The Mouth That Roared (22 page)

*

The Expos were making the first playoff appearance in their history in 1981. We opened our best-of-five series with two losses at Olympic Stadium before returning to Philadelphia to try and reel off three consecutive wins.

We almost achieved that. Two wins at the Vet evened the series. We had Steve Carlton, who was between his third and fourth Cy Young Awards, pitching in Game 5, so I liked our chances of making a return trip to the National League Championship Series. But the Expos and starting pitcher Steve Rogers whipped our ass. We couldn’t touch Rogers, who shut us out 3–0.

If not for the strike, I am convinced we would have won another World Series. Now, my future in Philadelphia was up in the air. I hadn’t expected to manage the Phillies as long as I did, and the allure of being a general manager was strong. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it might be time for a change.

As we did at the end of every season, Pope and I went down to Clearwater to check out our minor leaguers in the Florida Instructional League. But this time, we had other business to discuss. And we aired things out pretty good. We were friends who didn’t hide anything from each other. I needed to know whether the new Phillies ownership still planned to have me succeed him when he retired.

“Giles wants you to continue managing, but the other stuff hasn’t been ironed out yet,” Pope told me. “As far as I’m concerned, you’ll be the guy, but I’m not going to have the same pull as I had with Ruly.”

I appreciated Pope’s honesty. We had known each other for 25 years. And in the end, I knew he wanted what was best for me.

With that, I resumed my conversations with the Cubs.

*

I turned the Cubs down three times before I finally said yes.

Having been interested in an escape from city and suburban life, Sylvia and I purchased a 60-acre farm in West Grove, Pennsylvania, which was about an hour from Philadelphia. Sylvia was happy teaching in the area. The youngest of our four children was about to enter high school. And after the 1980 World Series, we felt even more attached to Philadelphia.

After several conversations with Sylvia, I decided against the move to Chicago. I called McKenna and explained about the farm and everything else. He listened to what I had to say and told me he’d get back to me. And he did. He upped the offer with stock options and some of the usual bullshit that corporate guys usually receive. Still, I said no. “Andy, I’m sorry, but we just can’t make it work,” I told him.

With his repeated attempts to woo me, McKenna had made it abundantly clear I was the guy the Cubs wanted. Each time he contacted me, I thought a little bit more about the job. I guess his persistence was paying off.

He called back a little while later. “I’m coming in,” he informed me. By that, he meant he was going to board the Tribune jet and pay me another visit. I picked him up at the Wilmington airport, which was closer to West Grove than Philadelphia, and brought him out to the farm. I wanted him to see what we had and would be giving up if I took the Cubs job. With his starched shirt and perfectly knotted tie, McKenna was anything but a farm guy. Sylvia and I were decked out in our sloppy stuff. Shortly after we pulled up, one of our cows got loose, and I had to get her back in the pen. McKenna watched all of this unfold with big-city bemusement.

Over lunch, he attempted to further sweeten the deal. He showed me photos of a very stately house in the Chicago area.

“We’ll buy you this house or let you pick out any house you want,” he said. “If you decide to sell it at any point, you can keep any windfall you get from it.”

That got us a little bit more excited—but I still turned him down.

McKenna left the farm disappointed. But that son of a bitch kept coming back to me. A few days later he called while on his way to South Bend for a Notre Dame football game. “I’m not giving up,” he said. “I think you belong in Chicago. I know you do. We can make it work.”

He rattled off all the components of the offer: the money, the stock options, the house, and the control I would have over all baseball decisions. “Just think about it,” he pleaded.

I went back to Pope and told him what the Cubs were willing to give me.

“Dallas, you have to take it,” Pope said. “This is crazy. You’re not going to make that kind of money here or anywhere else. I know you love everything about the Phillies and your farm, but Chicago is a great city, and you’ll love it. Wrigley Field is special and so is Chicago. You’ve got to take it.”

The Phillies were a part of me. But I finally said yes.

I didn’t plan on leaving Philadelphia empty-handed. After accepting the Cubs job, I sat down with Paul Owens to discuss which members of the Phillies I could take with me. Lee Elia and John Vukovich were at top of my wish list.

I wanted Lee, an old friend and Phillies coach in 1980, to manage the Cubs. And I knew Vuke, who retired as a player after the 1981 season, would make a wonderful coach. Both had been trained the Phillies way. The three of us had experienced a World Series victory, and together I hoped we could instill a winning culture in Chicago, where the Cubs had lost a lot of games in recent years.

Lee had only managed at the minor league level, but he had the baseball smarts, passion, and work ethic to whip a major league clubhouse into shape.

He and I went way back. We both attended the University of Delaware, though not at the same time. Lee entered school as a freshman the same year I signed professionally with the Phillies. When I returned to campus to take winter courses during the off-season, he and I got to know each other a little bit. Lee, a Philadelphia native, was a helluva athlete, and like me, a recipient of scholarship money from Phillies owner Bob Carpenter’s Friends Foundation. At Delaware, he played baseball, football, and basketball. A knee injury in college likely kept him from having a more successful professional baseball career. Also like me, he played more games in the minors than the majors.

Nine years after I signed with the Phillies, I played with Lee at Triple-A Little Rock, where I pitched and he played shortstop. We drifted apart again after that season but were reunited in the early 1970s when Lee joined the Phillies as an infield instructor and third-base coach for a minor league team managed by Jim Bunning. Before taking that job, Lee was out of baseball and selling insurance.

When I became the Phillies’ farm director, I tapped Lee to manage teams at almost every level of the organization. Then in 1980, I asked him join the major league coaching staff.

I was convinced Vuke would be a valuable asset to Lee’s staff. As a player on the ’80 Phillies team, he assumed a vital leadership role. Whether reminding Greg Luzinski to watch his weight or telling Larry Bowa to shut his trap, Vuke got players to listen.

