The Baseball Whisperer

by Michael Tackett

  Merl’s reputation spread by word of mouth, coach to coach, player to player. This was decades before people routinely sent emails, and Merl’s aversion to computers would prove to be lifelong. He had to work at spreading the word, just as he worked at his job selling ads and writing about sports. It was about high touch, not high tech, and about following through, not overpromising, and being true to your word.

  Even before Ozzie Smith arrived, Merl had started to draw a small but loyal following of scouts to Clarinda. In those days scouts were assigned a vast territory, and they usually put thousands of miles on their cars each summer. They got paid for spotting talent, and fired for missing it. This was an era when data amounted to little more than box scores, ERAs, and batting averages. Scouts sat in stands, watched games, and took notes. Their work was more visceral than empirical.

  Bill Clark was one of the first scouts to make Clarinda a regular stop. He started as a bird dog scout for the Milwaukee Braves in 1956 before finally catching on as a full-time scout for the Pirates in 1968. He was responsible for Iowa, western Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas—a vast area geographically but one that consistently had produced major league talent. In 1971 he moved to the Cincinnati Reds and made his first drive to Clarinda. He was struck by the quaint town square, marked by the historic Page County Courthouse, and the friendly people. Clark also loved Municipal Stadium and the memories of old-time baseball it evoked. Eventually, he would look forward each year to seeing Merl and Pat Eberly, just as if he were coming to visit old friends instead of arriving in Clarinda for work. “It became a stop like certain high schools and colleges,” Clark said. “It doesn’t take long to understand that, as a scout, this is a special place and he brought in a lot of special players.”

  Clark would even come back for the team’s annual banquet, which was a not-so-well-disguised fund-raising opportunity for Merl. In the early years, they would have the dinner in the basement of the First Christian Church, usually serving some wild game that Merl or someone else had hunted for the occasion. Clark was touched by the fact that Merl and Pat, along with the people of Clarinda, so clearly cared about the players as people, not merely as athletes. “It is special because of the acceptance of the town and the absolute involvement of the entire Eberly family,” said Clark. At Municipal Stadium, he would always find Pat and one of her daughters staffing the concession stand while Merl managed, one of his sons played, a grandson or granddaughter served as batboy, and another grandchild was tasked with chasing down foul balls.

  In Clarinda, “the players, away from home, matured during the summer,” Clark noted, “and returned willing to listen to their coach more, willing to put in the extra hours, and I felt like Merl gave those kids an atmosphere in which to play and mature. Ozzie Smith is an excellent example of a kid who got better. Ozzie Smith may never have gone to the big leagues if he hadn’t been in Clarinda, Iowa.”

  Even the downside to playing in Clarinda—its remoteness—was important for player development, Clark said. “Clarinda is what you get in the lower minor leagues. You ride the Blue Goose, it breaks down, like minor league buses. For a lot of college kids, it is positively negative. They decide: ‘I don’t want to do that for a living.’ And others say, ‘Boy, this is what I want to do.’ And it testifies to their desire to improve.”

  When Dietz told Buddy Black that he wanted him to play for Merl, Black’s first response was to get out a map. He had grown up in the Pacific Northwest and had never ventured from the West Coast. Black thought it would be an adventure. He had never seen a small Midwestern town or a large farm. “One night we went to a legitimate farm and had an old-fashioned meal,” Black said of a spread of different meats, potatoes, fresh vegetables, and dessert. “It was one of the best I have ever had in my life. This family raised cows, pigs, chicken, corn, there was high humidity, chiggers, and I was sweating like never before.”

  Black was impressed by Merl’s imposing physical presence but also by his even manner. “He had a presence to him that you could feel. He was a man of high character and integrity, and he had a soft spot for players. He loved all of us. You could just tell. He would talk to us about life and about baseball. He would talk about things going on in the country and talk about giving back to the community and giving back to society.” Although Merl ran a program driven by rules—short hair, shaved face, shined shoes—“you didn’t feel oppressed,” Black said. “He gave you some rope. But if you stepped outside too much, he called you out. Like a good coach, he did it privately, man to man.”

