Ball Four (RosettaBooks Sports Classics) (30 page)

“You have to understand about Eddie,” Joe said, smiling. “He’s been out of baseball for a long time now.”

I said I tried to make allowances, but he was exasperating the hell out of me and I still felt he was absolutely wrong, although I felt bad about blowing up.

“Well, we’ll see what we can do,” Joe said.

For some reason I felt he’d come around to see things my way. When I came out of Joe’s office Fred Talbot said, “Did O’Brien tattle on you?”

“Yes.” I said. “O’Brien tattled.”

And one of these days he
is
going to catch me, and if we’re all lucky the worst I’ll do is fracture one of his knees.

The great story in the bullpen tonight was about having this chick up in the room and she’s saying, “Tell me you like me, please tell me you like me, just tell me you like one thing about me, anything, just one thing you like about me.”

“Like you?” the guy says. “I love you.”

A pause. And the chick says, “How can you love me? You don’t even know me.”

Which reminded another guy of the girl in spring training who was stood up by one player, we’ll call him Joe, and went out with another instead. At the end of the evening, he finally coaxed her into bed, but not until after she said, “I’m only doing this because I’m in love with Joe.”

Which reminded yet another guy about something that happened to him. “Right next to the ball park there was this little gas station,” the guy said, “and after the ball game this chick and I parked there in the dark. We were at it hammer and tongs, I guess you could call it, when all of a sudden I see these lights in the rear view mirror. Here comes this big electric utility truck and it pulls up side of us. The driver looks right in on us and says, ‘Nice game tonight. Go get ’em tomorrow.’ Jesus, I thought he was going to ask me for my autograph.”

During the game a guy came down from the stands to the dugout and said to Mike Marshall, “Hey, is Mike Marshall in the dugout? I’m a good friend of his.”

“No, he’s not down here,” Mike Marshall said. “Maybe he’s in the bullpen.”

The fellow went off to look.

This was the first of three games with the Detroit Tigers and Joe Schultz said, “Let’s go get ’em. We’re just as good as they are.” Can he really believe that?

Joe asked Mincher when he was going to have a meeting to elect a player representative and alternate, and Mincher said we’d have an election for alternate tomorrow, which means he’s decided he has inherited the job. Gary didn’t work it that way, although he did sort of guide the election. But Mincher isn’t taking any chances. I guess he really wants the car that goes with the job. It’s a nice car.

Anyway, Kennedy said, “I nominate Bouton,” and everybody laughed. I declined on the spot. I refuse to give them another chance not to vote for me.

During infield drill tonight Frank Crosetti yelled, “Thataway. That’s the old Rufus Goofus.”

Johnny Sain was working with a couple of Tiger pitchers on the sidelines and one of the catchers was Hal Naragon, the bullpen coach. I thought it might be a funny idea to ask Naragon if he had time to catch
me
for a while. On second thought, I don’t see why Naragon should think it was funny.

We beat the Tigers 3–2 with two runs in the tenth. Maybe we
are
as good as they are. What happened was that Mayo Smith left a right-hander in to pitch to Mincher with two on in the tenth and a left-hander warming up in the bullpen. Mincher knocked them both in with a single. When he got to first base Norm Cash was really boiling. “Crissakes,” Cash said. “Mayo Smith has got to be the dumbest manager in baseball.”

It was 3–1 when Diego Segui came in. He gave up two singles and a walk and had to be lifted. It was his third-straight bad outing. I think he might be getting a little tired. Gelnar came in with the bases loaded and one out, struck out Willie Horton on four pitches and got Tom Matchick on a grounder to end the game. It was a beautiful exhibition, especially for a guy who hasn’t had that much time in the big leagues. Now he’ll be the No. 1 right-handed short man while Segui rests up. It was interesting that O’Donoghue went in to face a left-hander and Gelnar came in against a right-hander while at no time was I asked to warm up in a tough game. I wonder whether it’s my knuckleball or arguing with coaches that counts most.

After the game Joe Schultz said, “Attaway to stomp on ’em, men. Pound that Budweiser into you and go get ’em tomorrow.” Then he spotted Gelnar sucking out of a pop bottle. “For crissakes, Gelnar,” Joe Schultz said, “You’ll never get them out drinking Dr. Pepper.”

I’m pleased to note today that the New York Mets are 28–23 and in second place in their division, and that the New York Yankees are 28–29 and in fifth place in their division. Perhaps justice is about to triumph.

