In truth, the spirits of most Texans were already stimulated by a long-awaited event in Austin, the signing of the bill that reinstated the death penalty. Unrestrained joy not seen since the repeal of Prohibition greeted this measure. That same year, somebody was campaigning for the governorship of Alabama with the slogan: “I want to fry ’em until their eyeballs pop out and green and yellow smoke comes out of their ears.” Texas’ own governor, Dolph Briscoe, clearly lacked the zeal of the Alabama politician. But Briscoe did sign the bill with the same pen that a deputy sheriff in San Antonio was using to write a traffic ticket when some goon gunned him down. Briscoe would be reelected the next year, and overwhelmingly.
In Atlanta, the same week of David Clyde’s celebrated launch, Hank Aaron was belting career homerun numbers 696 and 697. In California, Nolan Ryan was pitching his second no-hit game of the season. And in Luckenbach, Texas, Willie Nelson and other notables of what was then known as the progressive country music movement performed an outdoor concert before thousands of adoring “dope smokin’ goat ropers.”
Not all was rosy in that otherwise golden summer of 1973. A former infielder with several big-league teams was arrested by the FBI in Los Angeles on charges that he’d designed a plan to blow up the Love Boat. J. Edgar Hoover’s boys alleged that he attempted to extort $250,000 from the Princess cruise line after threatening to set off some bombs placed on a luxury liner off the west coast of Mexico. Denny McLain, winner of thirty-one games just five seasons earlier and a former employee of Bob Short and a Texas Rangers short-timer from the spring of 1972, didn’t appear to be experiencing life to the maximum either. McLain was now pitching for Shreveport in the Texas League.
But the competition for the American having the least fun in the summer of 1973 had settled into a two-horse race involving Richard Nixon and Whitey Herzog.
I think that Whitey was probably having less fun than Dick. As manager of the Rangers, Herzog was forced to climb into the skillet each and every day. The American League standings, unlike certain Watergate witnesses, did not lie. Nixon could at least enjoy occasional escapes to his San Clemente White House. That was where Nixon was, wining and dining his Soviet counterpart, Leonid Brezhnev, on the night that Herzog was watching the White Sox beat his Rangers 15-1.
At Nixon’s party for Brezhnev, it was reported that the guest list included Jill St. John … “a stunning red-headed actress who caught Brezhnev’s eye.” I’ll bet she did. You can’t blame Leonid, of course. We’ve all seen photographs of those Russian women of that day and they all tend to look like Vince Lombardi, with the exception, of course, of the foxy Marina Oswald, who ran off with a Texas boy!
Not so many movie stars seemed to be appearing at the parties that Whitey was throwing at Arlington Stadium, although several ballplayers were offering convincing impersonations of Buster Keaton. With the season grinding toward the halfway point—the point of no return—the high-amusement profile that Herzog had demonstrated so winningly earlier in the year was beginning to vaporize. So was his paternal approach to some of his prized “live young arms”—specifically Pete Broberg and Don Stanhouse.
Mostly, Whitey’s big concern was the combative spirit of Broberg, the Dartmouth product who looked like a pumped-up muscle doll with Troy Donahue’s head perched on top. Broberg, unlike most players, was the product of rather privileged circumstances. His father Gus had been a World War II hero and was now a prominent lawyer in a prominent town, Palm Beach, Florida, a swank tropical setting where Pete had been endowed with a perpetual tan.
“When the Senators first drafted Pete, they tell me that Ted Williams watched him throw his fastball and told Broberg that he threw the ball as hard as Bob Feller and would never spend a day in the minor leagues,” Herzog said. “If that’s the case, that might be part of Pete’s problem now.” Herzog told me on one of the rare occasions he insisted his remarks stay out of the newspaper, “Short is still clinging to that Bob Feller BS that Williams fed to Broberg.”
Privately, Herzog had been attempting to arrange a deal to trade Broberg to Boston. The Red Sox seemingly were more impressed with Broberg’s Ivy League background than his lack of finesse on the major-league pitching mound. “They’ve offered me my pick of two young outfielders, Ben Oglivie or Dwight Evans, and either one of them would be a regular with Texas for the next ten years. But Bob Short won’t make the deal,” Whitey complained.
