by Jason Turbow
The reporting of this book would not have been possible without input from those who have played, coached, and described the game for a living. Special mention goes to Jack McDowell, our first official interview, who sat down with us for burgers and Guinness at Lefty O’Doul’s restaurant in San Francisco, in the middle of a random weekday afternoon in 2004. His candor enabled us to get the ball rolling significantly more quickly than we otherwise might have been able.
Other interviewees who merit special mention for the amount of time they were willing to spend with us both at and away from the ballpark include Dusty Baker, Mike Krukow, Bip Roberts, and Charlie Silvera. They had no reason to do so, save for genuine decency and an abiding love of baseball’s Code.
We compiled literally hundreds of interviews for this book, both in person and on the phone. We spoke to people in dugouts, clubhouses, bullpens, dining rooms, broadcast booths, offices, luxury boxes, and on the fields of ballparks across five states. Conversations ranged from a few minutes stolen before batting practice to long-form chats that over the course of multiple hours delved as deeply into the psyche of the American ballplayer as one could hope to travel.
We offer sincere thanks to the complete list of our interview subjects for taking whatever time they did: Mike Aldrete, Rod Allen, Felipe Alou, Larry Andersen, Sparky Anderson, Tony Armas Jr., Rich Aurilia, Mack “Shooty” Babitt, Harold Baines, Dusty Baker, Paul Bako, Ernie Banks, Brian Bannister, Jim Barr, Bill Bavasi, Billy Beane, Buddy Bell, David Bell, Don Biebel, Craig Biggio, Bud Black, Vida Blue, Bert Blyleven, Bruce Bochy, Kevin Bootay, Dick Bosman, Jim Bouton, Larry Bowa, Ron Brand, Jeff Brantley, Bob Brenly, Marty Brennaman, George Brett, Jim Brower, Mike Butcher, Brett Butler, Mike Caldwell, Dave Campbell, Tom Candiotti, Jamey Carroll, Sean Casey, Bill Castro, Frank Catalanotto, Orlando Cepeda, Will Clark, Gene Clines, Jim Colborn, Jerry Coleman, Dave Collins, David Cone, Cecil Cooper, Chuck Cottier, Bobby Cox, Jose Cruz Jr., Jose Cruz Sr., Jimmy Davenport, Jim Deshaies, Pat Dobson, Rich Donnelly, Bill Doran, Al Downing, Shawon Dunston, Ryne Duren, Jim Dwyer, Damian Easley, Shawn Estes, Ron Fairly, Prince Fielder, Brad Fischer, Mike Flanagan, Tim Flannery, Tim Foli, Ray Fosse, Paul Foytack, Terry Francona, George Frazier, Bill Freehan, Oscar Gamble, Ron Gardenhire, Mark Gardner, Phil Garner, Jason Giambi, Dan Gladden, Tom Glavine, Luis Gonzalez, Mark Grace, Mark Grant, Craig Grebeck, Ken Griffey Jr., Jason Grilli, Ozzie Guillen, Tony Gwynn Jr., Chris Haft, Brad Halsey, Mike Hargrove, Mike Harkey, Ken Harrelson, Ron Hassey, Mike Hegan, Wes Helms, Dave Henderson, Brad Hennessey, Matt Herges, Greg Hibbard, Steve Hinton, Rick Honeycutt, Al Hrabosky, Rex Hudler, Torii Hunter, Tadahito Iguchi, Darrin Jackson, Ron Jackson, Bruce Jenkins, Derek Jeter, Von Joshua, Harry Kalas, Gabe Kapler, George Kell, Fred Kendall, Charlie Kerfeld, Ryan Klesko, Steve Kline, Randy Knorr, Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, Marcel Lacheman, Rene Lacheman, Pete LaCock, Gene Lamont, Dave LaRoche, Tony La Russa, Don Larsen, Jeffrey Leonard, Jim Leyland, Sixto Lezcano, Davey Lopes, Mark Loretta, Noah Lowry, Ed Lynch, Steve Lyons, Ken Macha, Greg Maddux, Mike Maddux, Rick Manning, Charlie Manuel, Jerry Manuel, Gary Matthews Sr., Gary Matthews Jr., Tim McCarver, Steve McCatty, Greg McClain, Lloyd McClendon, Bob McClure, Mike McCormick, Hal McCoy, Jack McDowell, Roger McDowell, Hal McRae, Bob Melvin, Orlando Mercado, Doug Mientkiewicz, Jon Miller, Joe Moeller, Rick Monday, Ed Montague, Rance Mulliniks, Jerry Narron, Lance Niekro, Dave Nelson, Bob Nightengale, Al Nipper, Dickie Noles, Bill North, Mike Norris, Buck O’Neil, Jose Oquendo, Gregg Orr, Russ Ortiz, Tom Paciorek, Mitchell Page, Jim Palmer, Terry Pendleton, Ron Perranoski, Johnny Pesky, Rick Petersen, Joe Pettini, Mike Piazza, Jim Price, Jamie Quirk, Tim Raines, Gary Rajsich, Jerry Remy, Dave Righetti, Jose Rijo, Tracy Ringolsby, Bip