The Mouth That Roared (25 page)

Finally, he spoke.

“Dallas, we can’t make the deals right now.”

What? I couldn’t have possibly heard that correctly.

“Andy, I shook hands on it. We’re making those deals, and I’m going to announce it first thing in the morning.”

“Well, before you do that, I have to get a hold of Stan Cook,” Andy replied.

“Then go ahead and get a hold of Stan Cook, but we’re moving ahead!” I bellowed.

About an hour later, Andy called my suite to let me know he was having trouble reaching the Tribune chairman. “He’s on the Concorde coming back from Paris,” Andy said. “Until he gets back, I won’t be able to talk to him.”

It didn’t occur to me to ask why the goddamn Concorde wasn’t equipped with phones.

“Andy, we made the deal,” I hissed. “We shook hands on it, and we’re going to announce it.”

“But Dallas, I can’t let you do that…”

“Okay, you’ve got till 10:00 in the morning to get a hold of Stan Cook, because that’s when I’m making the announcement.”

Cook’s flight on the Concorde must have been the longest in aviation history, because when Andy called me early the next morning, he sounded absolutely frantic: “Dallas, we can’t go through with it. I still can’t get a hold of Stan. He’s still not home.”

I couldn’t believe what was happening. The whole story about not being able to reach Cook sounded like a ruse. The fact was that the Tribune Company didn’t want us to spend that kind of money on Garvey.

“Do you remember what you guys told me when you hired me?” I screamed at McKenna. “I was authorized to make all baseball decisions.
All
baseball decisions, Andy!”

“I just can’t accept responsibility for this,” McKenna groveled. “I just can’t let you do it.”

I was really pissed. And hurt. The Padres had an equally attractive offer for Garvey on the table, and he and his agent took it, rather than waiting for us to make up our minds.

Without Garvey on our team, I had to kill the deal for Buckner. Talk about being embarrassed! I had to go to Pope and say, “They’re not going to let me make this deal until my boss gets off the Concorde.”

Gordie and I were beside ourselves. When the winter meetings ended, we went to Molokai with our wives and got very drunk. Lying on the beach, wallowing in our own unhappiness and drink, I became defiant. “Fuck ’em!” I said. “I’m going to do something. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m going to do something!”

*

It was hard to take. The Tribune Company broke its word to me, we didn’t get Garvey, and maybe worst of all, Bill Buckner was still in a Cubs uniform.

At least the whole story never hit the papers. If that had happened, I’m not sure I would have been able to show my face at the winter meetings ever again. I guess the writers were too busy reporting on trades that actually got consummated in Hawaii. Undaunted by not acquiring Buckner, Pope made a major splash by trading five players to the Indians for outfielder Von Hayes.

When I got back to Chicago, I demanded a meeting with Stan Cook. “We have some things we need to discuss,” I told McKenna. The next day, Gordie and I took a private elevator to Cook’s office in the Tribune Tower.

“You told us we had carte blanche to make baseball decisions,” I said to Cook. “Well, this was a key baseball decision for this organization, and you went against your word by not allowing us to make it. That’s not acceptable. It embarrassed us and it embarrassed this organization.”

I was ready to continue on in this vein, but Cook cut me off: “Dallas, we’re sorry this happened. It was an unfortunate thing. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

I had no choice but to take him at his word. I decided to test the waters by going after another player I felt could help the Cubs become a winner.

The Dodgers were also shopping Ron Cey, one of the best third basemen in the game. I shared my plan with Gordie: “Let’s go after Cey. If we get him, we’ll move Sandberg to second base.”

A few weeks later, we acquired Cey in exchange for two minor leaguers. One of the first people I contacted after making the trade was Larry Bowa. “Bow, I trust you,” I told my shortstop. “You have to help Sandberg make the transition to second base.”

I would have much preferred Garvey at first instead of Buckner, but I couldn’t complain about how the rest of the infield was shaping up.

To further help Sandberg, I hired my old friend, Ruben Amaro Sr., as an infield instructor. I hoped Ruben would join me in Chicago when I first got hired, but he chose to keep his Phillies job that allowed him to split time between the United States and Latin America. When I asked him again to come to Chicago, much to my delight, he said yes.

*

We lost six consecutive games to start the 1983 season, giving up seven runs to our opponents in three of the losses and eight runs in another. Our defense and relief pitching were terrible.

It was only April, but boos started ringing loudly through Wrigley Field.

I tried to keep my cool amid a growing chorus of criticism that I was full of shit and had no plan for turning the Cubs’ fortunes around. On my radio show and in the newspapers, I reminded everyone that I never promised overnight success.

Lee Elia, who shared my temperament but not my patience, also got beat up in the press. He let his emotions bottle up until he famously blew a gasket after a tough loss to the Dodgers at Wrigley Field.

The loss on April 29, 1983, dropped us to 5–14. Lee could see it was going to be a long, frustrating season. In front of an assemblage of reporters, one of whom recorded the outburst for posterity, he made his feelings known.

“I’ll tell you one fucking thing, I hope we get fucking hotter than shit, just to stuff it up them 3,000 fucking people who show up every fucking day, because if they’re the real Chicago fucking fans, they can kiss my fucking ass right downtown!” Lee raged.

That was a pretty memorable sound bite. But Lee wasn’t nearly finished yet.

“Those motherfuckers don’t even work. That’s why they’re out at the fucking game! They ought to go out and get a fucking job and find out what it’s like to go out and earn a fucking living! Eighty-five percent of the fucking world is working. The other 15 percent come out here!”

He went on to call Wrigley Field “a fucking playground for the cocksuckers,” a colorful phrase but not exactly in keeping with how we wanted to market our stadium. At least Lee finished on a hopeful note, expressing confidence that the Cubs would hit a groove and start playing better baseball.

