by Felipe Alou
Although I never thought I would go back to baseball, it was baseball that eventually saved me. I always prided myself on being a provider, going back to when I was a boy and I worked with my father in his blacksmith shop and the grueling work I did in the rock mine, with my paycheck always going straight to the family. But how was I going to provide now?
It didn’t take me long to realize I wasn’t a journalist. I wasn’t a color commentator. That was not my vocation. That was not what I was born to do. I was a baseball man. During those tough days the realization came to me that I still had a place in baseball. More than that, I knew baseball was the only way out of the hole I was in.
All I needed was an opportunity.
22
The Road Back
The months after my son died in the spring of 1976 are a blur. I was sleeping in restless fits filled with nightmares. I felt as if I was drifting, and I knew the one anchor I could rely on was baseball.
It was either that December or maybe in January 1977 when I picked up the phone and called the Montreal Expos. The Expos’ president, John McHale, and their vice president in charge of player development, Jim Fanning, knew me well. They were part of the front office that brought me to the Milwaukee Braves from the San Francisco Giants and later to the Expos from the New York Yankees.
I got Fanning on the phone. “Mr. Fanning,” I said, “I need a job. I want to get back in the game. I really want to manage.”
I thought for sure I could manage Class Double-A ball or higher. That wasn’t being presumptuous. I always knew I had leadership skills, going back to when I was a boy and was the ringleader that led to hacking down a coconut tree so we could have an unobstructed field to play baseball. But it wasn’t only boyhood leadership. I first managed in the Dominican Winter League when I was twenty-four and again when I was twenty-eight. Both times I played while also managing, and both times managing seemed to come easily for me. The words of Ralph Houk, my manager with the Yankees, were ringing true in my ears.
“Felipe,” Houk told me, “I believe you’re going to wind up managing.”
Fanning was interested, but he didn’t have much left to offer me. “The only opening I have is in Class A ball,” he said.
“Okay, thanks,” I said. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to call some other people.”
I never did. A few days later I called Fanning back and asked him about the Class A job. He told me it was still available if I wanted it and that it was in West Palm Beach. When I heard West Palm Beach, I perked up. I always liked West Palm Beach. It was close to the ocean, where I could fish, and the weather reminded me of the Dominican Republic.
“I’ll take it,” I said.
I didn’t even have a car, so I moved into a tough, low-income neighborhood known as the Tamarind section of West Palm Beach, which was walking distance to the stadium. It was probably good that I didn’t have a car, because it seemed as if cars in my neighborhood were broken into on a weekly basis. Thinking that I was now making big money because I was back in pro baseball, my ex-wife Beverly took me to court, demanding more child support. In the courtroom I saw the female judge’s eyes widen when she looked at my pay stub. I was making a mere $14,000 a year. My apartment was so dank and dingy it felt like a cave, with the toilet right next to the kitchen. My son Moisés will tell you that he grew up without a bicycle because the money was so tight. Those were some tough times financially. But I was back in baseball, and for that I was happy and thankful.
I knew now that managing was my next career. I also knew that with the meager paycheck I was earning, I was managing essentially to eat. I didn’t have any dreams or visions of going far in the game as a manager. In many ways it felt like it did when I was a kid playing baseball in the Dominican Republic, when blacks had not even broken the color barrier in Major League Baseball, much less any Latinos.
By 1977, my first year managing the West Palm Beach Expos, there had been only one black manager in Major League Baseball—Frank Robinson, whom the Cleveland Indians hired before the 1975 season and fired barely two months into the 1977 season. So by that summer of ’77 there were no black managers in the Major Leagues and hardly any Latino coaches. The only Latino who managed full-time in the big leagues was Preston Gómez, a white Cuban who managed the San Diego Padres from 1969 to 1972 and the Houston Astros from 1974 to 1975. Although he would have a short stint managing the Chicago Cubs in 1980, Gómez wasn’t managing in 1977. So I didn’t hold out hope of one day managing in the big leagues. I was just content to have a job in baseball.