Roberts, Dave Roberts, Ron Roenicke, Al Rosen, Brian Sabean, Randy St. Clair, Billy Sample, Reggie Sanders, F. P. Santangelo, Ron Santo, Curt Schilling, Jason Schmidt, Bill Schroeder, Henry Schulman, Mike Scioscia, Richie Sexson, Mike Shannon, John Shelby, Charlie Silvera, Chris Singleton, Jim Slaton, Don Slaught, Chris Speier, Justin Speier, Paul Splitorff, Mike Stanton, Charlie Steiner, Dave Stewart, Bill Stoneman, Jim Sundberg, Mac Suzuki, Dale Sveum, Mark Sweeney, Nick Swisher, Chuck Tanner, Frank Thomas, Milt Thompson, Dick Tidrow, Mike Timlin, Joe Torre, Jim Tracy, Del Unser, Bobby Valentine, Andy Van Slyke, Gary Varsho, Omar Vizquel, Bob Walk, Ron Washington, John Wathan, D’Jon Watson, John Wehner, Don Werner, Jerry White, Ed Whitson, Ernie Whitt, Bob Wickman, Mark Wiley, Billy Williams, Jerome Williams, Stan Williams, Tim Worrell, Al Worthington, David Wright, Ned Yost, Robin Yount, Greg Zaun, and Don Zimmer.
Jason must start by thanking his wife, Laura, who put more of a premium on this project’s success than anybody. She served as cheerleader, director, and inspirational speaker throughout the process, not to mention as babysitter for a little girl while Daddy was at the ballpark into the wee hours of many long nights. It was Laura who without fail sat little Mozi down with a copy of The Big Red Barn and the telephone just before bedtime, allowing me to sneak into a back press-box office to recite the text by heart. To say that Laura deserves significant credit for my accomplishment here is an understatement of immense magnitude. Thank you for all you have done and all you continue to do.
Thanks must also be given to my parents, Mike and Ellen, whose love and support over the years have allowed me to chase this and other dreams; and to my in-laws, Michael and Simma, who continually helped me keep perspective through the book-writing process. Thanks also to Esther “The Woj” Wojcicki and Conn Hallinan, whose mentorship and inspiration through various levels of schooling were absolutely key to where I ended up. Thanks to my friends, who stuck with me through the many months I spent underground trying to get this thing finished, and to Nealus, for years’ worth of glaringly perverse inspiration. He shows surprising agility for a fat man.
Finally, a mention to Reuben, who wasn’t yet born when this book was being written but has since made his presence unmistakably felt.
• • •
Michael’s reflections:
Books don’t just happen. The time between having an idea and seeing a book with your name on the cover is measured in years, or even decades. And the list of people deserving of thanks might well be another whole book itself.
This book started as an idea I had in 2002. In 2004, Jason and I began to develop it, Craig Wolff offered input and an introduction to Christy Fletcher, and it became serious.
Jason took my idea and made it real, working tirelessly to make prose out of my half-baked concepts and on-the-fly interviews while adding much of his own creativity. I can’t think of anyone who could have done better.
From 2002 to 2010 is a long time. It requires a lot of trust, confidence, patience, and belief to stick with something that long. Those are attributes that would have been in short supply in my life were it not for my wife, Kelli, who remained relentlessly positive through the process. Even as a writer, I have no words to adequately thank her, or my children, Ryan, Arthur, Stephen, AD, and Maureen.
Finally, to my father, Joe, now ninety-one years old, a twenty-plus-year survivor of lung cancer, who always believed I could do this, and much more. Thank you for, literally, everything.
NOTES
Unannotated quotes are from oral interviews conducted by the authors.
Introduction
“The way [people] carry on”: Chicago Sun-Times, Aug. 10, 1993.
“cow-mugging”: Ibid.
“the first guy ever to get”: Austin American-Statesman, May 19, 2001.
“He’s been throwing at batters”: Chicago Sun-Times, Aug. 5, 1993.
“When someone comes out to the mound”: Associated Press, Aug. 6, 1993.
“felt it was necessary”: Chicago Sun-Times, Aug. 26, 1993.
