottle of VO and smiled. "Want a little Steinbrenner elixir?" he asked.

Rickey Henderson was disruptive, both in running the bases and in speaking the Eng­lish language. Ken Griffey Sr. recalled talking to Henderson about the living accommoda­tions he'd found in Manhattan.

"I open the drapes and I can see the entire state building," said Henderson.

"You mean the Empire State Building?" asked Griffey.

"No, I can see the whole thing."

One day a young player climbed aboard the team bus and made the mistake of sitting in the front. He was told to move toward the back because seating was based on tenure.

Henderson perked up. "Ten year?" he asked. "Rickey has 16 year."

Art Fowler, the longtime pitching coach for Billy Martin, was a man of few words. "He would come out, look at you and say, 'I don't know what you're doing, but you are really pissing Billy off,'" remembered former Yan­kees pitcher George Frazier. "He also would come out to talk to a guy struggling to find the strike zone and explain, 'Babe Ruth is dead. If you are afraid, get a dog. Now throw a strike.'"

Fowler wasn't much into the fitness idea. When Steinbrenner questioned whether Yankee pitchers ran enough, Fowler pointed out, "If running made you a good pitcher, Jesse Owens would have won 20 games."

Not all the advice coaches provided pitch­ers was on target. Manager Charlie Metro of the expansion Kansas City Royals went to the mound after Al Fitzmorris had loaded the bases with nobody out.

"Throw a double-play ball," Fitzmorris remembered being told.

"Charlie, if it was that easy, the bases wouldn't be loaded," Fitzmorris responded.

When Billy Hunter managed the Texas Rangers, he came in from batting practice one afternoon and discovered Roger Moret standing in front of his locker in a catatonic trance, holding a shower shoe.

"I need a starting pitcher and I get a statue," Hunter lamented.

In the early 1980s, when Sandy Johnson was scouting director of the San Diego Padres, he hired Luis Rosa to handle Latino matters. Rosa was a bit over the edge but signed the prime Hispanic players of his era. Johnson learned early it was best to ask few questions when it came to Rosa. One day Johnson's office phone rang. An official from the State Department was on the line and asked Johnson if he knew where Rosa was. John­son said he did not. "Well, we do," said the government official, "and tell him to get out of Panama right now and leave the Cuban players alone." Times were tense with Cuba back then, and the government didn't want Rosa creating an international incident. It seems Rosa, who had been a tail gunner in Vietnam, had chartered a plane to Central America to bring a couple of Cuban baseball stars back to the United States and then sign them with the Padres.

Johnson was known for hiring characters, including Doug Gassaway, another scout who could spot a player others overlooked. As scouting director in Texas, Johnson was look­ing at high school pitchers Scott Burrell and JefTJuden in spring 1989, along with sev­eral of his scouts, including Gassaway. The

Rangers had just hired a part-timer for the New England area, and the guy was eager to make a good impression. He kept introduc­ing Johnson and Gassaway to other scouts. "Understand one thing," Johnson finally announced. "All these guys know Doug. That's why they aren't talking to him."

Howie Haak was king of the Caribbean before Rosa. He was a product of Branch Rickey and moved with him from team to team, finally landing in Pittsburgh. In 1954, three years after Rickey and Haak had moved from Brooklyn, the Pirates were getting ready for the first pick in the minor league draft (courtesy of having the worst record in baseball). Haak was sent to check out the Dodgers team at Montreal, and a player he'd signed for the Dodgers, pitcher Glenn Mickens, tipped him off. "Hey, Howie," Mickens said, "we've got the best prospect in baseball, but they won't play the kid." The kid's name was Roberto Clemente, and while following Montreal for a month Haak saw him take only four at-bats. Finally Clemente was in the starting lineup, hitting seventh, but the first six Montreal players reached base and a pitching change was made, bringing in a right-hander. Clemente was hit for, which didn't go over well.

Montreal shortstop Chico Fernandez told Haak the next afternoon that Clemente was at the hotel, packing to head back to Puerto Rico. Haak raced to the hotel, convinced Clemente to unpack and promised him if he finished the season the Pirates would draft him and put him in the big leagues. Had Clemente gone home, the Dodgers could have placed him on the disqualified list, making him ineligible for the draft.

But Haak didn't feel Clemente was the most impressive find of his career. He put Alfredo Edmead at the top of his list of signees. Edmead came out of the Domini­can Republic at the age of 18 for a $17,000 bonus in 1974 and went directly to Single-A Salem, Virginia that season; 119 games into the year he was hitting .314 with seven triples, seven home runs, 59 RBIs and 61 stolen bases. Haak said he had a stronger and more accurate arm than Clemente. On August 22 Edmead dove for a ball and hit his head on teammate Pablo Cruz's knee. He died in the outfield. "The doctor who did the autopsy said it was the thinnest skull he had ever seen," Haak later said. "He said if Edmead had been hit in the head by a pitch, even with a helmet on, he could have been killed.' An irony: Cruz was another Domini­can player Haak had signed and was a key factor in his being able to sign Edmead.

Buzzie Bavasi was also the longtime general manager of the Dodgers in Brooklyn and later Los Angeles, and he had a fondness for characters. Bavasi told the story of getting a call one winter afternoon from a company that had sold outfielder Lou Johnson an answering machine but was having trouble getting him to make his payments.