Lee didn’t know he was being taped. After he calmed down, I don’t think he even remembered half the things he said. But before leaving the ballpark, he realized he needed to call me.

“I was a little tough with the media today,” Lee explained.

By that time, I already knew, because, with heavy bleeping, the recording was on the local news.

“I’d like you to come up to my office,” I told him.

“Dal, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? I need to get the hell out of here. I’m going to go watch my daughter play softball.”

“No, Lee, you need to come up here right now. If you don’t, I’m going to remove you from your job.”

That got his attention.

When he saw the news report, I could tell he was shocked by his own words.

I decided to back him, however, because I still thought he was the best man to manage the Cubs. Plus, I knew a thing or two about going berserk in a baseball clubhouse. We weathered that storm, but Lee never quite lived down that incident.

It was another dust-up with the press later in the season that ultimately forced my hand.

Lee was off by himself after another loss, this time trying to keep his emotions confined within the four walls of his office. When he saw a WGN cameraman coming up the steps, he shouted, “No TV!” But the guy kept coming. That set Lee off. “Goddamn it, I said no TV!” he repeated. He then pushed the guy, who took a tumble down the steps, causing the camera to crash to the ground. The Tribune Company, which has owned WGN for years, didn’t take too kindly to the assault on its equipment.

I really appreciated that Lee tried to bring pride and character to the Cubs. But the restaurant incident, the tantrum directed at the fans, and the attack on the cameraman did him in.

Three strikes and you’re out. It’s always been that way in baseball.

The team’s poor play obviously didn’t help his cause.

With our record at 54–69, I let Lee go in August 1983. It was the most difficult personnel decision I ever made in my career. Lee was one of my best friends, after all.

Looking back, it might have been premature. We played well during certain stretches of the season and had started to put a competitive team together. As a first-time manager, Lee had yet to learn how to deal with all the attention directed toward him. He probably would have gotten better at that over time.

Lee was a great baseball guy. It’s just that when his fuse was lit, it went off big-time. That probably hindered his career. After managing the Cubs, he became skipper of the Phillies for parts of two seasons in the late 1980s. But that was his last managing job. He and I remained close, and when George Steinbrenner hired me to lead the Yankees in 1989, I brought Lee on as a coach.

Lee never held his firing against me. Looking back on his time with the Cubs, he says, “It was the first time I managed a major league ballclub, and I didn’t have enough experience with the media to understand that you had to conduct yourself in a certain way. I’ll always feel bad about how things played out there. The main reason I feel bad is because I let my buddy down.”

*

Charlie Fox, a veteran baseball guy I had with me in the front office, went down to the field and saw our fifth-place season to completion.

I tried to stay positive. Though we showed no improvement from 1982, I liked a lot of what I saw, especially from our offense. Ron Cey hit 24 home runs and knocked in 90 runs. Sandberg further established himself as a star in the making. Bowa responded to my early-season appeal to take Ryno under his wing and help him master his new position. Thanks to Bowa’s leadership, Ruben’s coaching, and Sandberg’s raw talent, Ryno won a Gold Glove in his first year at second base.

While we were struggling to win games, the Phillies won another pennant in 1983, the year Pat Corrales got fired as manager with the team in first place. Pope came down from the front office to lead the team to the World Series, where they lost to Baltimore. I was proud of Pope and in no way measured myself against what was happening in Philadelphia. I was on a new adventure and determined to move past my choppy first two years in Chicago.

The White Sox were also riding high, fresh off a 99-win season and a division title. At an off-season banquet, White Sox manager Tony La Russa wondered aloud why his team wasn’t getting the credit he felt it deserved. “I don’t know why you’re giving the Cubs so much attention,” he told the assembled reporters. “We’re the team that just won a division.” That was Tony’s way of jabbing, but he had a valid point. In good times and bad—mostly bad—the Cubs were the team that captured the imagination of the city.

It was fun to think how excited people would get if we actually started winning.

After two years in Chicago, I certainly wasn’t feeling a great sense of accomplishment. At the same time, I didn’t feel any real pressure, either. I had faith in my ability to make the Cubs successful.

Though the major league club had struggled to win games during my tenure, I could point to the scouting and drafting of future Cubs as areas where we excelled from the very beginning. That was thanks to farm director Gordon Goldsberry. Before I arrived, the Cubs relied heavily on the Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau, a centralized office through which scouts provided reports to every franchise. It was a way of scouting on the cheap, and my farm director and I were dead set against it. We wanted our own scouts to produce reports that didn’t become communal property.

My time in Philadelphia taught me the importance of identifying and developing young prospects. The Phillies wouldn’t have won the 1980 World Series without the players who were first spotted and signed by our organization’s scouts in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Cubs had a severe lack of homegrown talent. Pitcher Lee Smith and outfielder Mel Hall were two of the few players on the major league roster in 1983 who came up through the system. I could only do so much to build the team through trades and free agent signings. At some point, we needed to develop talent from within.

Scouting is all about projection. I can send my wife out to a high school game, and without too much difficulty, she’ll point out the best player on the field. Raw ability is easy to spot. The more difficult task is projecting how a talented player will grow and develop at the professional level. To do that, scouts have to try and get inside a player’s head and heart.

Vedie Himsl, who preceded Gordon Goldsberry as Cubs farm director, believed in the scouting bureau. We worked to convince him that sharing information with other teams wasn’t the best way to land players. To his credit, he showed a willingness to try things our way.

I put Vedie in charge of our scouting department. He and Gordie ended up working well together. I’m not sure Vedie ever really bought into our program, but he had no choice if he wanted to keep his job. In the end, he became more of Gordie’s assistant than a true scout.