“You learn what’s acceptable”: Tom House, The Jock’s Itch: The Fast-Track Private World of the Professional Ballplayer (Lincolnwood, Ill.: NTC Publishing Group, 1989).
“Baseball protects its own”: Ibid.
fought in the clubhouse: Bill Werber, Memories of a Ballplayer: Bill Werber and B
aseball in the 1930s (Cleveland: Society for American Baseball Research, 2000).
Johnson, reluctant at first: Baltimore Sun, Feb. 18, 1996.
“Everybody had at least one black eye”: House, Jock’s Itch.
“You can ask Hank Aaron”: Baltimore Sun, Feb. 18, 1996.
“You might not like everybody”: New York Daily News, Feb. 20, 2005.
1 Know When to Steal ’Em
“I didn’t appreciate”: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 30, 2001.
“Davey and I argued”: San Diego Union Tribune, July 30, 2001.
“To be blunt, what he did”: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 30, 2001.
“All of those people”: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Aug. 7, 2001.
Yankees third-base coach Larry Bowa: Baltimore Sun, June 5, 2006.
“The biggest message”: Akron Beacon Journal, Aug. 6, 2001.
“There’s a difference in trying”: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Aug. 7, 2001.
“You never know about baseball”: Seattle Times, Aug. 6, 2001.
“We weren’t trying to incite”: Chicago Sun-Times, May 11, 2003.
“I was trying to figure”: Los Angeles Daily News, April 18, 1996.
“If he’s that confused”: Ibid.
“I lose respect”: Boston Herald, June 28, 2003.
“I can see why”: Ibid.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do”: Dayton Daily News, June 14, 2003.
“You don’t cherry-pick”: New York Times, May 16, 1993.
“When Brock would keep stealing”: Bob Gibson with Lonnie Wheeler, Stranger to the Game: The Autobiography of Bob Gibson (New York: Viking, 1994).
2 Running into the Catcher
“Gallagher had every right”: Sporting News, June 23, 1973.
“Look, I’m the winning run”: Roger Kahn, Pete Rose: My Story (New York: Macmillan, 1989).
3 Tag Appropriately
Negro Leagues shortstop Willie Wells: Richard Scheinin, Field of Screams: The Dark Underside of America’s National Pastime (New York: Norton, 1994).
4 Intimidation
“The pitcher has to find out”: New York Times, July 9, 1979.
“He was mean”: Bob Cairns, Pen Men (Boston: World Publications, 1995).
Casey even went so far: Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf, Baseball Anecdotes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
“[Other teams used to] say, ‘Here come’”: Donald Hall with Dock Ellis, Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989).
“That’s what our team was starting to do”: Ibid.
“[Ellis’s] point was not to hit”: Ibid.
The Hall of Famer proceeded: Charles Alexander, Breaking the Slump: Baseball in the Depression Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).
“The Giants went up and down”: New York Times, May 20, 1937.
Durocher said: Leo Durocher, Nice Guys Finish Last (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975).
“frequent ‘duster’ pitches”: New York Times, June 9, 1940.
“I was mad inside at Drysdale”: Russell Schneider, Frank Robinson: The Making of a Manager (New York: Penguin, 1980).
“brushback pitch with attitude”: Bob Gibson with Lonnie Wheeler, Stranger to the Game: The Autobiography of Bob Gibson (New York: Viking, 1994).
“I want to jiggle their eyeballs”: New York Times Magazine, March 4, 2001.
“I don’t think you can say”: Philadelphia Inquirer, June 18, 2004.
“That’s the first time the thought”: Providence Journal, May 5, 1989.
“trauma”: Boston Globe, April 25, 1992.
“Intimidate and kill are different”: Boston Globe, May 2, 1989.
“I had to block out what had happened”: Nolan Ryan, Throwing Heat (New York: Doubleday Religious Publishing, 1988).
“Baseball is a business”: Ibid.
“Show me a guy”: Don Drysdale with Bob Verdi, Once a Bum, Always a Dodger: My Life in Baseball (New York: St. Martin’s, 1990).
5 On Being Intimidated
“The catcher warns the rookie”: Christy Mathewson, Pitching in a Pinch, or Baseball from the Inside (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994 [reprint]).
Don Drysdale went so far: New York Times, July 9, 1979.
When Ted Williams was a twenty-year-old rookie: David Halberstam, The Summer of ’49 (New York: HarperCollins, 2002).
“because my head ain’t gonna be here”: Saturday Evening Post, Sept. 14, 1963.
“He threw a pitch close to Jim’s chin”: Bill Lee with Richard Lally, The Wrong Stuff (New York: Random House, 2006 [reprint]).
“I took your best shot”: Sparky Lyle with Peter Golenbock, The Bronx Zoo: The Astonishing Inside Story of the 1978 World Champion New York Yankees (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2005 [reprint]).
