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How Alfredo Cabrera went from Canarian to Cardinal

Posted in Games, Hitters, Prospects on January 5, 2026| 12 Comments »

The distance between the Canary Islands and St. Louis is 4,300 miles. It took Alfredo Cabrera 32 years to make the trek.

Cabrera is the only person born in the Canary Islands to play baseball in the big leagues. The shortstop was 32 when he debuted with the Cardinals in 1913.

His time in the majors, however, was as fleeting as a glimpse of a canary in the wild. Cabrera appeared in one game, played four innings and never returned.

Instead, he had a long professional playing career in Cuba and as a Hispanic minor-league baseball pioneer in the northeastern United States.

Island hopping

Formed by volcanic eruptions that created black sand beaches along crystal-clear turquoise water, the Canary Islands of Spain are within 65 miles of Africa’s northwestern coast. Wild canaries are a native species of the islands. (Cardinals, however, are not.)

Alfredo Cabrera was born in the Canary Islands on May 11, 1881. He was a descendant of Guanches, the indigenous people of the islands, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Cabrera arrived at a time when the Canary Islands transitioned from an agricultural economy (largely bananas and sugar cane) to tourism as steamships carried winter-weary visitors to the port of Las Palmas.

Though raised in the Canary Islands, Cuba became Cabrera’s home. He “most likely sailed from the Canary Islands to Cuba around 1900, as a teenager, and almost immediately established himself as a gifted baseball player,” according to Erik Malinowski of the Society for American Baseball Research.

In 1901, when Cabrera turned 20, he made his professional baseball debut in the Cuban League. He spent 18 seasons in Latin leagues, primarily with Almendares, and was player-manager for part of that time, according to Seamheads.com. Cabrera was inducted into the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1942.

Integrating the minors

Cabrera was part of a team, the Baseball Stars of Cuba, that toured the United States in 1906. Charles Humphrey, owner of the New Britain club in the Connecticut State League, was impressed by how the Cubans played. Humphrey went to Havana and recruited four Cubans _ third baseman Rafael Almeida, outfielder Armando Marsans, pitcher Luis Padron and the shortstop, Cabrera _ to play for New Britain in 1908, according to Weston Ulbrich of the Greater Hartford Twilight Baseball League.

Humphrey named the New Britain club the Perfectos.

Bigots objected to the newcomers joining an all-white league. Recalling those days, Dan Porter of the New York Daily Mirror wrote in 1933, “As a kid, I saw a half dozen Cuban players break into organized baseball in the old Connecticut League. I refer to players like Marsans, Almeida, Cabrera and others. I recall the storm of protest from the One Hundred Per Centers at that time but I also recall that all the Cubans conducted themselves in such a manner that they reflected nothing but credit on themselves and those who favored admitting them to baseball’s select circle.”

A right-handed batter, Cabrera was 5-foot-10 and lean, with a complexion “the hue of burnt leather,” the New Britain Herald reported. (The Post-Dispatch described his skin as being “the color of a coconut shell.”)

Of the four from Cuba to join New Britain, three eventually reached the majors. Almeida and Marsans debuted with the Reds in July 1911. Almeida played three seasons (1911-13) with Cincinnati. Marsans spent sevens seasons in the big leagues with the Reds (1911-14), Browns (1916-17) and Yankees (1917-18). He also had a stint with the St. Louis Terriers of the Federal League (1914-15).

Cabrera played five seasons (1908-12) with New Britain _ (the franchise shifted to Waterbury in June 1912) _ before getting to the majors. His path to St. Louis, however, required a detour through Indianapolis.

St. Louis shuffle

Bob Connery played for and managed Hartford of the Connecticut State League from 1908-12 and was quite familiar with the talents of Alfredo Cabrera. Connery became a Cardinals scout after the 1912 season. He was a friend of Cardinals manager Miller Huggins and both were friends of Mike Kelley, who had become manager of Indianapolis in the American Association.

On Connery’s recommendation to Kelley, Indianapolis acquired Cabrera from the Connecticut State League in January 1913. (Two years later, Connery convinced the Cardinals to sign Rogers Hornsby.)

During 1913 spring training, Cardinals shortstop Arnold Hauser injured a knee. Needing shortstop help, Huggins turned to his friend Mike Kelley. Indianapolis sent two shortstops _ Cabrera and Charley O’Leary _ to the Cardinals.

Unlike Cabrera, O’Leary, 37, had big-league experience. He was the shortstop for the Tigers in two World Series (1907 and 1908). In his last big-league game, he helped turn a triple play before being dispatched by the Tigers to Indianapolis in April 1912.

O’Leary (starter) and Cabrera (reserve) opened the 1913 season with the Cardinals. According to the Indianapolis Star, the Cardinals were impressed by “the dandy throwing arm the Cuban exhibited.”

Huggins told the Post-Dispatch, “I like that fellow’s looks and I intend to give him a thorough trial.”

However, once the season started, Huggins stuck with O’Leary at shortstop and kept Cabrera on the bench. The Cardinals began looking to trade the rookie.

“Cabrera is a shortstop of rare promise and he is the entity which may be used as a pawn to strengthen the club in other departments,” W.J. O’Connor reported in the Post-Dispatch. “Either Brooklyn or Boston could use Cabrera, and Huggins will carry Alfredo until he makes the first swing around the (league) … Huggins is so well-fortified at short, now that O’Leary has proved himself still a major-league performer, that he can readily pass up a promising youngster like Cabrera … If either (Brooklyn) or (Boston) wants Cabrera, Huggins will pass him over for a first-string pitcher or an outfielder.”

One and done

After O’Leary pulled up lame rounding first in a game at Brooklyn on May 15, 1913, the Post-Dispatch reported Cabrera would make his big-league debut the next day as the starting shortstop at Ebbets Field.

Huggins put Cabrera seventh in the batting order, between Rebel Oakes and Ivey Wingo. Pitching for the Cardinals was left-hander Slim Sallee, who would win 19 that season for a club that totaled 51.

The Brooklyn lineup included leadoff batter and center fielder Casey Stengel, and cleanup hitter and left fielder Zack Wheat, who remains the Dodgers’ career leader in total bases (4,003), hits (2,804), doubles (464) and triples (171). The Brooklyn pitcher, Cliff Curtis, never achieved a winning record in five big-league seasons and was a 24-game loser with Boston in 1910.

In the first inning, the Cardinals scored three times against Curtis and had a runner on third, two outs, when Cabrera came to the plate. He grounded out to the pitcher, ending the inning. Cabrera batted again in the third, grounded to short and was out by 20 feet at first, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported.

