Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers, The (35 page)

Was There Anything Unique About His Handling of His Pitchers?
The most amazing thing about Earl Weaver’s record is his phenomenal ability to keep his starting pitchers healthy, while pitching them 260 innings a year.

I have always believed that
most
major league pitchers would be outstanding, if they could stay healthy.
Most
pitchers, if they could stay in the rotation for two or three years without breaking down, would figure out some way to get the job done.

But most of the time, most pitchers are either a) inexperienced, b) injured, or c) working their way back from an injury. What was
most
unusual about Earl Weaver was his ability to keep his starting pitchers on the mound and in the groove year after year.

And I honestly have no idea how he did this. I’ve read his books; nothing in there explains it. I can understand part of it. His defense was outstanding; that reduced the pressure on his starting pitchers. I know that Weaver believed in simplifying the work. He didn’t want pitchers out there trying to throw five or six pitches; he wanted them to find their best stuff and use it. That, no doubt, was a help.

I know that he was religious about not pushing his pitchers to do too much early in the season, and that, no doubt, was part of the explanation. I know the meaning of the term “Baltimore draft.” For many years the Baltimore Orioles were well stocked with pitchers who had good fastballs and absolutely refused to throw them to you. But having said all of that, I cannot explain why Weaver was able to get 270 good innings a year out of Mike Cuellar, when all of his previous managers had found that he would break down after about 180.

What Were His Strongest Points As a Manager?
Intelligence, intensity, patience. Understanding of how an offense works.

There is a cliché in sports about “playing within yourself,” which means doing the things that God has given you the ability to do, rather than trying to make plays that just aren’t there to be made. Weaver managed within himself. Weaver believed that if you understood and you respected the limitations of the athlete, then you could focus on the things that the man
could
do.

Do you all know the story of Steve Dalkowski? Steve Dalkowski is the original Nuke LaLoosh, the most famous wild, hard-throwing left-hander in the history of minor league baseball. No one knows for sure how fast his fastball was, but it was certainly over a hundred. At Kingsport in 1957, Dalkowski struck out 121 men in 62 innings. Unfortunately, he walked 129, and threw 39 wild pitches. He gave up only 22 hits—but allowed 68 runs. He allowed three hits but almost 19 walks per nine innings pitched.

He did this kind of stuff for years. At Stockton in 1960 he struck out 262 men in 170 innings, but also walked 262, finishing 7–15. This part of the story is well known, but what fewer people know is that Earl Weaver eventually managed Steve Dalkowski, at Elmira in 1964. Weaver, at his own instigation, gave all his players IQ tests. He discovered that Dalkowski’s IQ was about 60. When he saw that, Weaver realized immediately what the problem was: Dalkowski simply could not process the information that he was being given. The Orioles had coaches out there trying to teach him to throw a change, trying to teach him pick-off plays, trying to teach him how to hold the runners, how to pitch off the stretch. “The more you talked to Dalkowski,” Weaver said, “the more confused he became.”

So Weaver simplified the routine, stripped down what Dalkowski was being taught. He told him to forget about the curve and changeup, and to throw the two pitches he had, a fastball and a slider. And he told him, again and again and again, to throw strikes. Don’t worry about anything else; just throw strikes.

And it worked. Dalkowski, who had a career record of 28–69 in the minor leagues before that season, walked only 62 men in 108 innings for Weaver, struck out 141 and finished 8–4 with a 2.83 ERA. In his last 57 innings at Elmira, according to Weaver, he struck out 110 batters, walked 11, and had an ERA of 0.16.

The next year in spring training, some coach took him aside to work on his curve, Dalkowski hurt his arm, and his career was over, but the story illustrates something essential about Earl Weaver as a manager. Weaver found out what Dalkowski
could
do.

See, managers spend a lot of time talking about what some player
can’t
do. Weaver wasn’t interested in what a player
couldn’t
do. He was interested in what the player
could
do. If he can’t hit a breaking pitch, you don’t play him against Bert Blyleven. If he can’t run, you pinch-run for him—but you don’t let that stop you from developing what the player
can
do. It’s the things that players
can
do that will win games for you.

If There Was No Professional Baseball, What Would He Have Done with His Life?
He’d have been a bouncer at a midget bar.