I also note with some puzzlement that the Yankees have bought veteran right-hander Ken Johnson from the Atlanta Braves. Ken Johnson is thirty-six years old (I’m thirty) and throws a knuckleball. He has pitched 29 innings this season and so have I. He’s 0–1 this season and I’m 1–0. His ERA is 4.9 and mine is 3.8. And I bet they paid more than $12,000 for him.

Bob Locker, who is called “Foot,” or “Wall,” for obvious reasons, and “Snot” because Mickey Mantle swore he personally had that kind of locker back home, was elected alternate player rep before the game. Mincher announced that as his first move as player rep he had gotten the Pilots to agree to move to a new hotel in Baltimore, from the Belvedere to the Statler Hilton. “A hell of an idea,” one of the guys said. “Now my broad is going to be wandering around the wrong hotel.”

It was suggested that as Mincher’s next move, he arrange to get Marvin Milkes a room in whatever hotel we happen to be staying in. We’re all convinced that Milkes never has a room, which is why he’s in the lobby all the time, especially late at night.

Talking about his Chicago White Sox days, McNertney said that Eddie Stanky always insisted there was only one excuse for not being in the lineup—if there was a bone showing. Stanky was also responsible for storing the baseballs in a cool, damp place. McNertney: “You had to wipe the mildew off the balls before the game. First you’d take them out of the boxes, which were all rotted away anyway, wipe the mildew off and put them in new boxes. Then you gave them to the umpires and they never suspected a thing.”

The idea, of course, is that cold, damp baseballs don’t travel as far as warm, dry baseballs, and the White Sox were not exactly sluggers.

The game was lost 5–0. I could stand that. What I couldn’t stand was pitching two-thirds of a miserable inning, giving up two runs and leaving the game with the bases loaded. (Fortunately, Bender got the third out without costing me any runs.) My knuckleball was so bad the only thing I could think of was suicide. This was no false sorrow. It was all I could do not to cry. Maybe I haven’t been throwing it enough. Maybe I’ve been throwing too much. Maybe I’m going out of my mind.

I couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel and call my wife so she could cheer me up. After I talked to her and the kids I felt better and agreed with her when she said that if I was going to allow myself to get this upset I wasn’t getting paid enough. This did not change the nagging feeling that maybe I’ve lost it for good, that the knuckleball and I have gone our separate ways.

Milkes and Schultz just happened to be sitting in the lobby again around curfew time and Pagliaroni allowed as how he’d give us all the benefit of his experience. “If you’re going to be late,” he said, “be at least three hours late. Because if you’re only an hour late they’ll still be around trying to catch you.”

At dinner Don Mincher, Marty Pattin and I discussed greenies. They came up because O’Donoghue had just received a season supply of 500. “They ought to last about a month,” I said.

Mincher was a football player in high school and he said, “If I had greenies in those days I’d have been something else.”

“Minch, how many major-league ballplayers do you think take greenies?” I asked. “Half? More?”

“Hell, a lot more than half,” he said. “Just about the whole Baltimore team takes them. Most of the Tigers. Most of the guys on this club. And that’s just what I know for sure.”

In the bullpen it was “Can you top this?” on general managers. Bob Locker told this one about a contract argument with Ed Short, general manager of the White Sox. This was after Locker had had his best season in 1967–77 games, 125 innings and a 2.09 ERA. It was a year after Phil Regan of the Dodgers had had his super year—14–1 and a 1.62 ERA—in relief. Short had offered Locker $16,000 and he was asking for $18,000. Short said he was asking a lot and that what the hell, Regan had just signed a contract for $23,000. “If Regan is making only $23,000, then I’m asking too much,” Locker said. “You check that. If he signed for $23,000, I’ll sign for $16,000.”

The next day Short called him and said, “I called Buzzie Bavasi (the Dodger GM) and he told me Regan was making $23,000 this year.”

“All right,” Locker said. “I’ll take the $16,000.”

After he signed he got to thinking about it and just for the hell of it he wrote Regan a letter. He asked if Regan would mind telling him about what he had signed for. And Regan wrote back saying he’d signed for $36,500.

“You know, you don’t mind a guy deceiving you a little during contract negotiations,” Locker said. “You get used to it. They all do it. But when a guy just outright lies right to your face, that’s too much.”