Cabrera didn’t get a fielding chance, but Huggins apparently was miffed that the shortstop didn’t get to a grounder that went for a hit, the New York Herald reported. In the fifth, Cabrera was removed for a pinch-hitter and Lee Magee shifted from left field to shortstop. Brooklyn won, 6-5. Boxscore

The Cardinals started a utility player, Possum Whitted, at shortstop in their next game. Cabrera was sent to the Springfield (Massachusetts) Ponies of the Eastern Association. “He did not make a very satisfactory showing (with St. Louis) in the eyes of manager Huggins,” the Springfield Daily Republican noted.

International game

Cabrera spent three more seasons (1913-15) in the minors but his playing days lasted much longer in Cuba. As player-manager, he led Almendares to a Cuban League championship in 1915.

According to the Greater Hartford Twilight Baseball League, “Cabrera’s latter years were spent as groundskeeper of Havana’s El Gran Stadium.”

Today, baseball is part of the Canary Islands sports culture. Eric Gonzalez-Diaz, born in the Canary Islands town of San Juan de la Rambla, was a pitcher in the Padres farm system from 2008-10 and played for Spain in the 2013 World Baseball Classic. A Canary Islands team, the Tenerife Marlins, became 2025 Baseball European Cup champions.

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How Alvin Dark saw the light with Ozzie Smith

Posted in Games, Hitters, Managers, Prospects on December 22, 2025| 18 Comments »

In baseball, being right can get you fired. It happened to Alvin Dark.

When the Padres opened spring training camp in 1978, Dark made a daring decision. The manager named Ozzie Smith the starting shortstop.

Smith, 23, had no big-league experience. He didn’t have much minor-league experience either. He’d spent part of a season at Walla Walla, and a couple of months in the Arizona Instructional League. Dark saw him there.

A shortstop himself (with the Cardinals and others) before becoming a manager, Dark determined Smith was ready to make the leap from Class A to the majors.

“Alvin Dark took a chance on a skinny kid from south-central Los Angeles, and he believed that I could one day be one of the best shortstops that ever played the game,” Smith recalled to Cardinals Yearbook in 2002.

Dark’s bold move turned out to be a smart one. Smith did the job, taking the first impressive steps toward a Hall of Fame career, but Dark wasn’t there to witness the rookie’s rise. In shaking up the infield, Dark shook up Padres management and players. He was fired before spring training ended.

Under development

When Ozzie was 6, his father, Clovis, a truck driver, and mother, Marvella, moved the family from Mobile, Ala., to the Watts section of Los Angeles. In August 1965, “we had to sleep on the floor because of the looting, rioting and sniping,” Smith recalled to Vahe Gregorian of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Clovis left the family and Marvella worked seven days a week in a nursing home.

At Locke High School, Smith was a teammate of another future Baseball Hall of Famer, Eddie Murray. The Orioles took Murray in the 1973 amateur draft. No clubs sought Smith. He enrolled at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and made the baseball squad as a walk-on.

“I never taught Ozzie anything about playing defense,” Cal Poly coach Berdy Harr told the Chula Vista Star-News. “He already knew what that was all about when he came to us. He had a sense of timing, rhythm, I had never seen.”

As Smith later recalled to the Philadelphia Daily News, “I never had trouble catching the ball, even in Little League. I’ve always been able to throw it and I’ve always had a knack for making the right play.”

What Smith needed help with was controlling his temper. “I had a short fuse in high school,” he told the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

He also had to become a better hitter. Smith batted .158 as a college freshman; .230 his sophomore season. Harr suggested he try switch-hitting.

In the summer of 1975, Smith played semipro baseball in Clarinda, Iowa. “Most people would have no idea of how intimidating and stressful it could be for a young black player to move into an all-white rural community in the Midwest,” Smith said in his Hall of Fame induction speech.

The townsfolk embraced him, however, and Smith thrived, improving his hitting. He was a complete player when he returned to Cal Poly for his junior year, batting .308. Detroit took Smith in the seventh round of the 1976 amateur draft, but he didn’t like the Tigers’ offer and opted to stay in school.

As a senior, Smith hit .307, stole 44 bases for the second season in a row and dazzled on defense. “In all my years of coaching, he is the one player I would most rather depend upon in a clutch situation whether it was fielding, making a throw or executing offensively,” Harr told the San Luis Obispo Tribune. “It has been a pleasure watching him mature as a person and as a player.”

Shortstop sensation

The Padres signed Smith after taking him in the fourth round of the 1977 draft. Sent to Walla Walla, he produced a .391 on-base percentage in 68 games and swiped 30 bases.

In the fall, the Padres put Smith on their Arizona Instructional League team. Hall of Fame second baseman Billy Herman, a Padres minor-league hitting instructor, saw him and was impressed. Then Alvin Dark arrived.

Dark knew what it took to play shortstop. He’d been a good one, a three-time all-star and recipient of the 1948 Rookie of the Year Award. Dark played in World Series for the Braves (1948) and Giants (1951, 1954). The Cardinals traded Red Schoendienst for him in 1956.

As a manager, Dark won a National League pennant (1962 Giants) and a World Series title (1974 Athletics). The Padres hired him in May 1977, replacing John McNamara.

It didn’t take long for Dark to determine the Padres needed an infield upgrade. Their second baseman, Mike Champion, batted .229, third baseman Tucker Ashford had no power (three home runs) and shortstop Bill Almon made 41 errors, hit two homers and struck out 114 times. Overall, the 1977 Padres made a league-leading 189 errors, including 46 at shortstop.

Dark came to the 1977 Arizona Instructional League to see another player, but the one who got his attention was Ozzie Smith. The shortstop made two jaw-dropping fielding plays in one game. “They were the kind of plays you said, ‘I don’t believe this,’ ” Dark recalled to the Post-Dispatch. “To have the coordination and the rhythm and the timing all in one body like Ozzie had, that was very unusual.”

Ready or not

At spring training in February 1978, Dark declared Smith the shortstop and shifted Bill Almon to second base. Derrel Thomas, acquired from the Giants, took over at third and Gene Richards went from left field to first. The reconstructed infield was “a gamble that alarmed the front office,” The Sporting News reported.

Almon, Richards and Thomas were playing out of position. When the four starting infielders didn’t mesh in early spring training games, the Padres reacted with panic rather than patience. “We were getting a lot of feedback from players,” Padres owner Ray Kroc told The Sporting News.

On March 21, 1978, Dark was fired. The infield experiment “contributed to his banishment,” The Sporting News reported.

