For guys like me who are more interested in the entire person behind the baseball player, than simply the dude who plays ball, the news that Mike Lieberthal decided to retire after 14 seasons in the Majors - 13 with the Phillies - is newsworthy. Though most folks who watch the Phillies closely won't understand, Lieberthal probably personified the team from 1998 to the beginning of the Charlie Manuel regime. Trust me here - that's not all bad.
First of all, Lieberthal was the Phillies' All-Star on a team that had no one. Sure, Scott Rolen won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1997, but he was hurt for much of 1999 and 2000, and was gone midway through 2002. Bobby Abreu still hadn't emerged into a perennial All-Star and Rico Brogna was an above-average player for a handful of seasons. That left Doug Glanville and guys like Mark Lewis, Desi Relaford, Marlon Anderson and Ron Gant to fill out the roster.
Pitching? Let's not go there.
The fact is that when Lieberthal was healthy he was a legit .275 hitter and 20-homers a season threat. For a catcher that's nothing to sneeze at... hell, Carlos Ruiz, Chris Coste and Rod Barajas combined to hit just 15 homers and bat .258 in 2007.
Perhaps most important in a team sport like baseball where the players sit together in a confined space as if in an overcrowded prison, Lieberthal was a guy the others followed. Again, this isn't bad. Even when Jim Thome arrived on the scene in 2003, Lieberthal was the guy veterans and up-and-coming players went to for advice and guidance. Sometimes a few players would just do whatever it was Lieberthal did figuring that it was the right thing to do. I remember one player telling me that he took up yoga during the off-season simply because it was something Lieberthal did.
"I figured if he was doing it, I should too," the player said. "After all, he is the catcher."
Lieberthal caught more games than any other player in Phillies' history - more than Bob Boone, Darren Daulton, Andy Seminick and Red Dooin. He also was plunked by more pitches than any other player in team history, too, though it shouldn't long until his good friend Chase Utley catches up.
Nevertheless, there were always those stories out there that Lieberthal didn't call a good game. You know, because the common sportswriter and fan really understands the intricacies of signaling for pitches and what needs to be called in every situation by taking into consideration the count, the hitter and the state of the pitchers' arm. It always seemed to me that the notion that Lieberthal could not call a good game was something planted by ex-manager Larry Bowa and ex-pitching coach Joe Kerrigan. That always made me curious because it seemed to me that Lieberthal nearly always looked over to the bench for the signal from Bowa or Kerrigan before flashing it to the pitcher.
Besides, when asked several pitchers tamped down the idea that Lieberthal couldn't signal a good game. Actually, I recall instances where three pitchers offered up the idea that Lieberthal called a good game without ever being asked. They just volunteered the information apropos to anything. Sure, a pitcher or two preferred throwing to Todd Pratt or Chris Coste or whomever, but why would anyone complain about Lieberthal?
Is there any better tribute to a player than to have others copying off of him? When it's so easy to write-off people as selfish or self-absorbed, the fact that Lieberthal was emulated and sought out as a mentor is a far better legacy than anything that trite and meaningless statistics can offer. That's especially true these days when baseball statistics have become more and more important to a certain segment of the fandom, yet are more trivial than ever before. Baseball was and always will be about stories and community - that's the best part about it. And that's why we keep coming back.
Stories in which Lieberthal plays a role are always good ones. Like the time when he was in the cage taking batting practice, rocketed a foul ball back through the netting and was oblivious to the fact that it caught Manuel flush in the groin[i].
My favorite Lieberthal moment - aside from listening to him deconstruct games in the clubhouse afterwards when he would recall pitch sequences in fine detail - was the time the poll of current ballplayers appeared in Sports Illustrated in which Bowa was named "Most hated manager" or something along those lines. It was one of those quiet days before a game where there wasn't much going on so in lieu of anything substantial, Bowa was asked about the results of the poll. Clearly bothered, Bowa went on and on about how it didn't bother him. Then he started in (without prodding, of course) on why players wouldn't like him. He was a winner, he said. He held players accountable, he pointed out. He wasn't all nicey nice like Joe Torre or Dusty Baker, he claimed. It went on and on until it actually became a story - Bowa was bothered by the poll even though he says he wasn't.
It was kind of like a person going around and volunteering information without being asked. For instance, if I were to walk up to a complete stranger on the street and say, "I don't know what you're thinking, but I'm not insane. I'll even wager that I'm the sanest person you have ever met. Good day, sir," the only rational assumption for the stranger to make is that I am, indeed, insane.
Who goes around claiming sanity? An insane person, that's who.
Anyway, out in the clubhouse a handful of players were asked about the results of the poll and the league-wide perception of their manager by the growing number of media-types and all that was offered were the politically correct answers. There were enough baseball clichés to go around to choke a Shetland pony. That was until Lieberthal wondered onto the scene. Unlike most athletes, Lieberthal wasn't very good at the cliché-riddled jock speak. Better yet, he had the uncanny ability to actually say something when asked a question from media folks - the inability to lie is a very rare trait, indeed, and even when he was attempting some verbal misdirection, the truth was always there near the surface.
So when asked about Bowa and the poll naming him the "most hated manager" or whatever it was, Lieberthal thought for half a second and said: "Well, if I were on another team I'd probably hate him, too." Then he went on to describe how players on other teams must have viewed the manager's dugout histrionics and bench jockeying.
Yeah, you had to be there.
Regardless, good luck to Lieberthal and his pregnant wife in life as a retired baseball player. Undoubtedly, those years will be filled with good cheer and fun times.
[i] Why is the shot to the groin always so funny? Even mentioning the idea of hitting someone in the crotch is funny. For instance, last night I went to see the movie Juno and there was a line by the always solid J.K. Simmons where he states to his wife that the next time he sees the kid who impregnated his daughter he was going to, "punch him in the wiener." Hey, it made me laugh out loud.