(As a historical footnote, it might be pointed out that Ben Oglivie would have fit in well in Texas, indeed. On a road trip, Oglivie departed his room at the Lord Baltimore Hotel for the ballpark and left his shower turned on with the drain plugged. The room flooded and eventually the floor caved in, creating a stressful episode for the couple registered in the room immediately below.)
In Broberg’s previous start, Rod Carew had stolen home. As it turned out, Carew could have stolen Whitey’s Cadillac and not have had Herzog take it quite so personally. “On the pitch before, Carew danced halfway down the line and Pete didn’t look over there. So I yelled out at him to watch third base. But he didn’t do that, did he? That’s typical of Pete, though. He just doesn’t think enough out there.” Herzog appeared to be suggesting that some of his live young arms might be brain-dead.
Herzog had somewhat more faith in Stanhouse but voiced dire concerns about his concentration. Herzog provided an illustration. “The other day, when Stanley was pitching in Minnesota, I swear, he kept staring over at this big old set of tits that was sitting behind the Twins’ dugout. Well, everybody on our bench was staring at her, too. But we weren’t trying to pitch to Harmon Killebrew!”
Other petty annoyances were gnawing at Herzog as well. The Rangers’ best everyday player up to this point in the season had been the shortstop, Toby Harrah, product of a state best known for its youthful entries in the Mrs. America Pageant—West Virginia. Toby had been hitting a little too well of late, so Kansas City’s Paul Splittorff decided to expunge this growing hazard from the Ranger lineup. This was accomplished by the customary expedient of aiming a fastball at Toby’s chin. Toby raised his hand to protect himself and the result was a broken left hand.
Harrah found solace by citing what is not only the West Virginia Golden Rule but also the official state motto. “Better a broken hand than a broken face,” Toby cheerfully reminded the media, and any youngsters who might have been listening. Still, Harrah would miss at least two weeks and there was no one on Whitey’s bench who could adequately replace the major leagues’ leading palindrome. Pete Mackanin would be summoned from the minors. “Mackanin has the best glove in our whole organization,” Whitey said. “He’s overmatched at the plate in Spokane right now, so he might as well be overmatched here, too,” Herzog reasoned.
Another recent development was starting to chew at Herzog’s gut as well. The B-e-e-g Boy was finally beginning to h-e-e-t. Rico had socked one about 450 feet against the Royals and looked like Young Frankenstein as he lumbered—that’s the only word for it—around the bases. Carty, in fact, had gone 8-for-8 during the home stand, a streak that was threatening some kind of record, which was spoiling Whitey’s plans to gracefully hand Carty an unconditional release. About two weeks earlier, Whitey and Rico had almost gotten into a fistfight in the dugout after Carty had cussed Herzog for not backing him in a dispute with an umpire over a called strike. Apparently it occurred to Herzog that while the B-e-e-g Boy might be able to hit the American League version of a curveball, Carty suddenly appeared damned capable of hitting the old skipper, and Whitey wanted him gone.
Bob Short was not in favor of disposing of Carty, since he assumed most of the off-season credit for bringing Rico and his once grand stats over from Atlanta. Herzog’s response: “Every other team in the division, including the Angels, is playing about .500 right now. We’re at 29-51, so what the hell difference does it make whether Carty ever hits again or not?”
Every brand-new day presented if not a brand-new crisis then at least a new and different categor
y of pain-in-the-ass. Steve Foucault, who most definitely had not attended Dartmouth College, had been the most dependable bullpen resource of the Rangers for the first half of the season. Foucault had the body of the animated hero Fred Flintstone. But his right arm appeared to have been formed from some synthetic and highly flexible substance that enabled him to whip the ball toward the plate and retire hitters with some consistency.
Then, during a pre-game batting practice session, Foucault was apparently running some wind sprints in the outfield when he ran into Jackie Moore, the third base coach who was out there shagging fly balls. Foucault broke his collarbone and would miss six weeks. A joke was circulating in North Texas that summer: “Did you hear about the freak accident? Two freaks in a van ran over a freak on a motorcycle.”