Additionally, “Alvin wasn’t communicating with the players, the front office or the media,” Kroc said to The Sporting News. “He wasn’t willing to delegate authority to his coaches … Alvin had a tendency to overmanage. He wanted to be the pitching coach, the batting coach, the infield coach.”

Padres player Gene Tenace told the magazine Dark “put in so many trick plays and had so many signs that everyone was uptight. There were too many things to worry about. I like Alvin … but the team is more relaxed now that he’s gone.”

In his book “When In Doubt, Fire The Manager,” Dark said, “I felt it was disgraceful that I didn’t even get the chance to start a season with the Padres.”

According to The Sporting News, Kroc briefly considered replacing Dark with the man he’d been traded for 22 years earlier, former Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst, who was a coach with Oakland. Instead, Kroc went with another ex-Cardinal, Roger Craig, promoting him from pitching coach to manager.

Roller-coaster ride

Craig took over with 17 spring training games remaining. After eight days on the job, he shifted Bill Almon to third base and put Derrel Thomas at second, but he stuck with Ozzie Smith at shortstop. “I’ve never seen anyone with better hands, or quicker hands and feet,” Craig told The Sporting News.

On Opening Day against the Giants, Smith started and batted eighth. By the end of April, Craig moved him to the No. 2 spot in the batting order. Smith thrived; the Padres didn’t. After their record sunk to 24-32, Kroc expressed his disgust with the team. “I can’t understand it,” Kroc told The Sporting News. “These dumb (expletives) didn’t want to play for Alvin Dark. Now do they want to play for Roger Craig? Not a damn bit … I don’t think they’ve got any guts or pride … I want ballplayers. I’m not going to subsidize idiots … Only four players on this team are responding: Ozzie Smith, Derrel Thomas, Randy Jones and Gaylord Perry. The rest (which included the likes of future Hall of Famers Rollie Fingers and Dave Winfield) are demanding major-league salaries and playing like high school kids.”

The Padres won three of their next four. A week later, they won six in a row. They didn’t have a losing month the rest of the year, finishing at 84-78, their first winning season since entering the National League in 1969.

Smith was a major factor in the success. He produced 152 hits, swiped 40 bases and fielded superbly. Recalling his years with the World Series champion Athletics when Bert Campaneris was their shortstop, Rollie Fingers told The Sporting News, “Ozzie has made plays that Campy never could have made.”

When word about Smith’s wizardry spread through the league early in the 1978 season, Phillies manager Danny Ozark told the Philadelphia Daily News, “Nobody with just one year in Walla Walla can be that good.” After seeing Smith for the first time, Ozark said to columnist Bill Conlin, “He made a believer out of me. I’ve never seen a rookie shortstop make the plays he made against us. I haven’t seen any shortstop play better than he did … and I’ve got one of the best (Larry Bowa) in baseball history … Once every decade or so a player comes along you know is something special _ a (Willie) Mays, a (Hank) Aaron, a (Rod) Carew. I think Smith is going to fit into that special category with his defense.”

Padres broadcaster Jerry Coleman, who was a Yankees teammate of Hall of Fame shortstop Phil Rizzuto, said to the Chula Vista Star-News, “Ozzie has made plays this season that I have never seen other shortstops make.”

Reflecting on the Padres’ topsy-turvy season, Roger Craig told The Sporting News, “Alvin (Dark) made some mistakes, but Ozzie wasn’t one of them.”

Traded to the Cardinals before the 1982 season, Smith came to symbolize the Whiteyball style of play manager Whitey Herzog implemented in St. Louis. Smith helped the Cardinals win three National League pennants and a World Series title. He earned 13 consecutive Gold Glove awards from 1980 to 1992.

In his induction speech at the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002, Smith gave Alvin Dark his due: “It was Alvin who saw the dream in me … He brought me into the major leagues.”

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How Lenny Wilkens got an assist in choosing right path

Posted in Games, Hitters, Prospects on December 1, 2025| 13 Comments »

They were a couple of neighborhood guys from the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Lenny and Tommy. Common names. Uncommon talents.

Lenny Wilkens and Tommy Davis grew up playing stickball and church league basketball against one another. At Boys High School, they became friends.

Davis was a prep baseball and basketball standout. Wilkens was trying to find his way. When Wilkens was a senior, he acted on Davis’ suggestion and went out for the basketball team. It opened the door to a lifetime of opportunity.

Wilkens became a player and coach in the NBA. He was elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame for success in both roles. Davis became a big-league baseball player. He was a two-time National League batting champion and twice hit game-winning home runs against Bob Gibson.

St. Louis was where Wilkens began his pro career. The best of his eight seasons for the St. Louis Hawks was 1967-68 when the slender guard was runner-up to a giant, Wilt Chamberlain, for the NBA Most Valuable Player Award.

As a player, Wilkens twice led the NBA in assists (1969-70 and 1971-72). As a coach, he led the Seattle SuperSonics to a NBA title (1978-79) and amassed 1,332 wins. Only Gregg Popovich (1,390) and Don Nelson (1,335) achieved more wins as NBA coaches. Wilkens was 88 when he died on Nov. 9, 2025.

Hard road to travel

Wilkens was the son of a black father and white mother. He was about kindergarten age when his father, a chauffeur, died of a perforated ulcer.

Lenny’s mother, Henrietta, raised him and his three siblings in a cold-water tenement flat. Heat came from a coal stove. They survived “on powdered milk and peanut butter,” according to the New York Daily News.

“Quite frankly, it is a mystery to me how any kid was able to make it under such circumstances,” Rev. Thomas Mannion, a parish priest at Brooklyn’s Holy Rosary Catholic Church, told the New York Times.

Henrietta worked in a candy factory. At 8, Lenny got a job in a market, scrubbing floors and delivering groceries. Father Mannion became a surrogate dad. “I had great faith in him,” Wilkens said to the New York Times. “I’d get discouraged and sometimes pretty angry, but Father Mannion … was always there to prod me and keep me from giving up.”

In 1979, Wilkens’ wife, Marilyn, told the newspaper that Father Mannion “was a tremendous influence on (Lenny). He kept him out of trouble in those early days when Lenny was growing up in a very bad neighborhood.”

Wilkens was an altar boy. According to the Los Angeles Times, Tommy Davis recalled a day during their youth when police frisked Wilkens for switchblades and instead found only rosary beads. As Father Mannion told the New York Times, “He somehow rose above the neighborhood.”

The priest was among the first to teach Wilkens about basketball, “setting up chairs for Wilkens to dribble in and out of in the Holy Rosary gym,” according to the New York Daily News.

