by Bob Gibson
Johnnie LeMaster retired from the A’s that year, too. Did they try to talk him out of it?
Reggie Jackson
I would have liked to go to the World Series with that team. We had a hell of a roster: Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Carney Lansford, Terry Steinbach, Dave Stewart, Dennis Eckersley, with Tony La Russa calling the shots …
Bob Gibson
Offhand, I’d guess there was a shortage of starting pitchers.
If I’m putting together a team, I don’t start with leadership qualities. I start with three really good starting pitchers. The Braves didn’t do so well when they had Aaron, Darrell Evans, and Davey Johnson all mashing forty home runs, but they won the division every year with Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz in the rotation. After three pitchers, the next thing I want is a good center fielder.
It doesn’t hurt to have somebody on the team who can make you laugh, but if he can’t play ball I couldn’t care less how funny the guy is. Aaron was no comedian. Give me him.
You take Uecker.
Reggie Jackson
In my era, as well as Bob’s—particularly early in my era—camaraderie and relationships weren’t even thought of. On my Birmingham team, I was the only “colored” player (that was the term of the period). Had it not been for Joe Rudi, Dave Duncan, Rollie Fingers, and others, I would have really struggled socially. John McNamara was our manager, and he looked after me, as well. He cared about my feelings. If I couldn’t stay in a hotel, he wouldn’t let the team stay there. If I couldn’t eat in a restaurant, he had somebody bring out the food for everyone. John McNamara was ahead of the curve, but the fact remains that blacks and whites just didn’t mix very much in those days. It wasn’t normal. When I roomed with Rudi and Chuck Dobson on different occasions in 1968 and 1969, it was a big deal.
The bigger deal to me, though—as it was for most African-American players—was the opportunity to take care of myself and my family. Those situations didn’t present themselves very often in the real world. We had a chance to make some serious money and pull our mothers and fathers out of debt. We could get something to eat and turn on the heat at night. That was my focus—not the relationships. Not the camaraderie. I can count on one hand the guys whose houses I went to for dinner.
Bob Gibson
The Cardinals were different. A group of us would go out to eat after a game on the road, and there’d be a dozen guys or so, black and white. Some of the white players—Stan Musial and Ken Boyer, to start with—were as adamant against segregation as the black players were.
The tone for all of that was set in St. Petersburg, where we trained. Bill White made some public statements about the Jim Crow customs down there—what ticked him off was that only the white players were invited for breakfast at the St. Petersburg Yacht Club—and several of the black players, including me and Curt Flood, took up the cause with him. We went to August Busch, the owner, and expressed our dissatisfaction with various discriminations and inconveniences, including the fact that we couldn’t stay in the Bainbridge Hotel with the rest of the team. Right away, Busch arranged for a businessman he knew to buy a motel, and all the players moved into it. Musial and Boyer were living in beachfront bungalows, but they gave them up to come stay with the rest of us. People would drive by just to see all these black and white guys swimming and grilling steaks together.
Before long, practically the whole ball club was on guard against bigotry. The wives were our intelligence officers. If they picked up on some racial slur, they’d pass the information along to me or White and we’d confront the perpetrator and straighten it out. Of course, all of this wasn’t easy, at first, for some of the Southerners on the team, but the atmosphere of mutual respect was so strong that in time just about everybody bought in. We enjoyed each other’s company. We didn’t all see eye-to-eye on every social issue—there were plenty of opinions represented in our clubhouse—but we agreed not to let the differences drive us apart. Boyer had some strict thoughts on interracial marriage, for example, and yet he and I could sit down calmly and exchange our views on the subject.
Reggie Jackson
When I was a kid in Philadelphia, everything about baseball seemed like it was divided between black and white. We’d go to Shibe Park and sit in left field—the “colored” section—for fifty cents. That’s where all the blacks sat—not because we had to, but because it was what we could afford. Your favorite team was the Dodgers because they had Jackie Robinson. You didn’t root for anybody else. You didn’t even pay attention to the American League. I didn’t know anything about the Red Sox or the Washington Senators, because they didn’t have black players. You didn’t root for the Yankees. You rooted for the Dodgers.
Later, when I played, I made a point of looking for black people in the ballpark. Friendly faces. I wanted to see who was coming and who could come; who could come and enjoy me hitting a home run. There weren’t many.
Even then, there was no mistaking that we were playing a white man’s game.
Bob Gibson
Yep, you looked around for black faces, just to see. It was the same when we barnstormed in the off-season.
After my rookie year, I toured with the Willie Mays All-Stars, and we were all black. We played the all-white Harmon Killebrew All-Stars, with Mickey Mantle. That’s how blatant the separation was between the races, and how taken for granted it was, just fifty years ago. The teams traveled in their own caravans and would meet up at ballparks in Oklahoma, Texas, and Mexico. It was an education just being with those guys and listening to their stories. Everybody had essentially the same story, with different names and places. Reggie has the same stories I have, except that he was too young to experience the Willie Mays All-Stars.