Right away I started learning the game on a different level and in a different way. In the Minor Leagues, and especially in Class A ball, there are prospects, and then there are guys on the roster who are there to fill spots around the prospects. But what you soon discern as a manager is that some of the players aren’t as good as the organization thinks they are, and some of the players aren’t as bad as the organization thinks they are. You’re forever juggling what the organization sees and what your own eyes see.
One of those guys was Bobby Ramos, a Cuban catcher the Expos weren’t promoting. He went from the rookie Gulf Coast League to two straight years at Class A West Palm Beach. Now he was being asked to come back to West Palm Beach for a third year, which coincided with my first year managing there. He refused, requesting a trade.
I got his phone number and called him in Miami, where he lived. I told Bobby he had a Latino manager, and I was going to give him a fair shake. He reported, and right away I saw that he had Major League potential. He wasn’t a good receiver behind the plate. The only tool he had was a good arm. But he developed, eventually making it to the Major Leagues. He played for six years, mostly backing up Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter for the Montreal Expos. Bobby later became a coach and a player-development coordinator—paying it forward, I’m sure.
I wasn’t one to play baseball games just to develop players. I believe if you play, you play to win. You’re not only teaching young men the game of baseball, but also teaching players how to win. I also believe a field manager shouldn’t teach only players; he should teach the coaches how to teach—teach the teachers. Not that I had a staff of coaches during those early years. I had a pitching coach, and that was it. I managed, threw batting practice, warmed up pitchers, and coached third base. Bernie Allen, who played twelve years in the big leagues as an infielder, was working at a local sporting goods store, which was owned by the owner of the team. He filled in part-time as a first base coach for our home games. Otherwise, a position player who was not in the lineup that day manned the first base coaching box.
I guided my team to a 77-55 record that 1977 season, and we easily won the Florida State League’s South Division. The North Division was won by the Lakeland Tigers, managed by a man who would become a lifelong friend—Jim Leyland.
I guess because of my success the Expos promoted me to the Class Double-A Memphis Chicks in the Southern League for the 1978 season. We finished second in the West Division to a very good Knoxville Sox team with a very good young manager whom I knew well. It was the teammate I had with the Oakland A’s eight years earlier, the one I said had a future in the coaching profession—Tony La Russa.
I guess the success I had at the Class Double-A level with the Memphis Chicks also got me promoted to the Major Leagues for the 1979 season, where I joined my old Oakland A’s manager, Dick Williams, becoming his third base coach.
I was glad to be out of the Southern League, where the bus rides were brutally long. When we left after a night game in Memphis, we arrived in Jacksonville, Florida, just in time to go to the ballpark and get ready to play that night. A few days later when we left Jacksonville for Knoxville, we were halfway between Macon and Atlanta when a highway patrolman closed in behind us at 3 a.m., flashing his lights. Suddenly, the officer’s voice boomed over his speaker system, imploring us to pull over because the bus was on fire. It’s a good thing he got to us when he did, because when we did pull over we s
aw flames spewing from underneath the bus. Several fire trucks rushed to the scene. We were all safe, although several uniforms were burned and we had to wait for another bus, which put us way behind schedule. La Russa agreed to wait for us, and we rolled into the Knoxville stadium at 8:30 p.m. for a 7:05 p.m. game. That’s the Minor Leagues.
But I still liked managing in the Minor Leagues better than being a coach in the Major Leagues. After two years coaching first and third bases for the Expos, I asked to go back to the Minor Leagues so I could manage again.
The Expos sent me to the Class Triple-A American Association in 1981, where I managed the Denver Bears and where I also got a visit during the season from the entire Expos coaching staff, including Dick Williams. The reason the Expos sent them to Denver was because of the Major League Baseball strike that lasted about seven weeks that summer. Williams and the staff would be out on the field pregame, hitting fungoes, working with the team. But once the game started they couldn’t be on the field. So they would retreat to the clubhouse and mainly into my office, where I was well stocked with a regional beer that was gaining national prominence. They must have liked that beer, because by the time the game was over, my office was littered with empty Coors bottles and cans.