Get in the game

Wilkens had a bad experience the first time he tried out for the high school basketball team. Coach Mickey Fisher “inadvertently whacked him in the face with his hand as he demonstrated a technique,” the New York Daily News reported.

Offended, Wilkens left and stayed away from the basketball team his first three years in high school. Meanwhile, Tommy Davis developed into an all-city forward. As Davis recalled to United Press International, early in their senior year he said to his friend, “Come on out and play, man. You know Mickey didn’t mean it. You can make this team. We need you.”

Father Mannion also urged Wilkens to try out for the team because he saw basketball as a path to a college scholarship.

Wilkens relented and made the team for the 1955-56 season. However, he was scheduled to graduate in January 1956. So he played in just seven games before receiving his diploma and leaving school.

Undeterred, Father Mannion wrote to a friend, a priest, Rev. Aloysius Begley, athletic director at Providence College, and asked him to consider awarding Wilkens a basketball scholarship. Providence coach Joe Mullaney wanted Tommy Davis, but the Brooklyn Dodgers signed him. After Mullaney’s father scouted Wilkens in a New York summer tournament and recommended him, Providence gave the scholarship.

Wilkens was thin and barely taller than 6-foot. Though his features were frail, he had a basketball toughness honed from playing against older, bigger foes on the Brooklyn playgrounds. He was an aggressive defender and an electric playmaker. As Wayne Coffey of the New York Daily News noted, Wilkens had “the body of a twig and the hands of pickpocket, and a calm that followed him like a shadow.”

An economics major who spent summers working on Brooklyn docks loading cargo, Wilkens planned to teach. He was surprised when St. Louis selected him with the sixth pick in the first round of the 1960 NBA draft. The top two picks were Oscar Robertson (Cincinnati Royals) and Jerry West (Los Angeles Lakers).

“I never thought I was good enough to play up there,” Wilkens told the Springfield (Mass.) Republican. “Playing pro ball after I graduated from Providence wasn’t on my list of things to do.”

Tasked with trying to convince Wilkens he could succeed, St. Louis scout Stan Stutz took him to his first NBA game _ Hawks at Boston in the playoffs. “Stutz told me to watch the play of the Hawks guards (Sihugo Green and Johnny McCarthy),” Wilkens recalled to the Springfield newspaper. “After watching them, I told myself I could play as good as those guys. That’s when I decided I had a chance to make it in the NBA.”

The right stuff

Wilkens was correct about his abilities. He excelled in the NBA as a savvy backcourt talent and unassuming team leader. “The quietest man ever to come out of Brooklyn,” Frank Deford of Sports Illustrated described him.

When he joined the Hawks, Wilkens’ job was to pass the ball to the frontcourt trio of Bob Pettit, Cliff Hagan and Clyde Lovellette. “It was pattern ball, not really my game,” Wilkens told Sports Illustrated, “but you had to adjust to it.”

The cast of teammates eventually changed but Wilkens remained the constant, running the show on the floor. “He can dribble through a briar patch,” Sports Illustrated declared. “He knows the perfect pass to make and, perhaps more important, realizes that most often it need not be a fancy one … Best of all, he has the ability to pace a game, to enforce a tempo.”

Wilkens did it all without fanfare. Frank Deford described him as “shy, with mournful brown eyes.” Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times noted, “He looks constantly as if he got bad news from home or a telegram from the front. He makes a basset hound look happy.”

Before the 1967-68 season, coach Richie Guerin gave Wilkens the green light to run a fast-break offense and pressure defense. Wilkens made it work. He was the quarterback of a team that included Zelmo Beaty, Bill Bridges, Joe Caldwell, Lou Hudson and Paul Silas. The Hawks won 16 of their first 17 games. Wilkens “is more responsible for our success than anybody,” Guerin told Jim Murray.

For the season, Wilkens averaged 20 points and 8.3 assists per game. He had a triple double _ 30 points, 12 rebounds, 13 assists _ in an October game against the New York Knicks, and was unstoppable (39 points, 18 assists) in a January win versus Seattle. Game stats and Game stats

Hawks management declared the 1967-68 regular-season finale, a home game against Seattle, as “Lenny Wilkens Night.” In a halftime ceremony, the club gave him a green Cadillac and other gifts. Cardinals baseball outfielder Curt Flood, an artist, did an oil painting of Wilkens and presented it to him. Then Wilkens went back to work. He finished the game with 19 points and 19 assists. Game stats

Facing the San Francisco Warriors in the playoffs, the Hawks were beaten in four of six games. The second of their two wins came in Game 5 at home when Wilkens had 20 points and 10 assists. It turned out to be the last game for the Hawks in St. Louis. The franchise relocated to Atlanta in May 1968. Game stats

Enduring friendship

Wilkens never played for Atlanta. On Oct. 12, 1968, he was traded to Seattle for Walt Hazzard. Three days later, Tommy Davis was selected by the Seattle Pilots in the American League expansion draft.

More than a decade after Davis convinced Wilkens to try out for high school basketball, the two friends were reunited nearly 3,000 miles from Brooklyn as professional athletes in Seattle.

As a boy, baseball was Wilkens’ sport of choice, according to the New York Daily News. During the spring and summer of 1969, Wilkens seldom missed a Seattle Pilots home game, the Tacoma News Tribune reported. He’d wait for Davis outside the clubhouse afterward.

Though he was traded to Houston on Aug. 30, 1969, Davis at season’s end was the Pilots’ leader in RBI (80) and doubles (29).

Grateful for the time he and Wilkens had together that year, Davis told Sports Illustrated, “I love Lenny. He is … a true friend who can be depended upon … He is steadfast and honorable … I love Lenny for what he has achieved. He went in there with all those big guys and proved to them he could do it on quickness and guts and dedication. We used to say of him that he was like the man who wasn’t there _ he wasn’t there until you read the box score.”

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Scout’s honor: How Whitey Herzog became talent evaluator

Posted in Executives, Hitters, Managers on November 24, 2025| 14 Comments »

A player with the baseball smarts Whitey Herzog had didn’t need to be told when it was time to quit. It was autumn 1963. Herzog just turned 32, but his prime playing days had past. “His baseball epitaph could read: A Nice Guy Who Couldn’t Hit The Slow Curve,” Detroit columnist Joe Falls noted.

A journeyman outfielder, Herzog squeezed out every bit of talent he had, lasting eight seasons in the majors, mostly with losing teams, before the Tigers removed him from their big-league roster after the 1963 season. The Tigers offered him a role as player-coach at Syracuse, with a promise he’d be considered for a managerial job in their farm system some day, the Detroit Free Press reported. The Kansas City Athletics proposed he join them as a scout.