E
ARL
W
EAVER’S
All-Star Team

D
ICK
W
ILLIAMS’S
All-Star Team

I haven’t counted, but I’m fairly sure that more major league managers were born in St. Louis than in any other city. Dave Garcia was born in St. Louis in 1920, as was Dick Sisler. Hank Bauer was born in St. Louis in 1922. Red Schoendienst was born in a small town just outside St. Louis in 1923, and Yogi Berra was born in St. Louis in 1925.

Vernon Rapp was born in St. Louis in 1928; Dick Williams was born there in 1929, and Earl Weaver was born in St. Louis in 1930. Whitey Herzog was born in a small town just south of St. Louis in 1931.

What do we learn from the managerial experience of Vernon Rapp? Out of this distinguished line of managers, none came to a major league opportunity with better credentials than Vern Rapp. Rapp was a catcher, like Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola. Well, not
too much
like them. He started well, hitting .315 with 89 RBI in the Ohio State League in 1946, but as he moved up the line, he stopped hitting and started to think about managing.

In 1955 he was playing for Charleston in the American Association, for Danny Murtaugh. Charleston had a miserable team, and Murtaugh was fired in July, with a record of 31–64. Rapp moved into the hot seat, but had no better luck, going 19–40 the rest of the way.

He was a player/coach for several years after that and began his managerial career in earnest in the early 1960s. From 1965 to 1968 he managed in the Cardinal system, with great success, and in 1969 joined the Cincinnati Reds, at Indianapolis. Managers do not announce that they have applied for a job and not gotten it, but rumors were that Rapp almost had the Cincinnati Reds’ managerial assignment in 1970, the job that went instead to Sparky Anderson. Rapp had managed in the Cardinal system with Sparky, but above him. Rapp, anyway, returned to Indianapolis.

His teams often finished first but lost the playoff. He finished first but lost the playoff at Tulsa in 1965, did the same at Arkansas in 1966 and again in 1968, finished first but lost the playoff with Indianapolis in 1971 and again in 1974.

In the winter of 1975 Rapp thought he had landed a job as a coach for the Reds, under Sparky. The job went to Russ Nixon instead. Crushed, Rapp told his family he would give himself one more year to get to the majors. If he didn’t make it, he’d call off the dogs and go home.

He took a job as manager of the Denver Bears, the Triple-A franchise of the Montreal Expos. The Bears won their division by 13½ games, and crushed Omaha in the playoffs.
The Sporting News
named him the 1976 Minor League Manager of the Year, officially christening him the top managerial candidate in the minors.

He was flooded with major league offers. Two teams wanted him to be a major league coach. He accepted one job, from the Blue Jays, before his hometown team, the Cardinals, called about a job as a manager. The Giants called; they wanted to talk to him about managing, too, and then a third team, after he had already accepted the job with the Cardinals. After thirty years, Vern Rapp was going home to manage the Cardinals.

Rapp had strong ideas about what he wanted to do. As Dick Williams had done in Boston ten years earlier, he came on like a house afire. “Shave!” he told his players. “Lose some weight! Practice that rundown play! Get a haircut! Bunt! Tote that barge! Lift that bale! Get to bed by midnight, 1 AM after a night game!” This is a paraphrase, not a direct quote. My point is that none of this is new. Sparky Anderson and Dick Williams were among the major league managers in the mid-1970s who successfully enforced rules not much different from those propounded by Rapp. He prohibited long hair, mustaches, blue jeans, and drinking in the hotel bar (although, since Rapp himself did not drink, his enforcement of the latter rule was sporadic. And the hair policy, it was eventually revealed, was initiated by the owner).

The Cardinals, in any case, rolled gradually toward open revolt. With the retirement of Bob Gibson, the biggest stars on the Cardinals were Lou Brock, Ted Simmons, and Al Hrabosky. Rapp initially appointed Brock, the veteran superstar, a player/coach, but soon found himself at odds with Simmons and Hrabosky—with Simmons, about his weight, and with Hrabosky, about his hair.

Ted Simmons was not Cecil Fielder; he may have been a little soft, but to look at him, you wouldn’t have automatically registered that he needed to visit Duke University in the off-season. Rapp suggested that he lose ten pounds, he did, and he had a great year.

