It drove him mad. Pete took great pride in his toughness; nobody got into his head, nobody, not ever. He learned that from his old man, Harry Rose—Big Pete, they called him—who spent his days working at Fifth Third Bank in Cincinnati and spent his weekends cracking heads with the kids on football fields. Big Pete was still playing semipro football when he was forty-two. Everyone told the story of the time Big Pete played a game with a broken leg. If you asked people on the West Side of Cincinnati to name the toughest man in town, two out of three would name you Big Pete Rose.
And Little Pete idolized his old man. During the 1973 playoffs, Pete Rose toppled New York Mets shortstop Bud Harrelson on a double play, and that set off a major fight, turned the whole city of New York against him. Pete shrugged: “My dad didn’t raise me to play like a little girl,” he told the New York reporters. The next day he hit a game-winning home run in the tenth inning, all while the Mets fans booed ominously.
“How’d you do it, Pete?” those reporters asked.
“I’m better when they boo,” Pete said. “I have been my whole life. Fans better get used to it. The more you hate me, the more I’ll beat you.”
That was his mantra, his core baseball philosophy: “The more you hate me, the more I’ll beat you.” When they booed him in Chicago, in Philadelphia, in Houston, in New York, he would have fun with the fans. He would toss a baseball to the fan who booed him loudest. He cracked jokes: “Hey, you don’t even know my mother.” It was fun. But in Los Angeles, the boos felt threatening. He would give baseballs to fans in Los Angeles, and they would throw those balls back at him when he wasn’t looking. He would try to talk to the fans, and they would shout him down, throw bottles at him, pour beer on him. Pete hit .076 at Dodger Stadium in 1974.
“What the hell did I ever do to these people?” he asked Steve Garvey, the Dodgers’ first baseman and the most beloved baseball player in Los Angeles. Rose and Garvey played baseball in similar ways—they both hit .300, they both cracked two hundred hits, they both cared about their teams but also about their own statistics. Garvey worked out a complicated program in 1974 designed to get him his two hundred hits. The system involved bunting every so often, punching the ball to right field every so often, and staying in games until the very end even if the scores were lopsided. The system was so precise that Garvey finished with exactly two hundred hits; he got the two hundredth hit on his last at-bat of the season. Rose also had a detailed knowledge of his own statistics; he could tell you off the top of his head his batting average against left-handed pitchers and right-handed pitchers, during the day and at night, on grass fields and on artificial turf. He and Steve Garvey spoke the same language.
“These people hate me like I killed their mothers,” Pete said.
“You play for the wrong team,” Garvey told him.
“No, there’s something more,” Pete said. “It isn’t normal.”
Garvey shrugged. The Los Angeles fans loved him. They called him “Captain America.” Sports Illustrated that week featured him on the cover next to the headline “Proud to Be a Hero.” Garvey was a hero: he traveled around the city, spoke to every Optimist Club and in every VFW hall. He told the story of visiting a kid name Ricky in the hospital, a kid who doctors said had an 18 percent chance of living. When Ricky was told that Steve Garvey was there to see him, though, he squeezed Garvey’s hand. Not long after that, he walked again. “I knew then,” Garvey would tell the teary-eyed people in the crowd, “that Steve Garvey had a place.” Yes, he was one of those old-fashioned ballplayers who could heal sick kids.
So maybe that was it: maybe out in Los Angeles people saw the world through the Hollywood prism, maybe they could only see the world as good guys (Clint Eastwood, James Bond, Hawkeye Pierce, Steve Garvey) and bad guys (politicians, Dr. Goldfinger, Frank Burns, Pete Rose). Pete went hitless again, and he watched helplessly as Marshall easily shut down the Reds in the ninth. The Dodgers won the game and moved into a tie for first place.
“You know,” Rose mumbled to Sparky Anderson, “maybe I should sit the next one out. I don’t feel like I’m helping the team.”
Nobody could believe Big Pete’s kid was saying that.
The next day was tax day, and Sparky finally had it out with his son Lee. He could not stand it anymore. They had not spoken for more than a year, not since that day in the garage when he told Lee to cut his hair and Lee quietly said, “No.”
