The New York Times-20080127-Players--Eye View Of the Past
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Players'-Eye View Of the Past
Full Text (1478 words)Before Frank Robinson became baseball's first black manager with the Cleveland Indians in 1975, he might have become the first black manager with the Yankees in 1974.
Gabe Paul, the Yankees' general manager, encountered Robinson in Puerto Rico, where he was managing in the winter league. Robinson says in a new book that Paul told him, You know, if you just had a little bit of experience, I would hire you as the manager of the Yankees.
What is this? Robinson says he responded, alluding to his winter job.
This doesn't count, Robinson says Paul told him.
So instead of replacing Ralph Houk, a move I advocated at the time, Robinson waited another year and became the Indians' player-manager.
Robinson relates the story in a new book, We Would Have Played for Nothing, the second volume of Fay Vincent's oral-history project. Scheduled for publication in April by Simon & Schuster, the book has 11 stars from the 1950s and '60s talking about their careers and their competitors.
The first volume, The Only Game in Town, which features 10 players from the 1930s and '40s, has sold 30,000 copies. Vincent, the former baseball commissioner, interviewed all of the players himself.
Vincent and Herbert Allen, the president and chief executive of the investment banking firm Allen & Company, paid for the project, and they have donated all sales proceeds, minus the publisher's share, to the Hall of Fame. In addition, Vincent has given the Hall the tapes of his 45 four-hour interviews.
An intriguing element of the second book is the dedication. Vincent dedicates the book to Marvin Miller, the former head of the players union, who he strongly feels should have been elected to the Hall of Fame.
To the estimable Marvin Miller, the dedication reads, whose contributions to baseball continue to be ignored by those blinded by their own ignorance. With respect, regret and apologies.
The dedication is aimed at the nine management members of the Hall of Fame committee who failed to vote for Miller in the December balloting.
The book includes interviews with the Hall of Famers Whitey Ford, Brooks Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, Billy Williams, Robin Roberts, Duke Snider, Ralph Branca, Carl Erskine, Bill Rigney and Lew Burdette besides Robinson.
Robinson discloses another aspect of his historic managerial venture. When he agreed to manage the Indians, Robinson said he was actually paid a $20,000 salary for his role.
Robinson explains that he already had a contract that was to pay him $180,000 to play for the Indians, and the general manager, Phil Seghi, said he would give him $200,000.
You give me $20,000 to manage this ball club? Robinson says he asked Seghi.
Told that was it, Robinson went out in the hall to discuss the offer with his agent, who he said told him another opportunity might not come along.
So I went back and told them I'd take it, Robinson says. So I managed my first year for $20,000.
Much of Robinson's interview focuses on the high standards he set for himself as a player, not statistically but in the way he played the game. But perhaps the best story he tells involves his mother. When Manager Robinson's team played in the San Francisco Bay area, he says his mother said to him: I heard the announcers talking about you on the radio, that you were there arguing and yelling. You're making a fool of yourself.
I don't want that, he says she added. Don't be out there making a fool out of yourself.
In Whitey Ford's oral history, he seems to talk as much about Mickey Mantle as he does about himself, discussing their drinking tendencies and the infamous Copacabana fight that he says was not a fight at all.
Mantle, Ford says, did not drink nearly as much as the news media portrayed. As for himself, Ford says, he benefited from his upbringing. His father was a bartender.
I think maybe he taught me a lot about it, Ford says. I drank, but I would consider myself a good drinker. I don't mean I drank a lot, but I knew when to quit.
But Ford also said, Billy, Mickey and I had a lot of fun, including Billy Martin in the fun, but it really never interfered with our playing baseball.
The notorious Copa episode involved Ford, Mantle, Martin (the birthday boy), Hank Bauer and Gil McDougald and their wives. Another Copa patron challenged Bauer to a fight.
Bauer never left the others' sight, Ford says, and they would have seen if he had punched the other guy in the back of the club.
When they reached the back, Ford says, the guy on the bowling team was stretched out on the floor. Ford says he found out later the Copa bouncer had thrown the knockout punch.
Ford does talk about baseball. He tells how after his first game for the Yankees in 1950, Jim Turner, the pitching coach, and Eddie Lopat, one of the starting pitchers, fixed a problem.
The Red Sox has just banged me around, Ford says. The Yankees discovered that the left-handed Ford was tipping his pitches, so Turner and Lopat, also a left-hander, watched him throw in the bullpen.
When I was going to throw a fastball, my wrist would be flat against my stomach, Ford says. If I was going to throw a curve, I'd bend it.
Ford has a Casey Stengel story to tell, but it is the opposite of most Stengel stories.
Casey Stengel was friendly, Ford says, but he talked more to the writers, I think, than the players. I used to hear him talk to the writers, and he didn't make sense to me the way he was talking. But when he had a meeting with the players, we understood every word he said.
Ford readily acknowledges that he had a terrific career with the Yankees -- 13 World Series in his 15 seasons -- but if he had a regret it was his failure to start the Series opener against Pittsburgh in 1960.
I would have had a chance to pitch three games, Ford says, suggesting that if he had, the Series outcome might have been different.
That was the only time I ever got mad at Casey, he says. I didn't let him know I was mad, but I was really annoyed that he did that.
A Challenge for Liriano
Francisco Liriano, Minnesota's sensational rookie pitcher in 2006, has completed his rehabilitation from elbow surgery with no setbacks, and the Twins are cautiously optimistic that he will be ready to pitch this season.
But unless Liriano, a 24-year-old left-hander, alters his pitching motion, he could encounter new problems, said the executive of another team, who requested anonymity because he did not want to be quoted criticizing another team's player.
From the first pitch the executive said he saw Liriano throw, he predicted problems. It will be interesting to see if he comes back with mechanics that are cleaner, he said.
In 2006, the executive said, Liriano pitched with his elbow upside down. In the back part of his delivery, as he was about to swing his arm up to the top of his delivery to release the ball, his elbow was in an upside-down position and he had to flip it over.
Expect to see Liriano position his elbow correctly; otherwise do not expect to see Liriano for long.
McHale's Trip in Vain
John McHale, a longtime baseball executive, who recently died at age 86, would probably not appreciate being best remembered for a curious trip he took late in 1975, but the trip became a comic sidelight to the arbitration decision that forced free agency onto Major League Baseball.
McHale was president of the Montreal Expos, for whom Dave McNally pitched before joining Andy Messersmith in the grievance that challenged the renewal clause in players' contracts.
McNally retired during the 1975 season without having signed a contract for that year. That was why he was able to join the grievance. But one winter's day, McNally, sitting at home in Billings, Mont., answered the telephone and found McHale on the other end.
McHale told McNally he just happened to be passing through Billings and thought he would stop in to talk to him about a contract. Remember, this was a player who had no plans to play again, and the Expos were prepared to offer him a lucrative contract that included a signing bonus.
McNally, a four-time 20-game winner, rejected the gift and stuck to the grievance. He subsequently explained that he had not signed with the Expos for the 1975 season because after they induced him to accept a trade from Baltimore, they did not honor the terms they had offered.
It was not a real good situation at the time, what was happening with the players, McNally said.
