The Mouth That Roared (42 page)

I’ve honored my son and daughter-in-law’s wishes by not mentioning the gunman by name. His was an attention-seeking act. And we refuse to give him any more attention than he’s already received. The seven life sentences he received in 2012 guarantees he’ll never see the light of day again.

As hard as it was, I’ve tried to put aside my anger in favor of celebrating the life of a special child.

Christina-Taylor loved baseball. She had played Little League for two years. Her goal was to become the first female to play in the major leagues.

About a month after his sister’s death, Little D returned to his Little League team. It was difficult for him, because he associated baseball with Christina-Taylor. Now, for the first time, he was alone in the back seat of his father’s car, an 11-year-old kid still trying to understand what happened to his sister.

John called me to tell me all about Little D’s first game back, played on a field that has since been dedicated to Christina-Taylor’s memory. Little D missed the first ground ball hit his way. It took a bad hop and smacked him right in the face. Anyone who’s ever taken a ball to the kisser knows how much that can sting. But he shook it off and prepared himself for the next play. “He fielded the next four balls cleanly and threw them to first,” John told me. “I was proud of him, Dad.”

Life can have some pretty bad hops, too. Terrible ones, in fact. But I guess you find a way to endure the sting and soldier on. Following an injury in 1959, my arm never fully healed, but I kept on pitching. After losing my granddaughter, my heart will never fully heal, but I’ll go on.

It helped me to get back to work in the Phillies front office. As I said at the time, “You sink yourself into the work and you don’t see a little girl with a hole in her chest as much.”

On our next trip to Providenciales the following winter, I took time to compile some of my most cherished memories of Christina-Taylor in one place. The photos, poems, and newspaper clippings in the resulting scrapbook help remind me what a special little girl she was.

A year after the shooting, Roxanna came out with a book titled
As Good As She Imagined
, the words the president used in his speech when talking about Christina-Taylor. Putting their thoughts into words helped her and my son with the grieving process.

On September 11, 2012, John and Roxanna were honored at the new 9/11 memorial in New York City. Roxanna has been active in running a foundation named after Christina-Taylor. John has found solace in his work as a scout for the Dodgers.

As my daughter-in-law told the
Arizona Republic
, “Losing a child really is the worst thing that could ever happen to you. People say that all the time, but when it happens, it really is the worst thing that could happen to you.”

No mother and father should have to go through what they did.

As I said when I addressed the media a month after her passing, “We just miss the hell out of her. I’m supposed to be a tough sucker, but I’m not very tough when it comes to this.”

I still tear up sometimes when I think of her or see something that reminds me of her. During the 2012 Little League World Series in Williamsport, she was honored in the game program along with a young fireman who lost his life on 9/11. Over in the Little League Museum, I saw a display showing Christina-Taylor in her baseball uniform.

I can only hope our little Princess inspired other little girls to pick up a baseball mitt, run for student council, or simply dream big.

Within these pages, I’ve shared a lot of reflections on my six decades in baseball. At the age of 78, most of my career is behind me now. But I still enjoy working with the Phillies front office to help make the organization a winning one. My love of competition and camaraderie of the game fuel me. In my work for the team, I share thoughts on draft prospects, farmhands, and current major leaguers. But away from the executive offices, I think about the game in general.

Obviously, baseball has changed a lot since I signed a professional contract in 1955. In cities like Philadelphia, where the Phillies have established themselves as a consistent winner, I’d say it’s changed for the better. In smaller markets like Pittsburgh, where the once-proud Pirates have fallen on hard times, I’d say it’s changed for the worse. There are exceptions to every rule, but I think it’s well-documented that winning puts rear ends in seats and generates excitement, not to mention revenue. It’s fun for fans to watch winning baseball and feel pride in their team. The Phillies have sold out Citizens Bank Park almost every game for the past three seasons, but if the team hadn’t resigned Cole Hamels in 2012 or were to part with other stars, there’d be so much uproar we wouldn’t be able to open the gates in 2013. The more the fans support you, the easier it is to continue to put a quality product on the field.

By far my biggest complaint about the game is the oversized role of player agents. They, more than anybody, run the sport now. Every year, we see certain players sign contracts that defy logic. Thanks to the late Marvin Miller and his efforts on behalf of the players association, it’s become commonplace for .250 hitters and 10-game winners to secure guaranteed long-term contracts that make them millionaires many times over. They are not necessarily paid for their performance, but rather for their years of major league service.

The rise of the agents has even affected how the game is played. There’s no financial incentive for players to master game-situation baseball. Making an out to advance a runner doesn’t help a player’s personal statistics. When negotiating a contract, it’s home runs and RBIs and OPS that count. What’s worse is when a draft pick becomes a multimillionaire before even playing a day in the minors, much less the big leagues.

As I said earlier, in my playing days, the pendulum was totally on ownership’s side. But over the years, it’s swung completely in the other direction. I partly fault former Major League Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn for allowing that to happen. I liked Bowie, but he and his lawyers weren’t tough enough to stand up to the union in the late 1970s and early 1980s. And baseball kept shooting itself in the foot by agreeing to rules that hampered teams’ ability to improve themselves.

The worst job in baseball these days is general manager. He has no autonomy. Any GM who wants to make a deal has to knock on his owner’s door and ask for the money. The smaller-market teams don’t have the money, which forces them to get creative. Every now and again, an Oakland or a Tampa Bay will defy the odds by winning without high-priced players. But that’s based at least partly on these teams acquiring top prospects for high-priced veterans. Some of those prospects eventually become too expensive for these teams to retain. Then the cycle begins again.