I managed the Denver Bears to a 76-60 record and a second-place finish in the West Division, three games behind the Omaha Royals. Across the way the East Division champions were the Evansville Triplets, who were in their third year being managed by Jim Leyland. We beat Leyland’s team in the playoffs and then swept Omaha, 4–0, to win the American Association championship. I knew by now Leyland was really good, but it was the Omaha manager, Joe Sparks, who caught my attention.
Through the years, with all the success I had managing in the Minor Leagues and all the players I believe I helped to develop, people would tell me I wasn’t getting a chance to manage in the big leagues because I was both black and Latino. While I don’t doubt it held me back, I would still always point to Joe Sparks. Here was a blond-haired white man who was an excellent manager. Sparks had a lot of success managing a lot of different teams in the Minor Leagues, winning championships. He also coached for the Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Montreal Expos, and New York Yankees. Yet he never got a shot at managing in the big leagues. There were a lot of Joe Sparks in the Minor Leagues—good guys, good teachers, and good managers who were perennial Minor League skippers. So when people played the racism card with me, my response was, “What about Joe Sparks?” Not that I’m naive. Even today there is a noticeable dearth of black and Latino managers in Major League Baseball. But to attribute that entirely to racism is unfair.
After my year in Denver I managed two more seasons in the American Association, with the Wichita Aeros, when the big club called again before the 1984 season. This time the Expos wanted me to be manager Bill Virdon’s first base coach, mainly because they wanted me with a Latino player I managed in the Minor Leagues—Venezuelan shortstop Ángel Salazar. They were expecting big things from Salazar, but once he got to the Major Leagues he wasn’t the same player. That happens. Some guys get to the big leagues and then fall apart.
There was also the possibility that another Venezuelan, first baseman Andrés Galarraga, would get called up to the big leagues, and the Expos were well aware of my relationship with him.
In 1977, after my first year managing in the Minor Leagues, I managed the Caracas Lions in the Venezuelan Winter League. One day the general manager came to me with a request. “I know this fat kid, sixteen years old, who can hit the ball nine miles,” he said. “Can I bring him in so you can look at him?”
What was I going to tell the general manager—no? Of course not. He brought the kid in, and he was right. The boy must have weighed 280 pounds. We didn’t even have a uniform that could fit him. He stood there in the batting cage wearing khaki pants and just mashed pitches. The kid could hit. The only two players on my team who could hit the ball farther were two Major Leaguers—Tony Armas and Bo Díaz. That was my introduction to Andrés Galarraga.
I told the Expos that I thought this Andrés Galarraga kid was a prospect. But when I inquired with Galarraga’s family as to how much it would take to sign him, they said $10,000. There was no way back then that a Latino player was going to get a $10,000 signing bonus.
Over the weeks Galarraga continued to work out and hit with the team, always raking line drives all over the field and launching bombs into the bleachers. He was losing some weight, too. Finally, his family agreed to cut their demand in half, asking for a $5,000 signing bonus. I told the front office he was worth it, and we signed Galarraga to a contract. As he worked his way to the Major Leagues, Galarraga lost his baby fat, slimming down to about 235 pounds over a six-foot-three frame, becoming known as “el Gran Gato”—or the Big Cat. Before his career was over Galarraga played nineteen years, recording 2,333 hits, 399 home runs, and a .288 batting average. He won the National League batting title in 1993 with a .370 average, which was also tops in MLB. He also earned more than $55 million for himself and his family.
Galarraga, however, didn’t get called up to the big leagues when I was there in 1984. He was still a year away. By then I had put in a year in Montreal, helping Ángel Salazar transition to the big leagues, and I didn’t want to stay any longer. I didn’t want to coach, and I didn’t think managing in the Major Leagues was in my future. I was turning fifty, and I thought the confluence of being black, Latino, and getting older meant my chance to manage in the big leagues had passed me by. But I still wanted to manage somewhere. During the offseason I asked to go back to the Minor Leagues. I specifically asked to go back to West Palm Beach, where the weather and fishing were good. If I was going to be a Minor League manager, I was going to do it where I enjoyed living.