“Someday you will respect me as your father,” Sparky shouted.
“I already do respect you,” Lee shouted back.
Well, Sparky could not make any sense out of that. If the boy respected him, he would cut his hair. Right was right. Sparky Anderson would sooner trade away a talented pitcher like Ross Grimsley than allow him to grow his hair long. He would quit managing baseball before he would manage a bunch of long-haired hippies who did not respect the game and the best damned country in the world. A couple of years earlier, Oakland A’s owner Charlie O. Finley called Sparky and offered him the manager’s job for the two-time World Series champs. Sparky said no, of course. He was too loyal to leave Cincinnati. But even more than that, he could not manage all those wild players in Oakland with their long hair and their mustaches. To Sparky, to many men of his generation, long hair was two steps away from atheism and three steps from anarchy.
He had to break the silence with Lee. The tension was eating him up inside. The team was playing lousy, the media was crowning the Dodgers, his third baseman could not hit, and the toughest goddamned baseball player he ever saw, Pete Rose, was asking to sit out the games in Los Angeles. The season had only just begun, and already it was going down the toilet. Sparky went home to Thousand Oaks to see his family, to confront Lee. He looked at his oldest son, saw the way his hair fell to his shoulders. And the fight began fresh. It was a fight about hair, but, as Sparky would realize years later, it was also a fight about something deeper.
“You’re going to be a bum,” Sparky yelled at Lee, and the fight went on from there—Sparky would later call it a knockdown, drag-out fight, the worst of his life. When it ended, Lee had retreated to his room, and Sparky had to go to the ballpark, and nothing at all was settled.
“George,” his wife, Carol, said as he walked to the car, “if your son committed a murder, would you stand by him?”
“Of course I would,” Sparky said. “I’d be there every day.”
And she said: “Then why don’t you stand beside him in this? Give him your love.”
Sparky thought about that. Maybe she was right.
Then he went to the ballpark and watched the Dodgers’ pitcher Don Sutton throw a no-hitter against his guys for six full innings. Don Sutton! That cheater. Sparky was sure Sutton was cutting the baseball so that he could make it dive down harder. Sparky had even started his own collection of Don Sutton–engraved baseballs—you could see that he cut the ball in the same spot every time. He planned to show those baseballs to an umpire someday. But today he just watched as Sutton got out after out. Morgan popped up behind the plate. Bench hit a foul pop-up behind the plate—damn, Bench hadn’t hit worth a damn since he got married. Perez hit a foul pop-up down the first-base line. Sparky’s guys could not even hit the ball into fair territory.
In the seventh inning, Rose hit a harmless fly ball to center. Morgan struck out. Sutton punched the air in joy after striking out Morgan. The thirty thousand or so in the crowd went crazy. Everyone could sense it: Sutton was going to no-hit the Machine. Sparky could not believe the day he was having.
Then Sutton made his one mistake. He was so happy he got Joe Morgan out that he grooved a fastball right down the middle of the plate to Johnny Bench. Bench still knew what to do with belt-high fastballs, and he crushed it over the left-field wall. That blew the shutout and the no-hitter. But that was the only hit for the Reds. The Dodgers still won the game. The Reds had lost four of five games.
“I wonder if we can beat anybody right now,” Sparky told reporters.
Sparky knew w
ho to blame for the bad start. Who else? John Vukovich. His third baseman. Balsa. Sure, Bench wasn’t hitting. Perez wasn’t hitting. Hell, nobody on the whole team but Morgan was hitting. But that didn’t matter: Sparky knew all those guys would come around. But that third baseman was killing him. John Vukovich would never come around.
“Look at the third baseman they have over there,” he told his bench coach and right-hand man, George “Shug” Scherger, as he pointed over to the Dodgers’ third baseman, Ron Cey, the one everyone called “the Penguin.” Now that was a third baseman. He hit with some power. He drove in some runs. He made the diving defensive plays. He did all the things a third baseman was supposed to do, and on top of that he was tough and strong, and damn it all, how was Sparky supposed to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers with a third baseman who was so weak he kept getting the bat knocked out of his hands?