“You can have Lee and Vuke, but that’s it,” Pope told me.

“I want Gordie, too,” I replied.

Gordon Goldsberry, the Phillies’ West Coast scouting supervisor, had outstanding baseball instincts. I wanted to name him director of minor leagues and scouting for the Cubs.

“Okay, but nobody else!” Pope yelled.

So that’s who I satisfied myself with—at least at that moment.

As it turned out, I hired many more people I considered assets after the Phillies decided to cut loose several so-called Dallas Green guys. They included coaches and scouts Jim Snyder, Tom Harmon, Glen Gregson, Erskine Thompson, and Brandy Davis, all of whom I welcomed to Chicago with open arms.

*

The Tribune Company, which owned the Cubs, liked five-year plans. But when I got to Chicago, I wasn’t looking five years into the future. I intended to change the culture of the Cubs right away. That meant getting my people to contemplate what it would take to win a championship. Anyone incapable of thinking in those terms wasn’t welcome in the Cubs executive offices.

I recognized we faced an uphill battle. The Cubs hadn’t played postseason baseball since 1945. During the Wrigley family’s decades of ownership, the Cubs’ mantra was, “Open the doors, and they will come.” Ownership didn’t really care what kind of product it put on the field. Wins and losses stopped mattering.

During the strike-shortened 1981 season, the Cubs went 38–65 and drew an average of fewer than 10,000 fans per game. The team was losing
and
the people weren’t coming anymore to watch games. Contrary to the Wrigley way of thinking, I equated bad baseball with bad business.

I brought in people who subscribed to my way of thinking. Our new media relations guy had no prior experience working in the major leagues, but I sensed he and I were on the same wavelength. The gamble paid off. From the get-go, Ned Colletti, who had been a sportswriter in Philadelphia, did a bang-up job for us. Ned worked his way up the ranks, and in 2005, he became the general manager of the Dodgers.

Ned understood the Cubs organization needed to do better at selling itself. So did the husband-and-wife team I brought in to help run our business operations.

Bing and Patty Hampton were principal owners of the Phillies’ Triple-A affiliate in Oklahoma City. As the club’s farm director, I witnessed their creativity through the lengths they went to promote the 89ers via theme nights, giveaways, and in-game events. I wanted them on my team in Chicago.

The hiring created an unusual situation, because Bing and Patty intended to hold onto ownership of the 89ers while working for the Cubs. Some questioned whether that meant they’d be working for two organizations at the same time. But Major League Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn allowed it on the condition that Bing and Patty avoid direct contact with the Phillies while serving me.

*

While I was busy assembling a front office team in Chicago, I made sure the Cubs players knew I hadn’t forgotten about them.

Soon after my arrival, I sent a letter to every player spelling out my expectations for spring training. I ordered them to come to camp in shape and ready to work on fundamentals. The letter, which got leaked to the press, challenged the players to ask themselves whether they truly had a desire to be successful or whether being a Cub was more about enjoying good times at the bars and restaurants on Rush Street.

I was upset that a private communication got leaked, but before long, I was telling the whole world how I felt. In an interview with Phillies broadcaster and
Philadelphia Bulletin
columnist Richie Ashburn a few months later, I said, “From top to bottom, the Chicago Cub organization was a disaster area, even worse than I thought when I first took the job. I could find absolutely no direction and very little organization.”

At first, the Chicago sports pages ran stories with hopeful headlines like, “Can Dallas Green Turn the Cubs Around?” But once I started sharing my views about the sorry state of the organization, the news became, “Green Says Cubs Are a Mess.”

The Cubs’ history of losing carried with it the advantage of giving us free rein to make moves that might take the team in a positive direction. We had a few promising young players in catcher Jody Davis, outfielder Leon Durham, and pitcher Lee Smith, and an established major league first baseman in Bill Buckner, but otherwise the cupboard was bare at the big league and minor league levels. Years of poor scouting and drafting had left the organization in bad shape.

I told my staff to shake up the mix, even if that meant trading shit for shit. If we netted a few quality players, even by accident, then we’d be better off than we were before. I also told them we wanted inventory and to always ask for that extra guy in trades.

*

I had looked to Philadelphia for people who could help the Cubs behind the scenes, and it made sense to turn to my former team for on-the-field talent, too. Between Gordie and me, we knew just about every piece of inside information about current Phillies players and kids in the organization’s farm system. For a Phillies team with designs on making the postseason, the Cubs were an ideal trade partner. We had expendable veterans who could help them win in the short term.

In December 1981, we got the ball rolling by trading starting pitcher Mike Krukow to Philadelphia for pitchers Dan Larson and Dickie Noles and catcher Keith Moreland. Though we gave up our most consistent starting pitcher from the season before, just like that, we had three guys with World Series rings.

On the day of the trade, Keith was out playing golf. After coming off the links, he retired to the clubhouse and downed a couple of beers. The only way to call someone in those days was on their home phone. When Keith arrived home that night, his wife met him at the door with a frazzled look on her face.

“You’ve been traded to Chicago!” she said. “Dallas has been trying to get a hold of you all day.”

When Keith called me back, I laid out my vision for him: “We’re going to turn things around in Chicago. I know you know what it takes to win, so saddle up and come along.”

Dickie found out about the trade as he was driving home from a bar in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was pulling out of a convenience store parking lot when a man beckoned him to roll down his window. The man happened to be former major leaguer Tommy Helms, who shared both a hometown and a penchant for late nights with Dickie.

“Good luck in Chicago!” Tommy shouted.

“Chicago?”

“Yeah, you’ve been traded to the Cubs. You didn’t know that?”