Ball Four (RosettaBooks Sports Classics) (15 page)

The guys are grumbling about Joe Schultz. I’m not sure if it’s serious or just the normal baseball grumbling. Joe has been insisting that the guys do more running and more pick-ups, and nobody likes that, so they’re sniggering behind his back and calling him things like “Step-and-a-Half” because he walks with a slight limp.

I hope it doesn’t get to be the kind of thing the Yankees had with Johnny Keane. None of the guys were happy when Houk moved up to general manager in 1964, and they didn’t like Yogi Berra as a manager, and they hated Keane. They constantly grumbled about Keane, and when he’d, say, flash the bunt sign, they’d say to themselves, “What the hell does Keane know about our style?” They never respected anything he did. So they’d make a half-hearted attempt to bunt and pop it up or hit into a double play. Then the newspaper guys would ask them what was the matter and they’d say they didn’t know, they were trying just as hard as they always did. The hell they were.

I mean if Houk flashed the bunt sign they’d think, “Oh boy, what a genius.” And they’d lay down the bunt. It’s a mental thing. If you’re going to give physically 100 percent you have to be giving mentally 100 percent. Except how can you give 100 percent for a guy you call Squeaky or Midget or other rotten things?

Holtville

Now about Roger Maris. Roger fought a lot with the people in the stands, especially in Detroit, where he used to give them the finger. He and the fans would get to calling each other names and then Maris would roll out his heavy artillery.

“Yeah? How much money are
you
making?”

Roger was making $70,000 a year.

After a while every time Maris got into an argument the guys in the dugout would say, “C’mon Rodg, hit him with your wallet.”

Thinking about the great Rodg reminded me of a brief encounter. One day there appeared a clipping on the bulletin board in the Yankee clubhouse. It was a quote from me after Mel Stottlemyre had hit an inside-the-park home run, which is very hard for a pitcher to do. One of the writers came to me after it and said, “What were you thinking when Stottlemyre was going around the bases?” It was a nice, silly question, so I gave him a nice, silly answer. I said I was hoping that Stottlemyre would fall down because if he hit an inside-the-park home run it would put pressure on all us other pitchers to hit inside-the-park home runs, and who needed that? And now it’s on the bulletin board like I was serious.

I asked around to find out who put it up, but I couldn’t, although I eventually decided it must have been either Clete Boyer, another one of my boosters, or Maris. So one day when they were standing together in the outfield I went over and said, “I wish you guys would tell me who put that clipping up on the board, because I’d like to get my hands on the gutless son of a bitch who did it.”

And although Maris had already denied to me that he put up the clipping, he said, “Don’t call me gutless.”

Somehow I managed not to get into a fight with him. But I felt I’d won the battle of wits. Which is probably why he didn’t own up to posting it the first time I asked him. He didn’t want to contend with my rapier-like mind.

Maris’ friend Clete Boyer was the kind of guy who would always tell me to be careful who I brought into the clubhouse. Yet he led the league in hosting the offspring of clothing manufacturers. The way it worked, he’d get free sweaters and in return he’d have to bring the sons of the manufacturers into the clubhouse where they could run around, ask for autographs and make pests of themselves. He and Maris got the sweaters, and we got the kids.

And a final word about my favorite baseball writer, Jim Ogle, of the Newhouse papers. Ogle was a Yankee fan and he reacted to players purely on how much they were helping the Yankees to win. Charm, personality, intelligence—nothing counted. Only winning. Ogle didn’t have even the pretense of objectivity. He was the only writer in the press box who would take the seventh-inning stretch in the Yankee half.

Once at a winter press conference, when the Yankees were announcing the signing of three or four guys, Stan Isaacs, who writes a really good column for
Newsday
, on Long Island, passed a note to Houk. It said: “Has Ogle signed his contract yet?”

Isaacs may not have known how ironic he was being. In fact Ogle’s ambition was always to work for the Yankees. But they would never give him a job.

Not that this prevented him from doing little jobs for them. Like when I was sent down he was on television with Yankee broadcasters and said that it wasn’t so much that I was pitching poorly, but because of the kind of person I was. He said that none of the players liked me and there were some terrible things about me he couldn’t even talk about. This left it up to the public imagination. What was I? Rapist, murderer, dope peddler? Jim Ogle wouldn’t say.