Barnstorming was good fun and good money, but it was a challenge just getting something to eat in those towns. Most of the time we’d have to find the black neighborhood and hope we got there before everything closed. Or we’d send somebody into the restaurant with a chauffeur’s cap and have him carry out the food for us. Or Sam Jones, who was light-skinned, would pull a stocking cap down over his head, pass as white, and pretend he was a deaf-mute.
When we played against the Killebrew guys, there was no ill will. But we did beat the hell out of them.
Reggie Jackson
What I wouldn’t have given to be along for that …
Bob Gibson
Latin players have always been separated, somewhat, by language, but it hasn’t stopped them from taking a big part in the clubhouse atmosphere. I’m thinking way back to guys like Tony Perez and Orlando Cepeda. Perez meant so much to the morale of the Big Red Machine that its demise is attributed to Cincinnati trading him. And Cepeda, in 1967, was the Cardinals’ unofficial spirit captain. After every game, whether we won or lost, he’d jump up on the trunk where we kept our valuables and lead us in a round of cheers for something or other. Because of Cha-Cha, they called us El Birdos.
As cynical as I am about that sort of thing, I have to acknowledge that the camaraderie on that team made it special. The ’67 Cardinals probably banded together more than any club I ever played on. We were so team-oriented, to a man, that we’d fine anybody who was caught looking at the stat sheet.
Reggie Jackson
Now, that’s a team. That was a team that overcame a broken leg by its Hall of Fame pitcher, dominated the National League, and won the World Series.
If you didn’t know better, it might make you believe in chemistry.
Reggie Jackson
A manager sets a tone. The best example of that, from what I’ve seen, was Joe Torre with the Yankees.
He had a calmness about himself that permeated that team. We had a lot of high-profile personnel there, with Jeter, A-Rod, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina, Randy Johnson, Mariano Rivera, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Jorge Posada … That’s quite a collection of stars, and still, Joe’s even temperament created a low-key atmosphere in that clubhouse—a controlled atmosphere, where no one
got out of kilter, no one was too big for his britches. It was about the team.
Torre’s personality rubbed off on that ball club, in a good way. A team reflects that calmness in qualities like confidence and poise.
Bob Gibson
A bad manager can affect a team more than a good manager. Good managers know when they have a good ball club, and they let good ballplayers play. They don’t overmanage. A bad manager wants to be in control at all times. It’s impossible to maintain a really good team when one man controls every thought.
There comes a time when a player has to make his mind up, when he has to make a decision without looking into the dugout to get instructions from the manager. When a manager controls the game to the point that guys are looking for him before they make a move, that’s counterproductive. You can’t play smart baseball that way, because players aren’t thinking on their own.
Reggie Jackson
When Torre took over the Yankees, he was the same person he’d been with the Mets, Braves, or Cardinals. But he had different players—great players almost everywhere—and The Boss’s wallet. That helped him become a better manager.
But that doesn’t mean every manager can achieve the same results with good players. A manager must understand his personnel. He has to know when guys need days off. How to keep them out of situations where they won’t succeed. How to stay out of the way when a guy is going well. He and the players have to fit.
Bob Gibson
What makes a good manager—at least one of the things—is that everybody he manages knows what his job is; everyone knows what’s expected of him. It’s a lousy deal to go to work and not know when you’re expected to play or what you’re expected to do, period. Players don’t want to guess about their status. How can you perform your role to the best of your ability when you don’t even know what it is? The skipper needs to tell his guys what’s up, and tell ’em in advance. That’s really important. You may not like it when you hear that you’re not playing and some other guy is, but at least you know where you stand.
Evidently, another thing that makes a good manager is being a fan. All fans are great managers. Just listen to the call-in shows and you can tell that.
Reggie Jackson
I don’t know that there have ever been two managers more different than Joe Torre and Billy Martin. And I can’t believe I just said that, because I didn’t think I’d ever put Joe Torre and Billy Martin in the same sentence.
You really can’t compare Billy to anybody. When he didn’t drink he was a much different person than he was when he was drinking; it’s just that he drank a lot. He’d come to the ballpark sometimes and have to sleep on the couch. He wouldn’t even go out for batting practice.
I didn’t drink much, but I suppose Billy and I were alike in some ways—probably too alike. We were both proud. We were both proud to be Yankees. And we both liked to be in the thick of things. For me, that applied to the ballfield. I wanted to do something in the game to be in the middle of the action, the center of attention. In his case, I didn’t quite get it. It’s kind of hard for a manager to bring the crowd to its feet.
Bob Gibson
When a player and a manager find themselves in competition with each other, the player suffers; and when the player suffers, the ball club suffers; and when the ball club suffers, the manager suffers. It stinks for everybody.