Herzog, though, was through with baseball. He could earn more ($16,000 a year) supervising construction workers for a company back home in Kansas City than he could coaching in the minors or pursuing prospects on the sandlots.

So Herzog took the construction job, but soon found he didn’t like it, mainly because he had little say in selecting the crew he was tasked with supervising. Hoping to trade his hard hat for a ball cap, Herzog asked the A’s if the scouting job still was open. It was, and he was hired to scout amateur players in 1964.

The scouting experience with the A’s, and then the Mets, gained Herzog a reputation as an astute talent evaluator and helped him develop the managing skills that would lead to his eventual election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Going pro

As a teen in New Athens, Ill., Herzog was a good basketball player. “Your basic small, scrappy guard,” he said in “White Rat,” his autobiography. Herzog received seven college basketball scholarship offers, but he wanted to play pro baseball. He could run, throw and hit a fastball.

The St. Louis Browns made an offer: no signing bonus, a minor-league salary of $200 a month and a chance to pitch. Herzog said no. Actually, he claimed in his autobiography, he said to Browns scout Jack Fournier, “Now I know why you guys are in last place all the time, if you wanted to sign a wild-ass left-hander like me.”

On the day after he graduated from high school in 1949, Herzog was invited to a Yankees tryout camp in Branson, Mo. The Yankees told him he could make it as an outfielder. Heck, they said, Joe DiMaggio would be retiring just about the time Herzog should be ready for the majors. (What he didn’t know is that another prospect, Mickey Mantle, was signing with the Yankees in 1949, too.) Herzog took the Yankees’ offer of a $1,500 bonus and a minor-league salary of $150 a month.

Years later, Herzog told the Kansas City Star, “If I had gotten more money, it would have been all right, but I was foolish to sign for that kind of a bonus. I could have gone out and broken my leg the first year, and then where would I have been? If I had it to do over, I would have gone to college (on a basketball scholarship) and then signed a baseball contract.”

Tough breaks

Herzog played five seasons in the Yankees’ farm system and served a two-year Army hitch. He never did appear in a regular-season game for the Yankees, but he got to know their manager, Casey Stengel, during 1955 and 1956 spring training and developed a fondness for him. “Of all the managers I’ve ever played for, Casey had the most influence on me,” Herzog said in his autobiography. “Casey took a liking to me, spent a lot of time with me.”

On Easter Sunday in 1956, after attending a church service with Yankees players Tony Kubek and Bobby Richardson, Herzog was called up to Stengel’s hotel suite. “When I got there,” Herzog recalled in his autobiography, “I saw that Casey had already been celebrating Easter with a few drinks. He was rambling on.”

After a while, Stengel blurted out that Herzog was going to the majors _ with the Washington Senators. “Go over there and have a good year,” Stengel told him, “and I’ll get you back.”

As Herzog noted in his book, “I never had that good year, and I never wore the pinstripes in Yankee Stadium. In my heart, though, I was always a Yankee. I never got over the fact that they’d traded me.”

Herzog was with the Senators (1956-58), A’s (1958-60) and Orioles (1961-62) before being traded to the Tigers in November 1962. Going to Detroit meant he’d do a lot of sitting, not playing. Herzog was an outfielder and first baseman, and the Tigers had standouts with Rocky Colavito in left, Bill Bruton in center, Al Kaline in right and Norm Cash at first base. “There was no use kidding myself _ all those guys were better ballplayers than I was,” Herzog told the Kansas City Times.

To pass the time, Herzog told teammates he would keep count of the home runs he hit in batting practice all season.

“I hit my 250th in Detroit in late August,” Herzog told Kansas City journalist Joe McGuff. “(Coach) Bob Swift was pitching that day. I hit my 249th into the upper deck in right field. (Teammate) Gates Brown was standing by the batting cage and I told Gates I was really going to crank up and see if I could hit my 250th on the roof. Sure enough, I did. There was an usher nearby and I asked if he’d mind going up on the roof and getting the ball for me. He found it and brought it back. The ball landed in a big patch of tar. So it looked legitimate. I got it autographed (by teammates) and fixed up and I’ve got it in a trophy case at home.”

In Baltimore, on the day before the 1963 season finale, Herzog hit his 299th batting practice homer. “Everybody on the club knew I was going for my 300th on the last day,” he said, “so they told me I could keep hitting until I got 300. It rained that day and they had to call off batting practice, so I wound up with 299.”

A tiger in batting practice, Herzog was a pussycat in the games that season. He hit no homers and batted .151. “You’ll find no nicer guy on the Tigers than Whitey Herzog,” Joe Falls of the Detroit Free Press informed readers, “and it grieves us to see him struggling so much at the plate.”

Talent hunt

Jim Gleeson left the A’s scouting department to join the coaching staff of Yankees manager Yogi Berra, creating the opening for Herzog to quit the construction job and return to baseball.

Herzog displayed the same desire and determination for scouting amateurs as he had for playing in the pros. In June 1964, he told the Kansas City Star, “Last month, I saw 52 high school and college games. I’ve been averaging about 1,500 miles a week on the road. I’ve been seeing the country.”

Though he was competing with other scouts to sign talent, Herzog earned their respect. The scouts welcomed him into the fraternity and offered their advice on how to succeed.

“The old scouts like Bert Wells of the Dodgers and Fred Hawn of the Cardinals took him under their wing and really helped him,” Herzog’s colleague, Joe McDonald, recalled to Cardinals Yearbook in 2010. “He always talked about them. It’s not easy doing amateur scouting for the first time. You have to find ballparks (and) call the coach in advance to try to determine if the pitcher you want to see is pitching. You have to do all that preliminary work. Whitey did all that, which was a great foundation (to managing), because his evaluating skills matched his strategic ability in game situations. That was the key.”

The best of the 12 prospects Herzog signed in 1964 were Chuck Dobson, who went on to pitch nine seasons in the American League and won 74 games, and catcher Ken Suarez, who played seven seasons in the majors, including 1973 with the Rangers when Herzog managed them.

The one who got away was pitcher Don Sutton, the future Hall of Famer. “I had him in my hotel room, ready to sign an A’s contract for $16,000,” Herzog said in his autobiography. “What a bargain he would have been.”

The deal needed the approval of Charlie Finley, but the A’s owner wouldn’t go over $10,000. “I went out and told Bert Wells of the Dodgers that he ought to sign him,” Herzog said. The Dodgers did and Sutton went on to pitch 23 seasons in the majors, winning 324 games and pitching in four World Series, including three with the Dodgers and one with the Brewers against Herzog’s 1982 Cardinals.