Marvin always maintained that teams couldn’t spend money they didn’t have. He squeezed us, and we squeezed back. We tried the collusion business in the 1980s, but it didn’t work. The union kept getting stronger, and we kept making concessions that hampered teams’ abilities to improve themselves. Now, we’re where we are today. I’d hate to see Marvin go into the Hall of Fame, as some people suggest he might, but I’ll be the first to admit he had a major impact on the game.

Somehow we have to bring this situation under control. Otherwise, agents are going to put teams out of business. If I were commissioner, I’d try to get agents to agree to legal and reasonable controls that would lead to the betterment of the game. I realize the idea of a salary cap is farfetched, however. You never hear agents talk about what’s best for the game. They only care about what’s best for their clients, and unfortunately, owners and general managers fall into the trap of making free agent signings they know hurt the game.

Paul Owens and I always looked back nostalgically on baseball in the 1970s. We considered it the best era in the game’s history. The union had enough clout to prevent players from being treated like dirt, but it had yet to become all-powerful. And from a management standpoint, there were fewer complications. Team owners were more apt to rubber stamp decisions made by general managers. As a result, teams like the Reds, the Dodgers, and the Phillies remained intact for long periods of time. That created an ideal situation for fans who got to watch winning baseball
and
players they’d gotten to know over the span of many years.

There’s plenty of blame to go around, but I hold the players union most responsible for the performance-enhancing drug crisis that consumed baseball in the 1990s. For years, players had taken pills to keep their motors running during a long season. When I came to the Cubs in 1981, I had an inkling we might soon have a more significant problem on our hands. Some Olympic athletes were starting to inject themselves with steroids or growth hormones. The last thing we needed was baseball players with souped-up engines. For the sake of the integrity of the game, I felt in the early 1980s that Major League Baseball should institute drug testing. The union didn’t want to discuss the issue, however. Every time we’d bring it up, they’d shut us down. A couple of decades and a tainted era later, the union got called on the carpet. Congress subpoenaed several players to testify about their use of steroids. And the Mitchell Report concluded that baseball owners shared responsibility for the problem by turning a blind eye to what was happening. But I’d argue it was the union that prevented baseball from attacking the problem earlier.

Now that we hopefully have that problem under control, I think there are measures we can take to improve the game. I’d start with the quality of the umpiring. Incorrect calls have always been a part of the game, because umpires are human beings, and human beings aren’t perfect. But it seems umps these days are blowing more calls than ever before. There needs to be more accountability. If that means expanding replay review of questionable calls in the postseason, when every play has immense importance, then I’m all for it. I also would strongly support a grading system for umpires. Those who don’t get passing grades should be demoted to the minors. That’s what happens to players, after all. I have a lot of respect for most umpires and have enjoyed friendships with some, but it’s clear we need to hold them more accountable. I’m proud of the umpires who have had the courage to admit making mistakes in crucial situations.

At its core, baseball remains a great sport. And I still see a lot of guys who play the game with every ounce of their being. To me, Chase Utley, Cole Hamels, Jimmy Rollins, and Roy Halladay epitomize what it means to be a “gamer.”

I’ve seen players with vast talent fail to become successful major leaguers, because they don’t have the right work ethic. Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals reminds me of Pete Rose when Pete first broke into the majors. Like Pete, Harper runs to first base on ball four and oozes a certain confidence through his body language. My manager, Gene Mauch, hated Pete and called him every name in the book during games. But Pete didn’t care. He had an inner strength you can’t teach. Bryce might be one of those guys, too. We’ll see, I guess.

Some things don’t change. High schools and colleges still don’t train guys to be major league players; the minor leagues do. The tendency these days is to rush touted prospects up to the majors. The reason for that is obvious: organizations spend millions of dollars just to sign their top draft picks, and they want to see an immediate return on their investments. That can be the worst thing for a player. For every Harper, Mike Trout, and Stephen Strasburg, there are dozens of other players who need more time to grow into major leaguers. If you train a guy right and watch him progress steadily, you’re going to have a better player over the long haul.

*

My name was brought up a lot when the Cubs hired former Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein as team president before the 2012 season. I guess my motto, “Building a New Tradition,” applied to what Theo is hoping to accomplish.

We’ll see what happens now. Some of the young turks who populate team offices may not be as schooled in the game of baseball as the executives of my era. We had scouting and playing backgrounds and knew how to evaluate talent out in the field. Many general managers today only know how to evaluate talent in front of a computer.

I always liked to conduct my trading business face to face. I felt it was a lot easier for someone to say “no” to you over the phone. When you’re looking someone in the eye, you get a better read on their thoughts and interest level, or lack thereof. The young GMs go to meetings and sit across a table from each other, staring into their phones. Instead of going outside the room and talking it out, they negotiate deals by text message.

They don’t say much in public, either, which is ironic considering there are a lot more media outlets to spout off to these days. Part of that is because general managers don’t want to get into pissing matches with their players. They stay tight-lipped out of deference to team owners and the fear of being fired. The players, in turn, are reluctant to make waves when they’re pocketing $20 million a year. That leaves the fans in a different position, too. In the ’80s, they could turn on their radio and hear Larry Bowa blasting me for being such a mean guy, or they could read the papers and hear my beefs. Nowadays, if a fan wants to hear an opinion, he has to get it from a talk show host who is far removed from what’s really going on in the clubhouse.

There are hardly any mouths that roar.

*

I’m gearing up for my 55
^th
spring training, my 42
^nd
in Clearwater, Florida. I have a lot of good memories of time spent at Phillies camp. I’ve seen a lot of baseball and forged a lot of friendships there.