“You tell me,” Sparky said to Scherger. “How?” Scherger nodded and shrugged. He had known Sparky for more than twenty years—Scherger was actually Sparky’s minor league manager back in Santa Barbara in 1953. He knew Sparky when he was wild, out of control, when he played baseball with more of an edge than any player Scherger had ever known. None of these players would even recognize Sparky back then. He always seemed a beat away from attacking someone—an opposing player, a teammate, an umpire, whoever.
Sparky had harnessed that temper, but he had not lost it. Scherger could see that Sparky was about to lose it. Truth was, Vukovich wasn’t hitting too bad—he had a .294 average through the first eight games—and it was too early in the year to start panicking. But Sparky had that look, the look he’d had when he was nineteen years old and wanted to beat up the world. Vukovich was a dead man, and the poor son of a bitch didn’t even know it.
On a cold April day in Los Angeles, the Dodgers pitched an old legend, Juan Marichal, in the third game of the series. Marichal had been a great pitcher in the 1960s—he won more than twenty games six times during the decade. Marichal had a most remarkable windup. Time magazine once ran a nine-photo sequence of Marichal’s pitching delivery. In one of the photos, Marichal’s left foot is above his head. In another, Marichal’s arms have flailed to the side like he is conducting the Boston Pops. They called him “the Dominican Dandy.” But on this day, he was thirty-eight years old, his left leg did not lift as high, his fastball did not rush in as hard. Marichal had not pitched especially well in four years; hitters whispered that the great Marichal had nothing left. Nobody knew it when the game began, but this would be the last time Marichal pitched in the big leagues.
In the second inning, with the game scoreless, Marichal walked Ken Griffey to load the bases. John Vukovich was scheduled to hit. Maybe if it had been a different day, different circumstances, Sparky would have left it alone. Maybe if the team had not crumbled against Don Sutton’s pitching the day before, he would have left it alone. Maybe. But Sparky’s team was in the tank. His family was breaking apart. The Dodgers were laughing in his face.
“Danny, grab a bat,” Sparky yelled out to Dan Driessen. Then, turning to Vukovich, he said, “Vuke, you sit this one out.”
The dugout fell silent, and Vukovich stared at Sparky for a second. At first, he thought this had to be a joke…Sparky was not really going to pinch-hit for him in the second inning. Managers never pinch-hit for a player in the second inning. It had to be a joke, but if it was a joke, Vukovich did not get it. Then he watched it happen. Driessen grabbed a bat and walked on the field. The public-address announcer said, “Now batting for John Vukovich, Dan Driessen.” All the Reds players were looking at Vukovich—this was really happening. Sparky Anderson was pinch-hitting for him before he even got his first at-bat of the game. Vukovich had never even heard of such a thing, not in high school, not in Little League, not ever. His whole body felt hot, he knew his face was red, and he could almost taste blood.
Vukovich just stood there with his mouth open. What to do? Talk to Sparky? Yell at him? Hit him? Throw a bat? He only knew that he had to do something. Vukovich knew that he was a weak hitter. He knew that Sparky saw him as the weak link in the Machine. But this was something more, this was personal, this was Sparky just kicking sand in his face. Vukovich looked at Sparky again, for just an instant. Then he grabbed his bat, and he started screaming. He walked into the tunnel, and he shouted curse words in an order that did not form sentences, and then he meticulously smashed every lightbulb in the tunnel leading back to the clubhouse.
Back on the field, Dan Driessen fouled out to third base.
The Reds pummeled Marichal in the third inning. Pete doubled. Johnny singled him home. Tony Perez homered. Cesar Geronimo singled. Dave Concepcion singled. Ken Griffey doubled them both home. Sparky still seethed in the dugout. Vukovich showed him up. This punk third baseman who couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat showed him up. It was unacceptable. It could not be tolerated. Sparky, above all, believed in order. That was why he could not stand to see Lee with long hair. That was why he treated stars better than he treated the other players. When Sparky went out to the mound to take out a pitcher, there was a right way to do it. The pitcher was supposed to put the baseball in his hand softly—like he was handing over important documents—and then walk to the dugout without saying a word. And if a pitcher ever mouthed off, ever, well, Sparky did not like it.
“I still feel good,” the kid pitcher Pat Darcy said to Sparky once. Only once.