Wise judge

After rejecting an offer to become head baseball coach at Kansas State, Herzog coached for the A’s in 1965 and for the Mets in 1966. He scouted pro talent as a special assistant to Mets general manager Bing Devine in 1967, then was promoted to director of player development. “The people in the organization reached the point where they relied more and more on my judgment about who to sign and who to get rid of,” Herzog said in his autobiography.

After the Mets vaulted from ninth-place finishers in 1968 to World Series champions in 1969, Herzog went to the victory party at Shea Stadium to congratulate manager Gil Hodges. In recalling the moment years later to Cardinals Yearbook, Herzog said, “When he saw me coming, he jumped out of his chair and said, ‘I want to congratulate you. Every time I’ve called you and asked for a ballplayer, you’ve sent me the right one.’ That meant a lot to me.”

Later, when Herzog managed the Royals to three division titles and then led the Cardinals to three National League pennants and a World Series championship, his skill as a talent evaluator often was cited as a significant factor in his success.

“It wasn’t just Whitey’s ability to manage a game,” Jim Riggleman, a coach on Herzog’s St. Louis staff before becoming a big-league manager, told Cardinals Yearbook. “There are other good game managers. It was his ability to evaluate talent. He knew who could play and who was on the last leg.”

Red Schoendienst, who managed St. Louis to two pennants and a World Series title before coaching for Herzog, said to Cardinals Yearbook, “You manage according to what you have. That’s what managing is all about, knowing your ballplayers … Whitey had a lot of practice judging players … He could see the kind of abilities they had and whether they just came out to play or if they were winners … Some guys just know how to win. Those are the guys you want.”

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How Dick Nen made dramatic debut versus Cardinals

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Prospects on November 3, 2025| 10 Comments »

Dick Nen reached the pinnacle of his career in his first big-league game. He played in 366 more after that, but nothing topped what he did against the Cardinals in his debut.

On Sept. 18, 1963, in his second at-bat in the majors, Nen slammed a home run for the Dodgers, tying the score in the ninth inning and stunning the Cardinals. The Dodgers went on to win, completing a series sweep that put them on the verge of clinching a pennant.

Three decades later, reflecting on his storybook feat in St. Louis, Nen told the Palm Beach Post, “I should have walked away right then. That was my one day.”

Prized prospect

The California town of South Gate, seven miles south of downtown Los Angeles and dubbed the “Azalea City,” is the birthplace of Dick Nen as well as other sports figures such as NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, Baseball Hall of Fame umpire Doug Harvey and Red Sox second baseman Doug Griffin.

After attending Los Angeles Harbor College, Nen went to Long Beach State and played baseball there. A left-handed batter, he hit with power and fielded gracefully at first base. Kenny Myers, the scout who brought Willie Davis to the Dodgers, signed Nen for them. Two weeks later, the Cubs offered $100,000 for Nen, but the Dodgers declined, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In 1961, Nen’s first pro season, with Reno, he produced 32 home runs, 144 RBI and batted .351. In a home game against Fresno, he blasted a ball out of the park and onto the roof of an indoor municipal swimming pool 100 feet beyond the outfield fence. With 177 hits and 102 walks, he had a .458 on-base percentage.

Promoted from Class C Reno to Class AAA Spokane in 1962, Nen was limited to 72 games. He joined the team after the season started because of a military commitment and then was sidelined when a thrown ball struck him below the right eye. Back with Spokane in 1963, Nen had 84 RBI and a .369 on-base percentage (167 hits and 75 walks).

Welcome aboard

On Tuesday night, Sept. 17, 1963, Spokane lost in the finale of the Pacific Coast League championship series at Oklahoma City. Nen was called up to the Dodgers after the game. On Wednesday, Sept. 18, he boarded a flight in Oklahoma City, arrived in St. Louis in the afternoon and went directly to the ballpark, where the Dodgers were to play the Cardinals that night in the finale of a three-game series. Issued uniform No. 5, Nen took batting practice, then settled in to watch the game from the dugout.

After losing the first two games and falling three behind the front-running Dodgers, the Cardinals desperately needed a win in Game 3. With Bob Gibson pitching for them, the Cardinals appeared on their way to achieving their goal, leading 5-1 through seven innings.

A pitcher, reliever Bob Miller, was due to be the first batter for the Dodgers in the eighth. Dodgers manager Walter Alston, seeking a left-handed pinch-hitter to send against Gibson, had two options: Derrell Griffith, called up from Class AA, or Nen, called up from Class AAA. Neither had been in a big-league game.

Alston chose Nen. “I was scared stiff,” Nen recalled to the Los Angeles Times. “I had no idea I’d be called upon.”

In making his big-league debut, Nen joined Truck Hannah (1918 Yankees), Johnny Reder (1932 Red Sox) and Eddie Kazak (1948 Cardinals) as players whose last names spell the same forward and backward. Since then, the list includes Toby Harrah (1969 Senators), Mark Salas (1984 Cardinals), Dave Otto (1987 Athletics), Robb Nen (1993 Rangers), Juan Salas (2006 Rays), Marino Salas (2008 Pirates), Fernando Salas (2010 Cardinals) and Glenn Otto (2021 Rangers).

Nen lined out sharply to center fielder Curt Flood, but the Dodgers went on to score three times in the inning, cutting the St. Louis lead to 5-4. Nen stayed in the game, taking over at first for Ron Fairly, who had been lifted for pinch-hitter Frank Howard during the eighth-inning rally.

In the ninth, with one out, none on, Nen batted for the second time. Right-hander Ron Taylor threw him a fastball, low and away. “I put the ball where I wanted it,” Taylor told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Nen drove it onto the pavilion roof in right-center for a home run, tying the score. “I knew I hit it good,” Nen told the Los Angeles Times, “but I had no idea it was a home run until I saw the umpire give the home run sign.”

Watching on TV in California, Nen’s father and sister whooped with joy. Nen’s mother, attending a church function, got a call from her daughter, who exclaimed, “Richard hit a home run to tie the (score).”

The game moved into extra innings and became a duel between relievers Ron Perranoski (Dodgers) and Lew Burdette (Cardinals). With two on in the 11th, Nen nearly got a game-winning single, but second baseman Julian Javier ranged far to his left, made what the Post-Dispatch described as “an improbable glove-hand stop” of the grounder, wheeled and threw out Nen at first. In the 13th, with Dodgers runners on second and third, one out, Burdette issued an intentional walk to Nen. “A pretty high compliment for a rookie in his first big-league game,” columnist Jim Murray noted.