"Why don't you call Lou?" Bavasi said.

"We have," the caller told him, "but we keep getting the answering machine."

Bavasi also recalled one year when Willie Davis was having financial problems. Bavasi called Davis into the ofiice and the two of

them went over Davis's bills. Noticing that Davis had four high-priced vehicles, Bavasi suggested he sell three of them and rent a second car if he needed one when the Dodg­ers were home. Later that season Bavasi asked Davis how things were going with the rental car idea. "He told me, 'It's fine, Mr. Bavasi, but it's expensive paying for park­ing at the airport when we go on the road,'" Bavasi remembered with a laugh.

Gaylord Perry pitched his way into the Hall of Fame with the spitball but insisted it was more a mental game than anything else. "You still have to throw a good pitch," he said. "If you hang a spitter it goes just as far as a hanging curveball." Perry was emphatic that he had games when he kept the ball dry, but hitters never believed it, and Perry went out of his way to make them wonder. He would leave rags covered with Vaseline in bullpens. He constantly rubbed his neck, his face and the bill of his cap as if he were look­ing for a substance to put on the baseball.

George Frazier was suspected of doctoring pitches as well. Frazier said one day he was called to the umpires' room at Yankee Sta­dium, where umpire crew chief Dave Phillips asked him if he'd put a foreign substance on the baseball. "No, sir," Frazier told him. "Everything I use is made in America."

Hall of Famer Whitey Ford had a special bond with his wife. The left-hander would wear his wedding ring on his right hand on days he pitched, and he would turn the ring so its face was palm down. In the ring finger of his glove he had a hole cut so the ring's face could scratch the surface of the ball. As the old saying goes, "It ain't cheating if you don't get caught."

Seattle second baseman Julio Cruz showed up for spring training in 1981 and gave writ­ers the silent treatment. It turned out he was upset he hadn't won the Gold Glove

and decided to boycott writers for not vot­ing for him. What he didn't know was the Gold Glove wasn't decided by writers but by the managers and coaches.

Then there was outfielder Alex Cole with the expansion Colorado Rockies in 1993. The Rockies were in Pittsburgh in August that season, and Pirates beat writer Paul Meyer, who had known Cole when he played in Pittsburgh, mentioned that Cole told him he was not talking to the writers from the newspapers covering the Rockies because of what they had written about him. Most surprised were the writers, who didn't know they were being boycotted.

When Todd Helton came out of Knoxville Central High, he had a choice between sign­ing with San Diego, which drafted him in the second round, or playing quarterback at Tennessee. He wound up at Tennessee, but that wasn't the original plan. At one point Helton thought he was going to sign with the Padres, but when scouting director Reg­gie Waller showed up with the contract, the bonus was $25,000 less than Helton had been offered. Waller initially blamed it on the secretary in the scouting department and offered to settle it with a winner-take-all 60-yard dash. Helton told Waller to leave and never come back. "Funny thing is, later on, after college and after I got to the big leagues with the Rockies, I got a call from him," said Helton. "He was a finan­cial adviser and wanted to meet with me." Helton passed.

At the age of 19, after a year in Double-A, Ken Griffey Jr. was invited to Seattle's spring training in 1989. The idea was to provide the talented prospect with some big-league exposure and then send him to Triple-A. Each week when the Mari­ners brass would gather to evaluate that spring's work, Griffey's name would come up and the scouts would rave about his abilities before being reminded that he was

going back to the minors to open the sea­son. "Finally, the last week, when that was mentioned 1 asked, 'Well, who is going to tell him?'" remembers scout Bob Harrison. Turned out, nobody told him. Griffey made the team and never looked back.

John McNamara got a kick out of how quickly rumors spread in baseball. Dur­ing the 1980 winter meetings in Dallas, he and a few friends decided to liven up the event by mentioning they'd heard San Francisco was bringing back Alvin Dark as manager. Within a couple of hours Giants general manager Spec Richardson cor­nered owner Bob Lurie and told him he was quitting because Lurie had hired Dark without even asking Richardson. Lurie assured him he had never talked to Dark about the job and didn't know where that rumor came from. The Giants eventually hired Frank Robinson.

Bobby Bragan had a challenging rela­tionship with the Milwaukee media when he managed the Braves. One time dur­ing a team meeting, Bragan remembers, he noticed a bat bag in the corner of the

clubhouse was moving. A check of the bag found that beat writer Lou Chapman was hidden inside, listening to the meeting.

Bragan did, however, have the final word late in the 1965 season. "Gentlemen," he announced at a media gathering, "I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is you won't have me to kick around next year. The bad news is you won't have the Braves to kick around, either. The team is moving to Atlanta."

Barry Bonds has been kicked around, but it was not a late-developing situation nor merely a media-created deal. When Bonds was at Arizona State he was suspended from the team. Jim Brock, the team coach, had a rule that a suspended player could be reinstated only if his teammates voted him back. With the Sun Devils getting ready for the NCAA regionals, Brock asked the players to vote on Bonds. Outfielders Mike Devereaux and Todd Brown were the only players who voted for reinstatement. Brock overruled his play­ers and activated Bonds just the same.