Brabender told about the generosity of Harry Dalton, the Baltimore general manager. When the minimum salary was raised from $7,000 to $10,000 he was making $8,000 and had a year-and-a-half in the majors. When he went to talk contract with Dalton he was told that he was getting a $4,000 raise to $12,000. He felt pretty good about it—for about a minute. Then he realized that no matter what, his salary would
have
to go to $10,000, so he was therefore getting only a $2,000 raise. Dalton didn’t think he’d see it that way.

And O’Donoghue chipped in with the one about Eddie Lopat, when he was GM of the Kansas City A’s. O’Donoghue agreed to terms with Lopat over the telephone and went down to spring training. When he got there he was offered a contract for a lot less money. “But you agreed to a different figure on the telephone,” O’Donoghue said. By this time, who knows, he may have been crying.

Said Lopat: “Prove it.”

This kind of stunt was pulled on several players. It cost Talbot $500. He offered to throw Lopat through a closed window, but it didn’t do him any good.

In the end Lopat must have been hurt by all of that. Because now no one will ever forget that when Tony Oliva first came up Lopat’s pronouncement was, “The kid will never hit in the big leagues.”

Jim Gosger was sent back down to Vancouver. “You know, I didn’t think I was that bad a ballplayer,” he said. “But they’re making a believer out of me.”

Probably because we’re going to be in New York soon, the conversation was about Whitey Ford and what great stuff he had when he was pitching for the Yankees. Fred Talbot, who came to the Yankees when Whitey was about through and looking for all the little edges he could find, said Ford could take advantage of every little nick on a ball and make it do something, dive or sail or hop or jump. “If Cronin’s name wasn’t stamped on the ball straight, he could make it drop.”

For a long time Whitey got away with throwing a mud ball that was positively evil. Sometimes Ellie Howard would load it up for him by pretending to lose his balance and steadying himself with his hand—while the ball was in it. Ford could make a mud ball drop, sail, break in, break out and sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” Eventually the opposition, particularly Bill Rigney, the manager of the Angels, got wise to him and he had to quit using the mudder.

Then he went to his wedding ring. He gouged such sharp edges into it that we used to kid him about having lost the diamond out of it. He’d scuff up the ball with the ring and make it do all the things the mud ball did, except maybe now the song was different. He got by with the ring for a couple of months until umpire John Stevens, I think it was, or John Rice (for some reason, every time Rice came onto the field, somebody would holler, “What comes out of a Chinaman’s ass?”) got wise. The ump could have caused real trouble, but he went out to the mound and said, “Whitey, go into the clubhouse. Your jock strap needs fixing. And when you come back, it better be without that ring.”

After that, Ellie Howard sharpened up one of the buckles on his shin guard and every time he threw the ball back to Whitey he’d rub it against the buckle. The buckle ball sang two arias from
Aida
.

New York

Day off today and into New York for a three-game series starting tomorrow. There is always a flood of remembrances when I come back to New York. Like all the trouble I used to get into with the Yankees. One time nobody in the bullpen would talk to me for three days because I said I thought that Billy Graham was a dangerous character.

This was after he had said that Communists were behind the riots in the black ghettoes. I said that when a man of his power, a man with such a huge following, makes a statement like that, he is diverting attention from the real causes of riots in the ghettoes. As a result he delays solutions to those real problems, and this is dangerous. My heavens, you’d think I had insulted Ronald Reagan.

Another time, I recall, Crosetti and Jim Hegan were reading the paper and complaining about Father Groppi interfering in things he had no business getting involved in and I simply couldn’t resist the temptation to let them know that I thought Groppi was doing a fine and courageous thing. As Mort Sahl says, you’ve got to fight the madness.

It’s just the sort of thing I did when I went back to my old high school in Chicago Heights, Illinois, some years ago. I was invited to speak there as a returning hero. One of the things they wanted me to do was help calm some of the racial problems they were having. The principal asked me to speak from his office over the intercom that reaches the kids in all the rooms. I knew what I was expected to say; that students are here to learn and teachers are here to teach and that any feelings they might have, any grievances or problems, should be left outside the school. So let’s all work together for a better education. Instead I sat down and wrote that I understood there were tensions within the school and that I recognized that they came about because of legitimate beefs that some of the kids had, and when the principal and the teachers who were there saw it they said, “No, Jim. Maybe you shouldn’t, Jim. Why don’t you just say hello to the kids and tell them you’ll see them at the dinner tonight?” That’s as far as I ever got. They told me politely and firmly that they didn’t want me telling the kids any of that stuff.