Maury Wills followed with a grounder, sending home the runner from third with the winning run. Boxscore

On the Dodgers’ flight home, most of the talk concerned Nen’s heroics. “I never saw anybody break in more spectacularly,” pitcher Johnny Podres told the Long Beach Independent. “That was the biggest homer of the year. It gave us the shot in the arm we needed.”

The Dodgers’ plane landed at 4:08 a.m. When Nen got home, his parents greeted him with a big spaghetti breakfast, featuring their homemade sauce.

A few days later, Sept. 24, the Dodgers clinched the pennant. Then they swept the Yankees in the World Series. Nen joined the club too late to be eligible, but he pitched batting practice before Game 4 and was given a $1,000 winner’s share.

Wanted in Washington

Nen’s home run against the Cardinals turned out to be his only hit as a Dodger.

Entering 1964 spring training as a candidate to earn a spot on the Dodgers’ Opening Day roster, Nen “developed the bad habit of lowering his back shoulder when he swings,” the Associated Press reported.

He was sent back to Spokane and spent the season there. In December 1964, the Dodgers dealt Nen, Frank Howard, Ken McMullen, Pete Richert and Phil Ortega to the Senators for Claude Osteen, John Kennedy and $100,000.

The Senators were managed by ex-Dodgers first baseman Gil Hodges. At spring training in 1961, Hodges had given pointers to Nen on how to play first base.

Nen, 25, began the 1965 season in the minors, but when Senators first baseman Bob Chance failed to hit as hoped, Nen was brought up in July to replace him. Nen started 63 games at first base for the 1965 Senators and hit .317 with runners in scoring position. He slugged two homers against Catfish Hunter, a walkoff homer to beat Luis Tiant and a grand slam versus Fred Talbot. Boxscore Boxscore Boxscore Boxscore

“This boy has all the qualifications to be a dandy player,” Senators general manager George Selkirk told the Washington Daily News. “… He’s our first baseman and I don’t see anyone taking it away from him.”

The good vibes didn’t last long. Nen had a terrible spring training in 1966. When the season opened, ex-Cardinal Joe Cunningham was the Senators’ first baseman and Nen was on the bench. In June, the Senators got Ken Harrelson from the Athletics and he took over at first base. Nen batted .213.

Nen “has the idea in his head that he is going to be lousy in the spring and so naturally he is,” Senators coach Joe Pignatano told Jerry Izenberg of the Newark Star-Ledger. “You can’t come in here thinking that way and expect to be anything but bad. When you do that, you concede the job. He could win it in a minute if he’d hit the way we think he can.”

Years later, Nen said to the Miami Herald, “I struggled most of my career, especially with the mental part. I always had to find ways to overcome the bad times and look forward to the good times. It seems like I went through more bad times than good. I should have done a lot better.”

In 1967, Nen was the Senators’ Opening Day first baseman, but in May they got Mike Epstein from the Orioles and he became the starter. Nen batted .218.

Seeking a pinch-hitter, the Cubs acquired Nen a week before the start of the 1968 season. On May 15, his two-run single in the ninth inning against Jack Billingham beat the Dodgers. It was Nen’s first National League hit since his 1963 home run versus the Cardinals. Boxscore

After batting .181 for the 1968 Cubs, Nen was returned to the Senators. He played his last game in the majors for them in June 1970.

All in the family

Nen’s son, Robb Nen, became a prominent big-league reliever. In 10 seasons with the Rangers (1993), Marlins (1993-97) and Giants (1998-2002), Robb had 314 saves, 45 wins and a 2.98 ERA. He pitched in two World Series (1997 Marlins and 2002 Giants) and was the National League saves leader (45) in 2001.

“Nen has the kind of arm that comes along once every 10 years,” Marlins general manager Dave Dombrowski told the Miami Herald in 1997.

Dick Nen said to the San Francisco Examiner, “We don’t know where the good arm came from. It didn’t come from me. He must have gotten it from my wife.”

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Lessons learned: Tony La Russa did his homework

Posted in Games, Hitters, Managers on October 28, 2025| 10 Comments »

In 2025, Tony La Russa was interviewed by Jon Paul Morosi for the Baseball Hall of Fame podcast “The Road to Cooperstown.”

Here are excerpts:

Being a lifelong learner:

La Russa: “The educational emphasis was from my mother … She was insisting on me going to college. (La Russa earned a law degree from Florida State.) The other thing she did, for which I am forever thankful, as early as I can remember, I learned to read. She always made books available, a lot of times they were books about the West, and to this day I have a love affair with books. You’ll never see me without one.

“The other part of learning is the game of baseball, and that was my dad. His brothers, my uncles, they ate it and talked it, and that’s all we ever discussed. I learned about baseball when I was 4, 5, 6 years old and have loved it ever since.”

First language he spoke as a youth in Tampa’s Ybor City section:

La Russa: “Totally Spanish because my dad spoke Spanish … The truth is that as I got ready to go to elementary school, as I was approaching 6 years old, I had to learn to speak English.”

Baseball team or player he followed as a youth:

La Russa: “My dad was a 6-day-a-week hard laborer. I mean, he worked, but on Sunday, during spring training, we’d go see the Reds or White Sox in Tampa, or we’d go to St. (Petersburg) for the Cardinals or Yankees. At that early age, the guy who caught my attention was Mickey Mantle.”

In 1963, La Russa, 18, with the Kansas City Athletics, got his first big-league hit, a triple versus the Orioles’ Steve Barber, who won 20 that year. La Russa’s first big-league RBI came against the Twins’ Camilo Pascual, a 21-game winner in 1963. Boxscore and Boxscore

What it was like being in the majors as a teen:

La Russa: “The players, by and large, were not hard on me at all. That’s when I first met Charlie Lau. He was a backup catcher (and later a coach on La Russa’s White Sox staff.) Guys like … Norm Siebern, Jerry Lumpe. These guys were really careful, especially when we got to big cities, that I didn’t get in trouble.”