Tempe

It’s getting to be, as the boys say, nut-cutting time. And it was not good news to hear that we’re going to start the season with only nine pitchers. Besides that, we traded Chico Salmon to Baltimore for Gene Brabender, “a hard-throwing right-handed country boy,” said Steve Barber. I look at the pitching staff and I see six guys who have it made: Diego Segui, Marty Pattin, Jack Aker, Gary Bell, Steve Barber (including sore arm) and, because he had such a good year in Triple-A, Mike Marshall. Add Brabender and we have seven. So all spring there have been maybe thirty pitchers fighting for two spots on the staff.

I like to think I’m in pretty good shape. I haven’t been scored on my last three or four times out and I’ve looked pretty good. But if they decide to keep, say, two left-handers, where am I? Or suppose I get bombed tomorrow? Now I know what life on a tenterhook is like.

I thought the Salmon trade was pretty good for us because we didn’t really have a spot for him. But he was very disappointed. He slammed the door when he left Joe’s office. I know he counted on going to Seattle. He spent the winter up there and went to a lot of promotional dinners and leased an apartment and rented furniture, the works. Now it’s Baltimore instead. Life in the big leagues.

Jack Aker, who’s been our acting player representative, called a meeting today to elect a permanent player rep and alternate. Aker has quite a bit of experience in that area. He was the player rep in Kansas City when the players had all that trouble with Charley Finley and he’s the most qualified guy on the team. He was elected with no opposition.

Tommy Davis nominated me for alternate, which both surprised and pleased me. Don Mincher seconded. Then someone nominated Gary Bell and the two of us left the room. Gary won it by one vote, and Tommy Davis kidded that Mincher had switched and voted for Bell. Don was embarrassed, but I don’t blame him. He doesn’t know me that well and Gary’s been around a lot longer.

Actually it felt rather good to lose by only one vote. When I was with the Yankees I once campaigned for player rep and didn’t come that close.

Understand that
nobody
campaigns for player rep. Mostly you get the job the way Aker did. “All right, who wants to be player rep? Aker? Okay, Aker, you’re the player rep.”

But I campaigned with the Yankees because I wanted to dump Clete Boyer, and I guess that worked because when we had nominations he stood up and said, “I want to quit this fucking job.” Also I actually thought I had a chance of winning and that I was probably the best man for the job.

So I mimeographed a two-page statement on why I felt I would be a good player rep and what qualities I thought we should look for and why I felt I met those requirements. I added some silly things in order to keep it all rather light, like I wanted to be a player rep so I could get to ride in a big airplane and write player rep on my jockstrap.

I got three votes. One of them was on an absentee ballot by Fritz Peterson. He had to leave, but left it for me in case I needed it. I never embarrassed Fritz by casting it. So everyone thinks I got only two votes. Let history record it was three.

Four pitchers were cut before the game—Dick Baney, Dick Bates, Buzz Stephen and Bob Lasko. I walked in on Lasko in the clubhouse and he was sipping coffee and had a smile on his face.

“What are you so happy about?” I said.

“The pressure is off,” he said. “The pressure is off and I’m going to Vancouver, which means I’ll be with my family.”

I don’t think I’d have taken it quite that well.

I got into the game, pitched two innings and looked good. I gave up a run, unearned. The catcher dropped a foul pop and then the hitter walked. He scored on a double, which was the only well-hit ball off me. I had a good assortment of stuff and was able to throw fewer knuckleballs, which must have pleased Sal Maglie.

After the game John Morris and Darrell Brandon got it. So one left-hander, Bill Henry, and I had made it. It’s a good feeling, but if I had known all along what the odds were I’d have been less optimistic and more nervous.

Brandon has taken being sent down pretty hard, although he did have a poor spring. He took a long time packing his bag and after we were through with our workout he was still in the clubhouse, just sitting there in front of his locker, looking as though he hoped Schultz might change his mind and tell him it was all a mistake. No one went over to talk to him. It was sad and strange.

When I came to the park and saw Baney, Bates and Stephens packing, I started to smile. I was so relieved it wasn’t me. And knowing that with them gone it would be that much easier for me, I felt this silly grin pop out on my face, so I bit my lip to get it off and turned into my locker. I didn’t want anybody to see me smiling. I didn’t want to
be
smiling. But I was, I was.