  Merl’s need to be mindful of his players off the field presented another layer of challenge. In 1977 he once received an early morning phone call from neighbors complaining about too much noise coming from a trailer owned by two young women, who apparently were doing some unofficial “hosting” of players. At about 2:00 A.M. , Merl called the trailer and told the girls to knock off the noise and tell his players that he would be there at 7:00 A.M. and he had better not find them there. As announced, he knocked on the trailer door at the appointed hour, and the girls assured him that the players were gone. Merl wasn’t convinced and asked if he could look around inside. He found his players hiding in the bedroom. Merl told them to go back to their host families, pack their belongings, and head home.

  There were no such issues with Bud Black, who had the demeanor of a professional even as a young college player. For him, the experience in Clarinda taught him much about the life of a professional player in the minor leagues, from the long bus rides to sleeping four to a room in small motels. “You learned how the bonds of a team were formed. It was my first step in being ready to play professional baseball,” Black said.

  Black also learned the value of hard work off the field. His summer job was sweeping the floor at the NSK ball bearing factory on the northeast edge of town—“the lowest man on the totem pole.” He would work his eight-hour shift, then head to the ball field. This was not a make-work arrangement. If you were working in Clarinda, you worked, because if you didn’t, there was always someone willing to take the job.

  Black enjoyed his first summer there so much that he went back for a second summer, after his junior year, when his stock as a professional prospect was at its peak and exposure was most important. He could easily have gone to play in Alaska or in the Cape Cod League. “It was where I wanted to play,” he said. Even though Black was headed to a big-time program at San Diego State, he found the competition in the Jayhawk League plenty challenging, facing players he would see years later in the major leagues. Even staying on the A’s roster wasn’t a given. “I had to pitch well to keep my spot,” Black said. “Guys got sent home.”

  Sometimes it was the player himself who came to the realization that he wasn’t ready for competition at this level. During Black’s second summer in Clarinda, another player from the West Coast arrived, a lean, lanky first baseman who played at St. Mary’s, a small Division 1 school in California. His name was Von Hayes.

  Hayes was a two-sport athlete in high school, playing basketball and baseball. He grew late, four inches in his freshman year of college, and was still growing into his body. He was a left-handed hitter with a great swing who could drive the ball thanks to the newfound leverage that his height brought him. When his coach first broached the idea of living in Iowa for the summer, Hayes’s mother was strongly opposed. He had never been away from home for a substantial amount of time, and she knew nothing about the Eberlys. Hayes eventually persuaded her that he needed to do this to see if he could take the next step in baseball—to the professional level. “This was my foot in the door, to see what it was all about,” Hayes said. Merl sent him his plane ticket—which was permitted by NCAA rules—and Hayes set out for Clarinda.

  He arrived to find his host family out of town, and he was definitely out of sorts. Pat ended up placing him with another family, and that worked out fine. “That’s what struck me—that somebody would open their home, the lodging, food, expenses, getti
ng you to the ballpark and back, doing all those things for you and not expecting anything in return. I didn’t see that in California,” Hayes said. It was also the first time he had seen himself idolized by fans as kids from Clarinda sought his autograph. And like so many of his teammates, he was drawn to Municipal Stadium. “You look off to the right and see these big silos and out in right field, corn growing everywhere. Right across the street there was the cattle auction and the pork auction and that distinctive aroma.”