Playing for the Atlanta Braves the last part of the 1971 season:

La Russa: “For six weeks I watched Henry Aaron and got to know him. That’s a blessing that’s impossible to describe unless you know Hank. Just a beautiful man … We used to fly commercial back then. One day I’ll never forget, we were flying back from L.A. to Atlanta at night and everybody’s sleeping, and I’m walking down the aisle and Hank is awake and he said, ‘Sit down.’ We talked for the rest of the flight and mostly what we talked about was experiencing the Dodgers and how often they hit him or knocked him on his butt …

“In those days, there wasn’t the protection of the hitter that there is today. These guys today don’t have any idea … If you swung the bat, they’d aim right at your head to try to scare you. The courage of those great sluggers was something special. I just wish that today’s hitters would be more thankful that Major League Baseball is protecting them, because it’s a scary thing when guys are throwing at your head … Hank, they couldn’t scare him and they couldn’t stop him.”

On getting a single (against the Orioles’ Dave McNally) as a pinch-hitter in his first at-bat for the Oakland Athletics, after their move from Kansas City, in 1968 and scoring the winning run as a pinch-runner (for the Cubs’ Ron Santo) in his last big-league appearance in 1973:

La Russa: “I like to use that as an example of just how lousy my (big-league playing) career was … Pinch-hitting. Pinch-running. Those are my highlights and they’re best forgotten.” Boxscore and Boxscore

Toughest challenge he faced when he became a big-league manager with the White Sox in 1979:

La Russa: “When you go into a game and you know you are overmatched. Think about it: In 1979, the managers were legends you knew by their first names. Billy (Martin), Earl (Weaver), Whitey (Herzog), Sparky (Anderson), Gene (Mauch), Chuck (Tanner). What they would contribute to the game versus what I could …

“I used to ask these great men questions. Every one of them but two answered right away … Gene Mauch and Earl Weaver were very honest and told me, ‘Young man, do you know what the longevity of a major-league manager is nowadays?’ I said, ‘No.’ They said, ‘Maybe three years.’ So they said, ‘If you’re still here three years from now and you ask me a question, I’ll answer it, but I’m not going to waste my time with you (now) because I don’t think you’ll be around.’ ”

Advice from former White Sox and Orioles manager Paul Richards, who was White Sox director of player development when La Russa began managing in their organization:

La Russa: “He said two things to me. One, if (the players) don’t trust you, they won’t follow you. So don’t ever, ever not tell them the truth … Paul also said … (because) you have such scrutiny of every move you make, you have a natural instinct sometimes to cover your butt, and he said, ‘Tony, if you do that, you’ll never know if you’re good enough.’ He said, ‘Trust your gut, don’t cover your butt.’ … I can honestly say, maybe because I had a law degree waiting (if managing didn’t work out), I never managed afraid, and it was a big asset.”

On Dave Duncan, the catcher who was La Russa’s teammate with the A’s before becoming pitching coach for most of the clubs La Russa managed:

La Russa: “Dunc early on was always somebody that stood out with his maturity, intelligence, competitiveness, toughness. I mean, he caught Game 7 of the 1972 World Series against the Big Red Machine and that was his only start. The A’s were getting ready to upset The Machine.

(In the bottom of the ninth, with Oakland ahead, 3-2, the Reds had a runner on first, two outs, and switch-hitter Pete Rose at the plate against Rollie Fingers when manager Dick Williams went to the mound.)

“Dick had Vida Blue warming up. He went out there to make the (pitching) change and said, ‘I’m going to turn Pete Rose around, to the right side. Dunc said, ‘Dick, don’t do that. Vida’s a starter. Who knows what you’re going to get. Rollie can get this guy out.’ Dick said, ‘OK.’ ”

Rose flied out and the Athletics were World Series champions. Boxscore

Managing against Dusty Baker:

La Russa: “The only time he and I had big problems was when we were in the same division together. That was Cubs and Cardinals; Reds and Cardinals … I can’t wait to welcome him into the Hall of Fame, which is going to happen very soon.”

On the backup slider Dodgers’ Kirk Gibson hit for a walkoff home run to beat Dennis Eckersley and the A’s in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series:

La Russa: “When we got two strikes on him, you see Dunc (in the dugout) give the sign: Up and away. That two-strike pitch should have been a high fastball. He could have gotten a base hit, but he wouldn’t have hit a home run.” Boxscore

How the A’s recovered to become World Series champions the next year:

La Russa: “Adversity can be the best teacher … The next spring we decided we were going to be on a mission … Talented guys on a mission … Their minds were just zeroed in on (there will be) no regrets.”

Managing the Cardinals to World Series titles in 2006 and 2011:

La Russa: “We got in the (playoffs) the last day of the year both times … We got in (there) in fighting, competitive form … So much of getting to October and winning in October is about head, heart and guts. It’s about taking that talent and never giving in, never giving up … It’s mindset … You’re surrounded in the clubhouse with guys who are tough-minded and … never stop competing. I’m very proud of those clubs.”

On Game 6 of the 2011 World Series when the Cardinals, on the brink of elimination, scored twice in the ninth and twice in 10th before winning in the 11th:

La Russa: “When you get that far, you have such a feeling of confidence and pride … Even at the end, when we were down two in the ninth … we felt confident … Guys were on the top step of the dugout, without any prompting, saying, ‘We can do this.’ … Don’t ever underestimate the importance of how strong your mind is and your will and what you can accomplish.”

On retiring from managing after the 2011 World Series and coming back at age 76 to manage the White Sox in 2021:

La Russa: “I kept hearing I was too old and couldn’t relate, but we won 93 games. We had six winning months … The next year I got cancer and I had to leave in August.”

On the state of big-league baseball today:

La Russa: “I’m not pleased with the game that I see _ the accent on getting the ball in the air, and strikeouts are OK, and getting overwhelmed by pitching …

“Putting the ball in play and hitting where it’s pitched creates rallies. I think it’s easier to win now if you’re playing against a team that has a guy on second base with nobody out, down a run, and guys try to hit two-run homers, and get beat by a run. When the pitching is really good and you’re trying to do the most things (at the plate), that is stupid, right? When the pitching is really good, you better work to get a single, do something to advance the runners, score. Big is not going to beat you. Little is going to give you a chance to win.”

On starting pitchers not being expected to go deep into games:

La Russa: “We got to change that. The game is better when people say, ‘Hey, do you know who’s starting today,’ and they (the starters) get into the last third of the game … We got to stretch them out.”

On being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame:

La Russa: “The great Tom Seaver, a friend, told me the day I got in, ‘You know, you’re a coattail Hall of Famer.’ Right away, I said, ‘I know, because the Hall of Fame is for players that have been great.’ To get a manager in there, it’s because of the organization, the scouting, the player development, the players. I said, ‘I understand, Tom.’ Then he told me, ‘You know what an honor it is to be here?’ I said, ‘I think so. Why?’ He said, ‘If you mess this up, I’ll have you deducted faster than you were inducted.’ “

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