There also were other reasons I wanted to leave. A lot of people were asking, “Do you think the Expos will ever name you manager? Why do you think you haven’t been given an opportunity yet?” It was getting to be annoying, and I was tired of it. I thought A ball was a good place to hide, a good place to get away from all the questions. After all, they don’t normally promote Class A managers to the big-league managing job.
But the Expos’ front office didn’t want to accommodate me. Not that they balked at my managing again in the Minor Leagues. They just worried how it would look sending a minority coach who managed in Class Triple-A ball back to Class A. So they sent me to the American Association for the 1985 season, where I managed the Class Triple-A Indianapolis Indians. After that they sent me back to West Palm Beach and the Florida State League, where I managed Class A ball for the next six years.
Although my one year coaching for Bill Virdon in Montreal wasn’t what I really wanted to do, it did result in something special. During that 1984 season I met a heavy-set, good-natured Dominican man who years earlier had been one of the drivers for the dictator, Rafael Trujillo. He was living in Montreal and driving for various people there. I used him on occasion for trips to the airport and such. One day I left him a ticket to a game at Olympic Stadium. When I saw him sitting at his seat pregame, I gave him a big wave.
Sitting near him was a pretty, young French Canadian woman who thought I was waving at her. She waved back, but I never noticed her. Thinking I was interested, she gave a note to one of our coaches who later gave it to me. I discarded it. She was undaunted, though. She showed up on photo day with her parents and struck up a conversation with me. She also worked in the immigration office, and one time, when she knew the Expos were returning from the United States, she showed up in uniform on her day off, just so we could cross paths again. Those few little meetings led to a dinner date and more dates over the next year. When I got back to West Palm Beach, managing Class A ball again, I asked her to marry me. I knew it was love when she said yes.
The reasons I knew it was love were obvious to me. Here I was, a man twenty-three years older than her, married three times with eight kids, and making next to nothing managing in the Minor Leagues. She took a chanc
e with me, this man with little money but with a pocketful of kids. I didn’t represent any future for her. At that time in my life I felt the only thing I was famous for were marriages and divorces. After a pastor friend of mine met Lucie, he told me, “This woman is a gift from God for you. This is a blessing. Don’t lose it.” I haven’t. Thirty-two years later, the former Lucie Gagnon and I are still happily married, with two wonderful children of our own. More than any other woman, Lucie stabilized my life.
23
Big Time Again in the Big Leagues
I managed 1,636 games in the Minor Leagues and countless more in the winter leagues of the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Mexico. I knew I could develop players, and I knew I could manage. By the early 1990s I saw guys I managed against—friends of mine like Tony La Russa and Jim Leyland—managing in the Major Leagues and having success. But with every passing year I was getting older and further away. I lost hope that I would ever manage in the big leagues.
Although there were times when I was frustrated, I was still very content to continue in the Minor Leagues, developing players and men, teaching them the game of baseball and how to win. Besides it wasn’t about me. I’ve always believed that if a manager is trying to make it to the Major Leagues ahead of his players, then he’s not doing his job. A manager’s job is to develop players to the Major Leagues. Players first. Organization first. I would sometimes hear Minor League managers complaining, saying how they had won pennants and weren’t getting promoted. What they didn’t realize is that it wasn’t about them. It’s always about the players.
The same goes for general managers and other front-office people. When Dave Dombrowski joined the Expos in 1987 as the director of player development, he impressed me right away. It wasn’t about him. It was about the organization and the players. Dombrowski came to West Palm Beach, where I was managing Class A ball, and sat with me and talked. “You guys are grossly underpaid,” he said. Soon enough he increased the salaries of everyone in the Expos’ Minor League organization.