In an act of bad timing, Steve Foucault’s freak accident happened about an hour prior to the Second Coming of David Clyde.
Again, the stands were almost full. A gathering of 33,000 that was every bit as frantically fired up as the worshipful group in the stadium for Clyde’s maiden voyage watched Kid Lefty fire away at the White Sox and duplicate the results he had posted against the Twins. Clyde pitched six innings this time, and left with the Rangers leading 3-2.
With Foucault busted up, Herzog turned to Mike Paul, who was prematurely gray at thirty-three and justifiably so, and then Stanhouse for relief. The results were predictable—the Kid’s lead was allowed to slip away. Instead of Clyde coming away with another W, Stanhouse left the park with another L, which put his record at 1-7.
Herzog was philosophical about the outcome. “When you take Clyde out, the crowd hauls ass anyway. But that Clyde. He’s somethin’. It looks like he’s burning ethyl while the rest of these guys are on regular.”
Over in the Chicago clubhouse, the comments were more charitable than those made by the Twins at Clyde’s debut. Chuck Tanner, the manager, went to great lengths to explain how Clyde might be the final cog in a big wheel that just might take the Rangers on to a pennant. “As early as next season!” Tanner said.
I chose not to put those comments in public print. Chuck Tanner had not been watching a team that, over the course of eighty games, was not exactly playing the game that Abner Doubleday had in mind when he invented the sport. Actually, the notion that Abner Doubleday invented the game had been incontrovertibly proven to be a myth. But if Doubleday had invented baseball, the 1973 Rangers would have given cause for him to reconsider.
Additionally, I sought an appraisal of Clyde from the White Sox pitching coach, Johnny Sain. Yes, I was talking to the very same Johnny Sain of “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain” immortality from the 1948 Boston Braves. “What’s not to like?” said Johnny Sain of David Clyde. “What difference does it make if he’s only eighteen? It’s experience, not age, that counts in this league.”
I pointed out to Sain that Clyde had no experience, either. “Well, in baseball and in life, you learn that it’s who you rub elbows with that counts. You have to walk down the highway a lot of miles with a man before you really know the size of the shoes he’s trying to fill,” Sain told me with a solemn nod.
The next day, Sain was quoted in the Star-Telegram as having said, “For a young guy, David Clyde sure does have big feet.” My readers would have wanted it that way.
Upstairs in the media lounge, Harry (Hol-lee Cow!) Caray, the Voice of the White Sox at the time, known as the Mouth of Middle America, was having his say. At the time, Harry was initiating a career comeback in Chicago. His storied tenure in St. Louis had ended when Caray was run over by a taxi and almost killed. Dark and unsubstantiated hearsay whispered for a time that the accident had been arranged by someone connected with the Cardinals management.
That was in the past and now Harry was telling us his thoughts on young King David. “GOD … [twelve-second pause] … DAMN! WHERE’D THAT KID COME FROM? JEE—SUS! WHAT A FIND!”
The game the next night would conclude what would always rate as the most eventful home stand in the history of a franchise that has lasted almost twenty-five years. Herzog was offering his State of the Staff message before the game.
“For the first time, I’d say that I’m comfortable with the rotation,” he said. In fact, this was the first time since the end of spring training that he could even identify a rotation.
Clyde, of course, was confirmed as a regular. “In two starts the kid has shown that he’s not just some two-headed calf we’re putting out there as a drawing card. I don’t see any reason now why we can’t count on him to give us six good innings at least and get a lot of people out while he’s doing it,” Herzog said. In the course of six days it seemed that David Clyde had established himself as the ace of the staff. And what a staff.
Whitey was also now sold on his other “find,” Jim Bibby, who had proved that he was more than just the man with a gargantuan apparatus that might someday qualify for display at the Smithsonian. Buried beneath the hype of David Clyde’s first start, Bibby had shut out Kansas City two nights later with a one-hitter.
“The rap on Bibby was that he had a history of control problems, but I really haven’t seen that yet,” said Whitey. “Of course,” Herzog conceded, “if Bibby ever does let one slip, he’s liable to send somebody to intensive care. But the hitters know that and it’s about time we’re able to throw somebody out there that people are a little scared of.”
