The Mouth That Roared (43 page)

As I focus on the present, I also think about the past.

It’s where I learned Lee Elia was a damn good cook. At the Island House, our spring training hangout in Clearwater, the owner would chase all the other customers off around midnight and let our gang stick around a while longer. With the doors shut and the blinds drawn, we’d play liar’s poker into the wee hours of the morning. On one particular night in the late 1970s, the session broke up at about 4:00
AM
. As minor league director, I was due to report to work in a few hours. Paul Owens had a less strenuous day planned, but he wanted to be at least somewhat sober when he got to the spring training complex.

“Let’s go to Elia’s house and get dinner,” I suggested.

We went to his house and banged on the door. The lights in the house switched on, and Lee came to the door in a robe. After muttering a few choice words, he went into the kitchen and cooked spaghetti and meatballs for us. Lee and I went directly from the house to our minor league facility. We played hard and we worked hard.

*

I feel fortunate to still be involved in helping the Phillies.

I’ll be proud to see Ryne Sandberg in the third-base coaching box for the Phillies in 2013. I’m proud of Ryno for paying his dues as a minor league manager. Not many Hall of Famers do that. Ryno and I go way back. He is the greatest player I can take credit for drafting and developing.

And that’s the part of the game I still love most.

When I first joined the team’s front office in 1969, Pope gave me wide-ranging freedom to implement a program for scouting and developing players. The reason the Phillies hired me back in 1998 was to bring my experience to bear on a new generation of players. I’ve worked for three general managers in my current tenure with the team—Ed Wade, Pat Gillick, and Ruben Amaro Jr. Ruben’s father was a teammate of mine and coached for me. I’ve always said the Phillies are like family.

I’m no longer in charge of running any programs, but my role with the team isn’t ceremonial, either. I go to draft meetings, visit our minor league sites, and stay in close contact with our scouting supervisors. I emphasize the importance of putting developing players in situations where they can be challenged but also successful. This game is all about adversity, so why not experience it in the minor leagues first? I also think it’s important to create a winning atmosphere at the minor league level. Get the players their at-bats and innings pitched, but also try to win ballgames.

Every organization has its share of ups and downs. I know that from experience.

The Philadelphia teams I played on in the early 1960s included cellar dwellers and near-pennant winners.

The Phillies couldn’t buy a win in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but by the end of the ’70s, they were a perennial playoff team. I am honored to have been able to bring the team its first world championship in 1980. There was a purpose behind all my yelling and screaming that season. It was to motivate a group of players I wasn’t going to allow to fail after three near-misses.

I became the general manager in Chicago at a time when the Cubs had sunk to one of the lowest points in franchise history. A few years later, we were celebrating a division title. But then there was another downturn.

The Yankees team I managed for a few months in 1989 was a patchwork of aging veterans and underwhelming prospects. Several years after my firing, the Yankees were still struggling to regain their reputation as winners. Then they became a dynasty again.

The Mets, maybe the best team of the second half of the 1980s, were the major league’s worst team the year I took the helm in 1993. It took until the end of the decade for the team to get back on top.

Every ballclub that’s experienced a period of success has to regroup and recalibrate at some point. And every team that’s been mired in failure has to look at what it could be doing differently.

What makes the game special is all the small stuff that happens on the road to success or failure, the adversity, the peaks and valleys of a season, and the hard work and good times that combine to create wonderful memories.

I put my players through hell at times. I have always believed that athletes should perform to the best of their God-given abilities. All players, especially those who are being paid good money to play a game, occasionally need a reminder of this simple idea. And it was my job to do the reminding.

Acknowledgments

I would first and foremost like to thank my wife, Sylvia, who stood by my side and endured all the trials and tribulations of the game with me. While I was off doing my thing, she took the lead in raising our children, Dana, John, Kim, and Doug, all of whom grew up in baseball and rooted like the devil for their dad’s teams.

When I reflect on my six decades in the game, I realize how much of it was made possible by the players, coaches, and friends who stayed loyal to me, despite my occasional mistakes and frequent screaming and yelling sessions.

I’d also like to acknowledge our good friends on Providenciales, an island where we’ve spent winters for nearly three decades. It’s a great place to unwind after a long baseball season.

I had resisted writing a baseball book for quite some time, but Sylvia and my co-author, Alan Maimon, convinced me it was time to put my experiences down in print. This book is a memento for my family, especially my grandkids, Holly, Hunter, Benjamin, Finn, and Dallas Jordan. It is also for Christina-Taylor Green, who was nine years old when she was shot and killed on January 8, 2011. She loved her Pop Pop and baseball, and I’m sure she’s playing baseball with the guys in heaven.

—Dallas Green

The story of my involvement in this book dates back to a summer day in 1986, when my 13-year-old self first met Dallas Green. I had written him prior to a family trip to Chicago to let him know that I had ambitions of one day becoming a general manager. In his reply, he invited my parents, my sister, and me up to his executive suite at Wrigley Field to say hello. On the day of our visit, a tall and imposing man with a firm handshake greeted me and said with a smile, “So, you’re the guy who wants to take my job!” I didn’t end up working in a baseball front office, but 25 years after that initial encounter with Dallas, I had the opportunity to sit down with him and document his long and illustrious career in the game.

I would like to thank my wife and kids for their love and support during the writing of this book. Thanks especially to my youngest daughter, Annabelle, who kept me company as I spent summer evenings banging away at the keyboard.

As he did with my previous books, Chuck Myron provided terrific advice and skillful and thorough editing. Adam Motin at Triumph Books took the completed manuscript and turned it into what you see here.

Thanks also to Adele MacDonald of the Phillies for her help in facilitating interviews with Dallas and others.

Dallas and I would both like to thank Ruben Amaro Jr., Pat Corrales, Lee Elia, Jerry Kettle, Gary Matthews, Keith Moreland, Dickie Noles, Larry Shenk, Jayson Stark, Steve Swisher, Ed Wade, and Bobby Wine for sharing their memories of key moments and fun times in Dallas’ baseball career.

—Alan Maimon

Photo Gallery

As a kid born and raised in Delaware, I grew up a Phillies fan and was fortunate enough to begin my major league career with the team in 1960. (AP Images)

After taking over as Philadelphia’s manager in 1979, well, let’s just say I wasn’t one to mince words, especially when it came to making my feelings felt to the umpires. (Getty Images)

Ruben Amaro, Pete Rose, and I celebrate winning the 1980 National League pennant thanks to a Game 5 victory in the NLCS against the Houston Astros. (AP Images)

That’s Ruly Carpenter and me in 1981, shortly after Ruly announced that his family was putting the Phillies up for sale. Everyone in the organization took the news hard. (AP Images)

Dreams really do come true. This shot was taken after we won Game 5 in Kansas City in the 1980 World Series. We finished the Royals off two days later to claim the Phillies’ first championship. (AP Images)