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OUT OF LEFT FIELD |
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 LOU PINIELLA ...new Cubs manager |
A nice, leisurely day at the
ball park with Lou Piniella
of TheColumnists.com
In 1989, in between two of his five managerial gigs, Lou Piniella worked as an analyst on local Yankee telecasts. I was writing a television sports column at the time and quickly grew to appreciate Piniella for his wit and, especially, his candor. He was straight with his criticism, didn’t use the mealy-mouthed qualifiers in labeling a ball player’s deficiencies that are so rampant on the air.
The Chicago Cubs were in Philadelphia to take on the Phils recently and I mosied out to the Phils’ ball park. I showed my trusty lifetime baseball writers card for admission and then wended over to the visiting team’s clubhouse. Piniella was in the manager’s office, chatting with a local TV man, who was just leaving when I arrived.
It’s always a good gambit with professional athletes to offer legitimate praise and I told Piniella how much I liked his candor when he worked on television. He appreciated that, and we chatted for awhile. It was leisurely, something that doesn’t happen too often these days, because there is usually a small army of media people around, and the athletes are almost always on guard spouting platitudes.
We talked baseball.
He said the Cubs wre struggling (6-5 record at the time) “but we’ll be okay, it’s early….The game is speed and power. Speed always shows up, power doesn’t… We need a left-handed power hitter…People don’t like dead-ass ball players.”
When he noted that the Cubs’ defense had been spotty, I said, “Well, I guess a manager can’t do much about that.”
“Yes I can, I can pull guys out of there,.” he said with a sly smile. “You can be patient-smart letting a guy come around, and you can be patient-stupid, sticking with a player too long. I think everybody knows I lean against being patient- stupid.”
Piniella is 64. His hair is graying at the temples. Though he is just a six-footer, he gives the impression of being larger. As a player, he was a good hitter, usually at .300 or thereabouts, but he never hit more than 12 home runs in a season. The pet story about him is from a roommate who noted that in the middle of the night he saw Piniella standing in front of a mirror checking his batting stance. Maybe his wife related the same experience.
Piniella has a reputation, of course, of being quick on the trigger, especially with umpires. In one episode he picked up a bag and threw it. There is usually a comic aspect to his tirades, and one of the water companies has a commercial in which Piniella seemingly is haranguing an umpire with angry gestures, but actually he is having a friendly exchange of pleasantries.
We talked about the economy.
The Phillies, among other things, are milking the public anew by adding a dollar to the parking price of $10. You wonder how long the sports moguls can continue to assault people’s pocket books. “With the way things are,” Piniella said, “I don’t know how people can pay the prices at ball parks. How much is a beer here?” He said he noticed at spring training in Arizona this season that restaurants which had previously required a reservation, were now half empty. “I imagine it would take more than $200 to take a family to a ball game or theater. I have three kids, but I don’t think I would take them all to the theater.”
He came from a working class family in Tampa. I had an out-of-left-field thought. I said, “I still will bend down to pick up a penny if I see it on the ground. Will you?”
He smiled. “I used to--but not now.” He would bend down for a dollar bill.
He said that he and Tony Larussa the veteran St. Louis Cardinal manager, had grown up together in Tampa. “I love competing against, Tony. He’s the most superstitious guy. If he says hello to me before a game and they beat us, he’ll seek me out the next day to say hello, and I’ll try to run and hide from him. If he loses, he’ll try to avoid me and I’ll go looking for him.”
As we chatted it struck me that Piniella didn’t have much to do and was happy to shoot the breeze. I suppressed an instinct to move on.
If it happened, the whole country would be delighted to celebrate the first Cubs World Series since 1908. “There’s more attention to it now,” Piniella said, “because of the 100-year thing. The Cub fans are terrific. But I get the feeling that half the crowds come for the baseball and half to party.“
He played for Kansas City and the Yankees from 1969 to 1984. He managed the Yankees, Cincinnati, Seattle and Tampa Bay before taking over the Cubs last year. He won a World Series with the Reds in 1990.
The Cubs won the central division last year, then were swept by Arizona in the first round of the playoffs. He said, “I’d like to get back in the playoffs and see what happens”
When I got up to leave him, he said, “Thanks for stopping by.”
The Cubs went out and beat the Phillies, 6-5, with a run in the 10th inning. A nation of baseball fans would like to see the “100-year thing”--a World Series victory--bring about a century’s worth of celebrating.
©2008 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. This column first posted April 21, 2008.
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