Al Hrabosky had been the best reliever in baseball in 1975, when he was 13–3 with 22 saves and a 1.97 ERA. Hrabosky was a small man, very ordinary looking, but he wore a Fu Manchu and long hair that stuck out of the bottom of his cap like crisp, angry straw. He would go behind the mound and bury his head in his chest as if in a trance, then explode from his reverie with the force of a small tornado. Heaving forward his chest, he would stalk to the mound, seize the ball, glare briefly at the batter, and rip through his motion as if he had just received a divine commandment to strike out this hitter. The fans loved it. “The Mad Hungarian” he was called, and while batters would never admit to being intimidated by the schtick, they had to admit that it did tend to put you off your game. You were thinking about whether he was
really
crazy, and it interfered with your ability to concentrate on the pitch.

Well, here comes Vern Rapp, and he tells Hrabosky to shave and get a haircut. Now, a Mad Hungarian with a shave and a haircut is quite a bit like a crocodile with dentures, so Rapp and Hrabosky soon found themselves at loggerheads. Hrabosky, during spring training, refused to shave or cut his hair, and said in comments to the media that there was considerable dissension on the team. Many players, he said, were unhappy. No one came forward to support him, and Hrabosky apologized to the team. “Maybe I was a little selfish and a little childish about the matter,” he said. “I accept (the hair code) now.” This statement,
The Sporting News
reported with a straight face, “put to rest the hint of dissension on the club.”

In late May, with the Cardinals near first place, Rapp sent a message through a coach, asking Hrabosky to come to his office after a game. Hrabosky did not report. Rapp suspended him for two days.

A few days later a starting pitcher, John Denny, was reported unhappy over being taken out of games, not allowed to finish his starts.

A young outfielder, Bake McBride, had had, in previous seasons, bushy, muttonchop sideburns. Rapp had ordered him to get rid of them, which he did, with a little quiet grumbling. By June 1, they seemed to be gradually returning. McBride was traded to Philadelphia.

One time Rapp sent Lou Brock up to pinch-hit. (Brock had apparently decided to pass on the player/coach responsibility and concentrate on playing.) Anyway, the opposition switched to a left-handed pitcher, and Rapp switched to a right-handed hitter, Mike Anderson, even though Anderson couldn’t hit his hat size. Anderson grounded into a double play. The fans were livid, and the erstwhile player/coach joined the ranks of those uncertain about Rapp’s leadership.

Bastille Day is not widely celebrated in St. Louis, but on July 14,1977, the Cardinals were in Philadelphia. It was a hot, sultry afternoon and nobody was in a good mood. Vern Rapp called a “motivational meeting”—his term. He started by making some friendly comments, apparently intended to motivate a few of the guys to shave a little closer. He mentioned the players’ high salaries—four or five men on the team were making $100,000 at that time—and suggested that they weren’t all earning their money. Lou Brock smiled politely, spoke softly, and tried to explain to Rapp that the team would go along with him on the big things if he would just bend a little on some petty rules. Rapp stared a moment at Brock and then snapped, “I’m not going to change.”

And he walked out.

The team sat a moment in stunned silence. A few men snorted and headed for the field.

Roger Freed was a thirty-one-year-old outfielder who had played for Rapp in the minors. He believed in what Rapp was trying to do, or at least believed that Rapp was the manager, right or wrong, and deserving of the team’s best efforts. Sensing disaster, Freed hurriedly reorganized the meeting. He spoke up for Rapp, asking the team to hang together. A few other players offered less supportive comments. Hrabosky announced in a postgame radio interview that he wanted out.

“I’ve said it before,” Rapp told a reporter. “I didn’t come here to be liked. I’m not trying to treat them like little kids. It’s just that they haven’t been accustomed to discipline. Today it’s do your own thing, be a free soul, live today because tomorrow may never come. But reality has got to come some time.”

Cardinal broadcaster Jack Buck, attempting to defend Vern Rapp, ripped Hrabosky, but conceded that Rapp was “a one-dimensional man.”

Hrabosky suggested he might file a union grievance over the hair policy. Marvin Miller said that Hrabosky would unquestionably win the grievance.