Jim Merritt, the man otherwise known as Bones, had made the roster out of spring training because of his résumé. He had won seventeen games for Sparky Anderson at Cincinnati in 1969 and twenty the year the Reds won the pennant in 1970. Going for his twenty-first win against the Giants, Merritt had said, “I heard something pop in my left shoulder while I was pitching to Willie McCovey.” He’d blown out his arm and only a salvage yard like Texas would take a chance on a restoration project such as Merritt. Bones knew that his pitching arm would forevermore maintain all the zing of overcooked pasta, so he was giving consideration to developing a new pitch that might enable him to last the season and maybe one or two more as well without having to rely altogether on chicanery and guile. And so far, Merritt had somehow come away with three wins in four starts.
Sonny Siebert, Herzog’s other veteran, had been solid as the fourth starter. Steve Dunning would remain the fifth starter, although Herzog sized him up with carefully measured enthusiasm. Dunning was the player acquired from Cleveland in the Dick Bosnian swap, and Herzog cast out a slightly different slant to the time-honored “the trade helped both teams” bromide to justify the transaction. “Dick hasn’t done much for Cleveland and Steve hasn’t looked too good for us, either,” Herzog said.
Out in the clubhouse, suitcases and assorted other stacks of paraphernalia were being loaded into a truck that would haul them to the Ranger 727 charter that would fly to Milwaukee that night. The man supervising the loading was equipment manager Joe Macko, who was also known as Smacko when he was always contending for Texas League homerun championships in the late forties. Actually, more people knew him as the owner of Smacko’s beer joint than as an ex-minor-league star.
Two suitcases would not be making the flight. While outlining the membership for his realigned pitching staff, Herzog mentioned in passing that both Stanhouse and Broberg had been optioned to Spokane. Typically, Whitey didn’t airbrush the announcement with management jive.
“I don’t think anyone doubts the major-league potential of Don or Pete,” Herzog said. “But what I do question is the dedication—or lack of dedication—by both of them. If they go to Spokane, join the rotation and learn how to pitch, I think they’ll be back. Otherwise, we might not hear from them again.”
Earlier in the year, throughout spring training and into the first months of the season, several of the Rangers players had seemed giddy over what they viewed as the emancipating presence of Whitey Herzog. The new manager was not only accessible but actually would listen to their complaints. He appeared tolerant of on-the-field lapses. All of this stood out i
n what the players unanimously agreed was dramatic contrast to the frosty climate of the Ted Williams regime. According to the never-ending testimonials offered by a variety of Senators-Rangers, Williams mostly came across as Teddy the Terrible, Imperial Czar of the American League basement.
“Ted couldn’t understand why everybody couldn’t hit .400 like he could … Ted thought we were all a bunch of morons and took every available opportunity to let us know that … Just because I don’t know where the tarpon are running or who Harry Greb knocked out in 1925 doesn’t make me a complete idiot, does it? … The only encouragement Ted ever gave me was to suggest I try for a job skill outside of baseball … Ted got pissed off because I spent more time working on my golf swing than my baseball swing! … Ted didn’t have any respect for anybody but himself … Ted was a horse’s ass …”
Such comments represented the litany that came streaming forth from quite a few of the holdover players. They described Williams in various ways, but all agreed that Teddy Ball Game was a relentless perfectionist. It’s easy to see how a player with the requisite physical tools to bat .300 but who was hitting .225 because he persisted on swinging at pitches outside the strike zone could, under the intense scrutiny of a man such as Williams, find life sometimes oppressive.
Now some of these same players were learning that the congenial Whitey Herzog, himself no .400 hitter and therefore capable of understanding that most players aren’t, also had limits to his well of compassion.
Chapter 10
Bob Short and his entire Rangersland operation had become the topic of considerable coast-to-coast public disdain from the high echelons of the Baseball Writers Association of America. His stunt of hauling a high schooler into the center ring was widely pilloried as the kind of dilapidated theatrics and carnival mentality that might be acceptable in a court of law but never within the sanctity of a ballyard.
Seasons in Hell Page 8