  On the field, Hayes had even greater challenges. He saw players from the University of Southern California, San Diego State, and Nebraska, guys who were older, bigger, stronger, and better. The player ahead of him at first base, Tony Camara, a six-foot-five, 205-pound slugger who was dominating in the season’s first week, would eventually sign with the Detroit Tigers. “I could see that I wasn’t going to get much playing time,” Hayes said. The A’s set out on a road trip, and Hayes was one of only two players Merl left behind. He did get to play later in a non–Jayhawk League game and hit a home run, but he knew he was overmatched. He went to Merl the next day and asked if he could go home, just two weeks into the season. So Merl gave him a return plane ticket, and Hayes went back to Stockton, California. “That was one of the biggest wake-up calls I had in baseball,” Hayes said. “I felt a huge obligation, and I made it my goal the next year to put up good enough numbers in college to come back and play here and give them a little return on their investment,” Hayes said. Merl wasn’t so sure. If a kid was only willing to stick it out for two weeks, that didn’t sound like a player who could last a season.

  The next year Hayes called Merl on the phone. Merl cupped his hand over the receiver and whispered to Pat, “It’s that Hayes kid,” thinking he needed to find some way to get him off the phone. Instead, the more Hayes talked the more Merl could sense his desire, so he invited him back. It helped that Pat glared at Merl and told him that if he had made a commitment to have Hayes back, then there was no other answer than yes.

  Hayes had been developing rapidly. He put up outstanding numbers that year, and was drafted in the seventh round by the Cleveland Indians. They offered him $10,000 to sign, but Hayes’s father wanted him to hold out for $40,000. “It didn’t take long for the door to close,” Hayes said. Hayes didn’t bother to call his scout and tell him about the decision. His call went to Merl, and he asked if he could come out and play for him.

  Merl was a man Hayes wanted to impress. “If you looked up ‘country boy’ in the dictionary, that’s the kind of man you would see,” Hayes said. “He was a big, tall, strapping, strong, stern individual, kind of like a cross between John Wayne and Andy Griffith.” He was a man of simple rules, and one of them in baseball really hit home with Hayes. “Ninety feet,” Merl said. “Give me that ninety feet. Run hard to first base every time.”

  Even when Hayes was playing in packed stadiums years later, if he ever neglected to run flat out to first, Merl would “always be the first person I would think of, that I let him down.”

  A short time into the summer season, Merl got a call from Rod Dedeaux, the USC coach, asking if he could use Hayes for a U.S. All-Star team to play in Japan. Hayes again doubted his ability and asked Merl what he should do. “He said, ‘Why don’t you go? Worst-case scenario is a free trip to Hawaii,’” where the team was training. He starred in Japan, and the Indians came calling again, sweetening the bonus offer. Hayes again turned it down. The A’s were going to the NBC tournament in Wichita, and Hayes felt like he had to fulfill his obligation to Merl. He joined the team in time for the preliminary round in the state championship and started to show that he had become a top collegiate hitter.

  The Indians sent Bob Quinn, the head of scouting, to watch Hayes in a doubleheader. He went 9-for-10 with three home runs. They met the next morning at the Truck Haven Café, which boasted the “Best Cinnamon Rolls in the World,” and Quinn offered Hayes a much better contract and a slot with a Double A team. Hayes again said no—he wanted to go with the A’s to Wichita. Quinn leaned on him, telling Hayes that if he didn’t do well in the national tournament, his value would go down, and so would the Indians’ offer. Hayes had a tremendous tournament, and the offer stood. Merl had been his unofficial agent in the process, laying out Hayes’s options in his measured, objective way. He never prodded Hayes to stick with the A’s that summer, knowing that Hayes had a shot at the pros. “He was always respectful of that,” Hayes said.

  With Hayes in the lineup, the A’s finished fourth in Wichita, and the player who only a year before thought he couldn’t cut it in Clarinda finished with a batting average of .511, including hitting .900 in front of the scouts and crowds in Wichita. He gave Merl a lot of the credit for both motivating him and standing by him. He would come to find that he needed Merl even more when his playing days had ended.