“You could hear the thud”: Don Drysdale with Bob Verdi, Once a Bum, Always a Dodger: My Life in Baseball (New York: St. Martin’s, 1990).
6 Slide into Bases Properly
“about to tackle” Kingman: New York Times, May 26, 1985.
“I don’t know what I was doing”: Ibid.
“I think we’ll make sure”: Ibid.
7 Don’t Show Players Up
“What’s that crazy bastard”: Whitey Ford with Phil Pepe, Slick (New York: Dell, 1988).
“from his chin to his knees”: Hartford Courant, Aug. 21, 2000.
Stoneham had gone out of his way: Newsday, July 12, 1995.
“I hated to lose a sucker bet”: Mickey Mantle with Mickey Herskowitz, All My Octobers: My Memories of 12 World Series When the Yankees Ruled Baseball (New York: HarperCollins, 2006).
“Here it was only the end”: New York Times, April 3, 1977.
“It didn’t dawn on me right away”: Mantle with Herskowitz, All My Octobers.
it did for Goose Gossage: Boston Herald, May 2, 2000.
“Play to win against Villanova”: Newsday, Feb. 26, 2008.
“Killebrew was the first one I saw”: Boston Globe, April 5, 1991.
“The pause at this moment”: ESPN.com, n.d.
“That’s fucking Little League shit”: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 19, 2001.
“Seeing Howell and his curveball”: New York Daily News, Oct. 5, 1988.
“won enough times”: New York Times, Oct. 10, 2001.
“So he’s dropping the past tense”: Buster Olney, The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty: The Game, the Team, and the Cost of Greatness (New York: HarperCollins, 2008 [reprint]).
“If my daddy was managing”: Associated Press, May 25, 2006.
“It’s not LeCroy’s fault”: Washington Post, May 26, 2006.
“When a player shows the club up”: New York Times, June 19, 1977.
“Without an injury”: Cleon Jones with Ed Hershey, Cleon (New York: Penguin, 1970).
“If you’re not running good”: Ibid.
“Look in that mirror”: New York Times, Sept. 27, 1990.
Jones’s opinion was that Hodges’s message: Newsday, Oct. 3, 1985.
“Gil once told me”: New York Times, Sept. 27, 1990.
“Gil wasn’t the type of man”: Transcript, “A Tribute to Gil Hodges,” at Brooklyn Baseball Gallery, KeySpan Park, April 27, 2003.
“I’ve seen you guys talk people”: Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo, Baseball Hall of Shame 4 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991).
“After they talked me off second”: Ibid.
8 Responding to Records
“Denny told me, ‘Let him hit one’”: Baseball Digest, March 2002.
“Denny stood out there on the mound”: Ibid.
“just make it close”: Bill Madden, Pride of October: What It Was to Be Young and a Yankee (New York: Grand Central, 2004).
“There couldn’t have been a more complete fix”: Ibid.
“Say, Ed”: Sport, October 1948.
In 1961, Roger Maris was denied: Washington Post, June 10, 2001.
“didn’t let me finish”: Associated Press, Oct. 2, 1992.
“I would rather earn it”: Ralph Berger, SABR Baseball Biography Project.
“The first hit of a no-hitter”: Orange County Register, Oct. 2, 1986.
“has a lot to learn”: San Diego Union Tribune, May 27, 2001.
“I don’t know if you saw my swings”: Associated Press, May 27, 2001.
“What if it’s the seventh game”: Ibid.
“drop our weapons”: Chicago Sun-Times, May 28, 2001.
“If it was the eighth or ninth”: Tacoma News Tribune, Aug. 10, 2006.
9 Gamesmanship
“If I did think Knoblauch”: Sports Illustrated, March 31, 2003.
In 1892, with Cleveland’s Jesse Burkett: Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo, Baseball Hall of Shame 4 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991).
“You could make a great video”: New York Times, Jan. 26, 2008.
“Dick gets there”: Bob Cairns, Pen Men (Boston: World Publications, 1995).
“Bench told me later”: Ibid.
“could clean the bag off”: San Francisco Chronicle, June 29, 1994.
“The intent was not to embarrass”: Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sept. 21, 1997.
Philadelphia infielder Steve Jeltz: Philadelphia Daily News, Aug. 6, 1986.
10 Mound Conference Etiquette
Hall of Famer Early Wynn: Jonathan Fraser Light, The Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2005).
St. Louis Cardinals manager Eddie Dyer: Ibid.
“I don’t want to hear you”: New York Times, June 23, 1985.
“Okay, so I’m the manager of Nolan Ryan”: Sports Illustrated, April 6, 1992.
