As you read this sentence, the party should finally be smoldering just south of its apex in Detroit. The Tigers, as it is, still have some work to do and a season to finish. After all, the World Series starts on Saturday night. Not that anyone in Philadelphia knows or cares about Detroit and the baseball renaissance that occurred there this season.
It’s a good thing Philadelphia sports fans are so provincial and laser-focused because the sight of Placido Polanco dashing around the field and slapping hands with the fans at Comerica Park with a bottle of champagne in on hand, the ALCS MVP trophy in the other, and a smile that spread from ear-to-ear would be enough to make a Philadelphia baseball fan sick.
That’s until the camera panned to Jim Leyland being carried off the field, coupled with the comments that followed from one-time Phillie Todd Jones who told reporters that Leyland was the only manager he played for during his 14-year career that actually made a difference in the standings.
At in the notion that Leyland should he have been carried off the field by Chase Utley and Ryan Howard instead of Sean Casey and Kenny Rogers and it’s enough sickness for some hospitalization.
At least until the playoffs end or the Tigers are eliminated.
For those too wrapped up in the Eagles season, the Detroit Tigers, managed by Jim Leyland, sent the vaunted New York Yankees and their considerable offense home for the winter in four games in the ALDS as well as the “Moneyball” Oakland A’s in another four games. With just four more victories, the Tigers will be World Champions.
Not bad for a team that lost 119 games three years ago, averaged more than 96 losses per season for the past decade, and had just two winning seasons since 1988.
How does that team come four victories away from the World Series title?
Do I have to say it?
Apparently, Jim Leyland wasn’t good enough to manage the Phillies even though he took the Tigers to 95 wins this season. Apparently the ideas he expressed to president David Montgomery and then GM Ed Wade were just a little too harebrained. Especially the ones about the corner outfielders – remember that? I do. He said the Phillies had too many strikeouts in the corner outfield positions, needed a new center fielder, third baseman and catcher.
Then he went out to the CVS on Broad St. for a pack of smokes only to come back to resume his meeting when Wade told him it would be a good idea to keep his interview date scheduled with the Mets.
Look what happened. The Phillies hired Charlie Manuel, came within a game of the wild card, fired Wade, and hired Pat Gillick. A few months later, Gillick traded right fielder Bobby Abreu, third baseman David Bell, and tried as hard as he could to get left fielder Pat Burrell to waive his no-trade clause. After the World Series, Gillick will allow catcher Mike Lieberthal to limp away as a free agent.
Talk about unoriginal ideas. I wonder if Gillick walked over to the CVS on Broad St. for a pack of smokes.
I may write about baseball and sports for many, many years. Or, Powerball numbers willing, tomorrow could be my last day. Either way, I will never ever forget how hard Leyland campaigned to be the Phillies manager during the winter of 2004. He was as shrewd as any seasoned politician and went above and beyond to the point of kissing babies and returning phone calls. In fact, Leyland wanted the Phillies job so badly that he even returned my phone calls.
Talk about desperate.
Now let’s stop for a minute before this descends into a Leyland-equals-good and Phillies-equals-bad essay. That’s just way too easy and not completely accurate. Surely, Leyland was not the only reason why the Tigers went from 300 losses in three seasons under Alan Trammell to 95-67 and the doorstep of the World Championship this year. Actually, there are many reasons why the Tigers were able to turn it around so quickly.
The biggest one? Someone listened to Jim Leyland.
Apparently, Leyland went into his interview with the Tigers and told them what he would do to the team to make it better in very much the same manner he did with Montgomery and Wade. But guess what? The Tigers bought it and look where it got them.
Yes, I will always remember that day sitting in the conference room in Citizens Bank park listening to Leyland talk about what makes a winning baseball team as Wade stood in the doorway privately seething. Leyland, with his resume padded with a World Series title with the Marlins and all of those division titles with the Pirates, acted like a know-it-all questioning him to the very group of people who questioned him for sport in the papers and talk shows, daily. They had turned the fans against the straight-laced GM and here was a potential employee giving them more fodder?
Who did he think he was?
Leyland had a lot of ideas to make the Phillies better on that chilly November afternoon and he didn’t keep too many of them secret. He explained what he thought his job as the manager should be:
“When you have veteran players who buy into your thought process, it eliminates a lot of nitpicking,” he said. “The veterans set the tone. Leadership is production. Putting winning numbers on the board, that's leadership. The manager is supposed to be the leader. That's not ego talking, that's just the way it is. I've said it all my life, you're either the victim or the beneficiary of your players' performance. That's as simple as this job is.”
And what elements make up a good team:
“[It's about] trying to create an atmosphere that's comfortable,” he said. “I'm not as big on chemistry as a lot of other managers. If it works, it's wonderful. I've managed teams that ate together, played together, prayed together, and we got the [crap] kicked out of us, and I managed some that punched each other once in a while and we won. It's getting the best out of talent. They're not all going to like me. Hopefully, they will, but I doubt it. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you're working toward the same goal -- win.”
Perhaps Gillick had similar thoughts going through his head after he traded away Abreu and Bell and when he was ironing out that deal to send Burrell to Baltimore?
Maybe.
More interesting to ponder is if things would have ended differently the past two seasons if Leyland were the manager instead of Manuel? Well, it’s not as easy as simply replacing one guy for another, despite what Todd Jones says. There’s no telling how all of the personalities would have blended if anyone but Manuel were skippering the Phillies. Besides, if Leyland were in Philadelphia it would be unlikely that Pat Gillick would be the GM, too.
Maybe Wade sealed his own fate by not hiring Leyland when he campaigned so hard for the job. But then again we should have all seen the handwriting on the wall when Wade stood at the podium after Leyland’s cleansing tell-all and said:
“Even if you’re polling the 3.2 million people who came to watch us this year, I don’t think you can get hung up on this people’s commanding lead in the votes 320 to 112 or anything like that. We’re going to hire a manager we hope our fans like, but at the same time we’re going to try to hire a manager that is going to get us to the World Series.”
Hindsight being what it is… well, you can fill in the rest.
But make no mistake about one thing – Philadelphia is barely a blip on Leyland’s rear-view mirror now. Actually, it’s hard to look back at anything when champagne is stinging the eyes.
Apropos, how would the Phillies' seasons have ended in 2005 and 2006 if Placido Polanco had been the third baseman instead of David Bell and Abraham Nunez? Just curious...