When the team got back to St. Louis Rapp had a meeting with the general manager, Bing Devine, and the owner. Several announcements were made in an effort to stabilize the situation:

• The hair code was suspended for the balance of the season.
  
• Vern Rapp’s contract was extended.
  
• The Cardinals announced that they would comply with Hrabosky’s desire to be traded at the earliest opportunity. “I intend to call your bluff,” Busch said in a prepared statement directed at Hrabosky. “You said in the newspaper that you can only get batters out by being psyched up with your mustache and beard. Then go ahead and grow it. But boy, are you going to look like a fool if you don’t get the batters out.” Hrabosky pitched a little better the rest of the season, and was traded that winter.
  

The smoke from this conflagration blotted out all other news about the Cardinals’ season, creating the widespread impression that the team was in chaos. In objective terms, the 1977 Cardinals had a pretty decent campaign. After losing 90 games under Red Schoendienst in 1976, the ’77 Cards finished 83–79, an eleven-game improvement. Bob Forsch won 20 games. On August 25 they were 71–55, just a few games behind the Phillies. They faded badly after the Phillies pulled away.

You would have had to read the papers carefully to detect the positive elements in this. The
story
about the Cardinals that year was “Rapp fighting with his team.”

Rapp opened the 1978 season as the Cardinals’ manager, but the problems didn’t go away. In early April he had a jaw-to-jaw discussion with Garry Templeton, his young shortstop, after Templeton criticized the third base coach. Once he went out to get his pitcher, Buddy Schultz. As Schultz left the mound, Rapp made a sarcastic comment. Schultz turned and screamed at him.

At least twice in early 1978, Rapp had temper tantrums during postgame interviews.

Finally, in mid-May, Ted Simmons cranked up the clubhouse stereo after a tough loss. Rapp yelled at Simmons and called him a loser. He apologized, but Cardinal broadcaster Jack Buck heard about the comment. Rapp, scheduled to do a radio interview, begged off. Buck filled in and reported that Rapp had called the local legend a loser.

Vern Rapp was fired the next day. He blamed his dismissal on Jack Buck.

What do we learn from the dismal baseball life of Vern Rapp? Nobody really
liked
the man; he said, after all, that he didn’t come here to be liked, and he certainly succeeded in that. Baseball is full of unwritten novels. Here is a man who worked thirty years to get to the majors, and then had a major league career with the approximate duration and enjoyment of a proctologist appointment. You have to feel something for him, I think.

Lou Brock said it was just the Peter Principle. Rapp had the skills to get to the job, but not the skills to do the job. I talked to Al Hrabosky about it once, in 1978. He said that Rapp was very insecure, and very negative. He’d give you the ball and say “Don’t walk anybody.” Every expression of individuality was a personal threat to him.

We know this already, but it is worth noting: In hiring a manager, look for someone who is
secure
and
positive.

Some people thought Rapp was lost in time, a 1950s manager unable to deal with a different generation of players—but his story, in broad elements, is the same as the story of Ozzie Vitt, 1940. Sarcasm and autocracy make an unpalatable mix to any generation of players.

His story teaches us, as the world often does, that nothing is more “real” than appearances. Rapp succeeded, in a very narrow sense. He did better with the team than they had done the year before, and far better than they would do for the popular manager who followed him, Ken Boyer. If there had been a perception that he was succeeding in 1977, he would have been able to build on that in 1978. He was perceived as having failed, and that perception ultimately washed the success from under his feet.

But to me, the most striking fact here is this: that Rapp had no experience on a major league roster. I believe that was among the things that defeated him.

Rapp had very strong ideas about how his players should behave, and that’s good. He had no clear understanding of how those ideas would play out in a major league setting. “It’s my way or the highway,” Rapp told his players. There was no give in him after the rules were laid down, and for that reason, it was critical for the rules to be aligned with real-world expectations
before
they were announced. If he had gotten past that, I believe that he might have been a good manager. If he had just one year to sit on a major league bench, to bend his ideas to what he saw around him before anybody took a position on them, he might have been great. Sparky Anderson had that one year. Earl Weaver had a half-year. I think it’s a prerequisite for the job.