  Merl was so happy for Hayes, the kid he almost didn’t ask to come back to Clarinda. But Hayes was not the only player who had to beg Merl for a chance. A cocky catcher from California, Darrell Miller, called Merl in the spring of 1978, at the suggestion of his coach at Cal Poly–Pomona, to ask for a spot. Merl politely told him that he already had recruited two Division 1 catchers, including one who was likely to be drafted by the pros. Sorry, Merl said, but we are all set. “You are really going to regret this,” Miller said with the confidence that only youth allows. “If you saw me play you would want me on the team.” Miller would not relent. “I begged and begged,” he said. The two finally agreed that if Miller would pay for his own plane ticket to Iowa, Merl would give him a tryout. If Miller made the team, the A’s would reimburse him for the travel.

  So Miller boarded a plane and headed to the Midwest. His father was in the military, and his family had moved a lot during his childhood. The Midwest wasn’t totally unfamiliar to him because his family had lived several years at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, where Merl and the A’s had played in the days of town team baseball.

  When Miller arrived, he proved as good as his word and did well during the first week. Then he caught a tremendous break. Merl’s first-choice catcher was indeed a great prospect and was taken in a much earlier round of the draft than he had anticipated. When the young man signed immediately, a spot had opened up for Miller.

  Merl’s risk had paid off, and in the first few games Miller hit two home runs and two doubles. In the early going, though, it seemed to him that he could do nothing right as a catcher as far as Merl was concerned. Miller liked Clarinda. He found its people welcoming, and as one of the few blacks in town, he stood out on the A’s team. But when it came to his coach, that was another matter. Merl rode him like no coach had before. It was as though he couldn’t do anything right. “He was on me like stink on manure,” Miller said. “He was on me all the time. He picked me apart.” It got so bad, Miller said, “I accused him of being a racist.”

  He quickly realized, though, that Merl was just as hard on the other catcher, who was white. He also came to understand that Merl saw the same potential in him that he saw in himself. Merl considered it his job to help Miller grow, and he also knew the catcher position better than any other. He helped Miller learn how to squat to have the best balance. He made Miller work out with a homemade catcher’s mitt that had a piece of plywood covering the pocket to teach him the most important rule of catching: keep the ball in front of you by dropping and blocking the ball and keeping your hands soft. Merl spent hours on drills with Miller and was rarely satisfied, at least not outwardly. “You come to realize that the people who are hardest on you love you the most,” Miller said. Merl taught Miller to have an even stronger work ethic, to own his mistakes, to measure himself not merely by his statistics from a particular game but rather by how he played. That meant knowing how to be a leader as a catcher, ignoring pain, and holding teammates accountable.

  For all of Merl’s intensity, Miller was also struck by the fact that Merl did not lose his temper, didn’t swear, and had an uncanny knack for seeing the good in people. Sure, Mer
l got mad, and he hated to lose, but Miller said the coach “never lost his composure. Even today I wish I could be like him,” Miller said. “It was a privilege to be in his presence.”

  Miller blended in well with his teammates, his California cool helping him along the way. In the dugout one night, Miller’s teammates started to boast of their prowess in other sports, especially basketball. Miller looked right at them and said, “My little sister could school every single one of you.” They all laughed at him. Then he told them, “My baby brother could probably school any one of you.” His teammates shook their heads. More big talk from the guy from California.

  Within a few years, though, they would be reading about his sister, Cheryl, when she scored 105 points during her senior year in high school en route to a career that would land her in the basketball Hall of Fame. The baby brother, Reggie, indeed could have schooled them, as he went on to star in the NBA and become a Hall of Famer as well.

  Darrell was the furthest along in his athletic career and would eventually make it to the major leagues as a catcher for the California Angels. Miller credits Merl Eberly with being one of the three most important people in helping him along on his baseball journey.

  In the summer of 1979, Merl’s oldest son, Rick, a smooth-fielding third baseman who was an even stronger hitter, signed as a free agent with the Toronto Blue Jays. Just as he had done two decades before when he headed off himself to Holdrege, Nebraska, Merl would see his son chasing his own dream and setting off for the Blue Jays affiliate in Alberta, Canada. It was the realization of any father-and-son dream. But for the A’s, Merl still had one big team goal in mind.

  6

  National Champions