Reggie Jackson
It eventually got me suspended in 1978, and it eventually cost Billy his job—for a while, anyway. The suspension was over me bunting after they’d taken off the bunt sign. It was pride and stubbornness on my part; I didn’t like being told to bunt in the first place. Billy was so mad that I thought he might come after me in the dugout, like he’d done the year before in Boston. My suspension was five games, and the Yankees won them all. When I came back, Billy talked to the press in the airport lounge in Chicago and said that I should shut up because they were winning without me. That was when he made the comment about me and Steinbrenner: “One’s a born liar and the other’s convicted.” The next day, he resigned.
We were ten games behind Boston at the time. After Bob Lemon took over we caught the Red Sox, beat them in the one-game playoff, and took care of the Dodgers in the World Series. Billy came back halfway through the 1979 season. I thought I’d die when they announced that! We didn’t win the division that year. Then Dick Howser managed in 1980, and we did.
Dick Howser gave me a pretty good idea of what it would have been like to play for Torre. Howser was a manager I could talk to. He was a manager who let his players play. Under Dick, there was a lot less turmoil on the ball club. Guys were free to go about their business without all the baggage on their backs. That didn’t get us into the World Series, but we did win 103 games during the regular season, which was more than we ever won under Martin. It’s probably no coincidence that my one season playing for Howser was the only time I hit forty homers (forty-one, actually) for the Yankees. It was also the only time in my career that I batted .300. I could have used a few more seasons under Dick Howser.
It’s just good business when a boss handles his personnel with respect and consideration.
Bob Gibson
Joe’s the only manager who ever hired me as a coach. He did it three times. With the Mets, he gave me the title of “attitude coach,” which was interesting. There had never been one of those before, so I kind of made it up as I went along. Then, with the Braves and Cardinals, he hired me to work with the pitchers.
So obviously he’s a smart guy.
Reggie Jackson
It helps to be smart, but managing is more an art than a science. Strategic moves are important, but the great majority of them are predictable and don’t vary much from manager to manager.
Fans, writers, and broadcasters love to second-guess managers on their batting orders, when they take pitchers out, whether they bunt or swing away—all the stuff that’s easy to see and criticize. They judge the manager by what’s in the book. But there’s a lot more to it than that. You could sit there with the book in your lap to tell you what the percentages call for. That doesn’t take much skill. A good manager knows the book, but he relies on his head and his gut.
Needless to say, that’s not enough unless he has a load of talent. Talented players make managers smart and great.
Bob Gibson
If you’re looking for something to criticize a manager for, you can always find it. Always. There’s a lot of failure in baseball.
Reggie Jackson
A manager’s value is in the intangibles. Does he create an environment in which everybody can do his job at peak capacity? What kind of comfort level does he bring to the club? How does he maintain morale and confidence? How does he communicate? Does he understand his opponents? Does he understand his personnel? Does he motivate his personnel? Does he teach? Does he treat everybody fairly? Does he command respect? Does he surround himself with good coaches? How does he handle the front office, ownership, and the media? It all plays a part.
Bob Gibson
The position is about managing people. A manager can’t come barging in with a bunch of rules and expect them to work for every team and every player and every situation. Everybody can’t be treated the same way. One set of rules just doesn’t do the trick.
This isn’t the Army. It would be an ideal situation if everything was that black and white, but it’s not. If a veteran player has been getting the job done for seven years and he has to tend to a personal matter and miss two days of spring training, he’s probably earned that privilege. You know what you’re going to get from that guy, and a couple days of spring training won’t make a difference. But a young player coming out of Triple-A, trying to make the ball club—he can’t afford to miss those two days. He’s in a position where he has to prove not only his talent but his work ethic and makeup. It’s a different situation.
Managing isn’t about bed checks or putting on the hit-and-run. It’s about understanding twenty-five personaliti
es and twenty-five skill sets and turning them all in the same direction.
Reggie Jackson
As far as actually managing the game on the field, the most intricate part of it is handling the pitching staff. A manager needs to know who can pitch back-to-back, who can’t, who gets this guy out, who gets that guy out. The right people for the right job.
There’s a lot more to it than meets the eye. People watching at home don’t know that you can’t get Mariano Rivera warmed up unless he’s going to pitch. If Mariano gets up, he’s coming in. You can’t use this other guy tonight because he warmed up twice last night. This guy pitches really well two days in a row, but this other guy can’t pitch two days in a row. It may look like there’s a spot for a certain left-hander tonight, but the skipper knows that the guy would run the risk of getting hurt if he pitched again, because his arm probably wouldn’t stand it.
If the manager doesn’t have a good sense of his ball club, the players feel it. Something’s not right. Guys lose their rhythm. Jobs don’t get done. People start to fail and get fired.
Bob Gibson
Fans complain about a manager taking a pitcher out after seven innings of shutout ball. Well, maybe the catcher told him—or the pitcher himself—that the slider’s not biting or the fastball’s not sailing like it was. Or maybe he can see something that nobody else sees. He might recognize a subtle change in the pitcher’s motion, and that tells him the guy’s getting tired. He might notice that the foot’s not landing in the same spot or the arm angle has dropped a couple ticks. If you let the guy go another inning, it could lead to bad habits. It could lead to an injury. It could blow his confidence.