“Yeah?” Sparky snapped. “You feel good? You’ll feel better in the shower.” And when that game ended, Sparky gave the kid the verbal beating of his life. It wasn’t personal. Darcy just needed to learn.
Now, this no-hit third baseman was going around breaking lightbulbs, acting like he’d actually done something in his life. Sparky stewed on the bench. Then watched the lead fade. In the fourth inning, the Penguin hit a two-run homer for the Dodgers. “You see?” he shouted at Scherger, but loud enough for everyone to hear. “You see what a third baseman is supposed to do? How in the hell am I supposed to win without a real third baseman?”
The Reds made the score 6–2 in the seventh inning. The Dodgers came back in the bottom of the inning against that kid Darcy. Dodgers outfielder Jimmy Wynn, who had the colorful nickname “the Toy Cannon,” crushed a grand slam to tie the score.
“No, I wasn’t trying to hit a home run,” the Toy Cannon said after the game. “But I have to admit it did enter my mind.”
Mike Marshall shut out the Reds in the top of the ninth. Steve Garvey hit the game-winning single in the bottom of the ninth. The Reds lost again. They dropped into fifth place.
“I’m going to kill our third baseman,” Sparky said as he walked through the dark tunnel back to the clubhouse.
Sparky decided to wait until the next day before confronting Vukovich. It was a bad decision; his ulcer kept him up all night. Then Sparky arrived at Dodger Stadium early, and he sat in the visiting manager’s office, and he stewed. When Vukovich walked in for the meeting, Sparky wondered if he should let him close the door. He wanted everyone to hear what he was about to say.
“There’s one thing you better get straight, kid, and I mean get it straight right away,” Sparky began. “I run this ball club.”
Vukovich sat there and stared at Sparky. He knew going in that he had to take his medicine. He still knew he was right, knew that what Sparky had done was, in the baseball vernacular, “horseshit.” But when it came down to it, Vukovich was still a no-hit third baseman who loved baseball and only wanted a chance to play. He wasn’t going to win any fights with Sparky Anderson.
“I’ll pinch-hit for anyone anytime I think it can help me win a ball game,” Sparky shouted. “According to my statistics sheet here, you don’t happen to be a star in this game yet.”
Vukovich thought: More horseshit. Sparky knew damn well that you don’t pull a man for a pinch hitter in the second inning. Now he was going to rip Vukovich’s batting average…pure, unadulterated horseshit.
“You won’t give a guy a chance to prov
e anything,” Vukovich shouted. “You will kill a guy’s confidence.”
“I’m not here to build your confidence,” Sparky roared. Vukovich sat back and reminded himself to shut up. He had to take it. He had no choice. Sparky was unloading. “I’m here to win a baseball game, and if I think I can win by pinch-hitting in the first inning, then, by God, I’ll pinch-hit for you in the first. So you just play your position….”
Vukovich sat there, drained, and just waited for the battering to end. But it would not end; Sparky went on and on. When Sparky finished—and it seemed like it took him hours to finish—he asked Vukovich if he had anything else to say. Vukovich had plenty to say. But he did not say a word. He walked out into the clubhouse, and his teammates avoided his gaze.
“You know,” Shug said to Sparky after the meeting, “the kid does play good defense at third base.”
“I don’t give a damn about defense right now,” Sparky shouted.
That night, Vukovich started at third base, and Sparky—perhaps feeling bad—waited all the way until the eighth inning to pinch-hit for him. The Dodgers tied the game in the bottom of the ninth. The Dodgers scored the game-winning run in the eleventh when Reds first baseman Dan Driessen made an error. Marshall pitched three scoreless innings to get the Dodgers victory.
“We can’t do anything right,” Sparky said.
The Reds could not do anything right, but they did get one break in the early part of 1975. Two days after Marshall beat the Reds for the last time, he pitched against San Francisco. On the third pitch of the game, he threw a curveball and then collapsed in agony. He needed help leaving the field. He told the doctor that it felt like someone had stuck a knife in his side. He would pitch only twice in the following six weeks. He was not indestructible.
HOW ABOUT THAT PETE ROSE?
The Machine Page 8