Anyway, we’re down to twenty-five players now with a nine-man pitching staff, which means if we do anything, we’ll add a pitcher, so I feel fat, safe and secure. Also I know that if I don’t make it, or if I don’t get to pitch, it’ll be because I wasn’t good enough. It won’t be on my mind that someone is trying to sabotage me the way I felt when I was with the Yankees. Even if it isn’t true, even if Houk wasn’t out to get me, even if all the times I had to go into ballgames without having enough time to warm up properly, and if all the times I would go ten days without so much as throwing a ball in batting practice, were all accidental, it seemed to me I was being set up to be canned.

Like we all knew Piniella would be canned and it happened today. He was traded to Kansas City for Steve Whitaker and John Gelnar, a pitcher. It was a giveaway. Bound to happen, though. Lou just wasn’t their style.

We were talking about what we ought to call Brabender when he gets here. He looks rather like Lurch of the “Addams Family,” so we thought we might call him that, or Monster, or Animal, which is what they called him in Baltimore last year. Then Larry Haney told us how Brabender used to take those thick metal spikes that are used to hold the bases down and bend them in his bare hands. “In that case,” said Gary Bell, “we better call him Sir.”

Hey, funny thing. This isn’t a real bad ballclub. It hits like hell. We have six guys hitting over .300 and Hegan is hitting over .400. We’re scoring a lot of runs. We’ve won five in a row this spring and we’re nearly back to .500. And the Angels have yet to beat us. Maybe we really
can
finish third.

John Kennedy says he knows the reason he’s been hitting so poorly this spring. The low mound has screwed up his swing.

We had a meeting on catchers’ signs today and I was glad that it was decided to use the pump system rather than the finger system. I have trouble with the finger system because I can’t see the fingers. But the pump system is fine. It’s not how many fingers are involved, but how many times they are flashed.

You use the pump with an indicator, which can be changed if you’re worried about somebody reading you. Let’s say you number your pitches this way: 1-curveball, 2-fastball, 3-change, 4-knuckleball or slider or screwball or whatever odd pitch you happen to have. The fifth pump starts the cycle again. Now, say the indicator, which can be changed from inning to inning, is three. That means the first pump is for the change, second pump the knuckleball, third back to number one, the curve. And so forth.

It’s simple, and I wish I’d worked something like that out with the Yankees. I used to make Jake Gibbs wear white adhesive tape on his fingers so I could count them.

The other signs will work on a similar principle. Some sample signs: Touching the left side of the chest is the take, right side of the chest is the bunt, touching the left leg is the steal and right hand to the right leg is hit-and-run. The principle here is that hitting signs are above the belt and running signs are below. The takeoff is wiping the hand across the letters and the indicator will be touching the right arm. That is, no sign is valid until after the right arm is touched. As a variation you can make the sign the second one after the indicator is flashed. Or the third. That way even if somebody knows all your signs he can’t tell what you’re putting on.

Speaking of signs, I’m reminded that when I came to the Yankees and Yogi Berra was catching, if there was a man on first he’d call nothing but fastballs. That was so he would have a better chance if the guy was trying to steal. In fact Yogi liked to call mostly fastballs because they’re the easiest to catch. I understand that part of the difficulty between Berra and Sain goes back to the days when Sain pitched to him and he couldn’t get him to call anything but fastballs.

I am, of course, an optimist. Each year I’m certain I’m going to be great again. Every winter I get a questionnaire from
Sport
magazine on picking the pennant races and I always pick myself as Comeback of the Year. Each year I believe it. Each winter I pay a college kid $5 three nights a week to catch me in a gym. Each year I’m certain.

And here I go again. I’m more positive than ever. My arm feels great. I’ve made the ballclub. I’m starting to throw like I used to throw, and I’m thinking I’ll be a reliever for a while and then I’ll do well in long relief and get a spot start now and then. Then I’ll complete a ballgame and along around June they’re going to stick me into the rotation and I’m going to wind up winning a flock of games, just like I did when I first came up to the Yankees. I see the team doing real well and I see me as one of the keys to our success. I see myself as one of the reasons we might finish third or fourth. I see myself as a goddam hero. That’s what an optimist is, isn’t it? A goddam hero.