Gator

by Ron Guidry

  “That one over there looks like the pitch you just threw that went out of the frickin’ ballpark like a cannon shot.”

  Sometimes, to send a message, he’d tell me to throw a fastball right down the middle of the plate. I thought he was crazy. But who was I to disregard him? I’d do it, and sure enough, the batter would miss. Thurman had a point: He was showing me I was good enough that even if I threw it down the middle, they couldn’t touch me. It built me up. He might tell a batter what pitch I was throwing and where. If they didn’t hit it, it sent the same message. At the same time, because he was mostly telling the batters the truth, they believed what he told them. So when there was a pitch we really needed, he’d lie to the batter. Then the batter really had no chance.

  It made my job as a pitcher so much easier knowing I didn’t have to do much thinking on the mound. He knew all the hitters, he knew me. I could just throw the ball. He was always going to call the right pitches—I didn’t have to shake him off. To get me to shake him off, he had to give me a different sign, instructing me to move my head sideways just to keep the hitter on edge, to keep him guessing at what I was going to do. One time when I accidentally shook him off, he called time and came out to the frickin’ mound.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he barked at me.

  “I was just trying to clear my head,” I replied.

  “How the hell am I supposed to know?”

  The whole pitching staff benefited from his knowledge of the game. When Goose got off to a rocky start in ’78, Thurman knew just how to handle him. The first time they had met was when Goose was on the White Sox. I read that after he hit Thurman with a pitch, Goose got a note from him following the game saying he didn’t feel a thing. Goose, after all, was a hell of a pitcher, and it’s not like he lacked for ability. So Thurman kept it light, maybe got him a little angry and motivated, and it worked out. He’d hand Goose the ball and say something like “How you gonna screw this game up?”

  * * *

  —

  Our team would never go on to win another World Series while I was with them, and you have to think it begins with losing Thurman. I don’t mean just the sadness and heartache we had to cope with in ’79. We were having a fine year, but we likely weren’t going to make the playoffs regardless, because we were too many games back. However, in the bigger picture, we lost everything when he left. The leadership that defines generations of the best Yankees teams, willing them to reach their potential, that was gone. There were other great players there, but not the clubhouse leader we had in Thurman. Lou Piniella was a terrific and dedicated player. Nettles was, in my mind, one of the best of all time during his years with us at third. But they weren’t Thurman. I was coming into my own as a veteran, but I sure as heck wasn’t Thurman. Nobody had his combination of skill, smarts, personality, toughness, passion, and leadership. We had lost something we simply couldn’t replace.

  Often catchers make the best managers. From their vantage point, they see the entire game. All the fielders are out in front of them. They have to work with the pitcher, and they bat. Thurman would’ve been a damn good manager. And one aspect that made it more difficult going forward into the eighties was that some of the other great baseball minds who could’ve helped guide us through it weren’t given much of a shot to do so. When we weren’t winning the way George wanted, he didn’t give those guys a long-enough chance. Those were people like our manager Dick Howser, who George summarily fired after the 1980 season, or Mike Ferraro, who he basically got rid of in the middle of a playoff game. Everybody got fired in the eighties.

  The way people got to learn from Billy and Yogi after they retired, I just knew they would’ve done the same with Thurman. But that’s why while I pause here to talk about his passing, it’s so important to share the qualities that he had that propelled us to two world championships. So many of the Yankees who shared a clubhouse with him know the impact he had.

  Rusty Kennedy/Associated Press

  George and I had a pretty close relationship over the years.

  New York Daily News

  In the clubhouse with Dave Righetti (left) and Sparky Lyle.

  Courtesy of the author

  With all-time Yankees great Mickey Mantle.

  New York Yankees

  On August 23, 2003, I was honored when the Yankees retired my number 49 and dedicated this plaque in Monument Park in Yankee Stadium.

  Courtesy of the author

  With Goose Gossage at spring training, helping to teach a new generation of players.

  Getty Images

  Watching a game with bench coach and former teammate Don Mattingly (left) and manager Joe Torre, during my stint in 2006–2007 as the pitching coach for the Yankees.

  Getty Images

  Congratulating Mariano Rivera after a save when I was the Yankees pitching coach.

  New York Yankees

  A quick conference on the mound with Andy Pettitte, along with Derek Jeter and catcher Jorge Posada.

  Mike Carlson/Associated Press

  With Alex Rodriguez during spring training.

  New York Yankees

  With Andy Pettitte before the start of a game.

  New York Yankees

  In the dugout in spring training, after all-time great Yogi Berra gave Nick Swisher some hitting advice.

  New York Yankees

  The last game played in the old Yankee Stadium, on September 21, 2008. From left: David Cone; Goose Gossage; Helen Hunter, widow of Catfish Hunter; “Chairman of the Board” Whitey Ford; Don Larsen; me; and David Wells.

  Courtesy of the Yogi Berra Museum

  With my buddy Yogi.

  New York Yankees

  With Dave Eiland, manager Joe Girardi, and Willie Randolph before the final game at the old Yankee Stadium.

  Courtesy of the Yogi Berra Museum

  With Tino Martinez at the Yogi Berra Museum Celebrity Golf Classic.

  Courtesy of the Yogi Berra Museum

  The Guidry family (from left): my daughter Jamie; son-in-law Mike; my wife, Bonnie; my son, Brandon; my daughter Danielle; and son-in-law Jerrid.

  Courtesy of Lily Hawryluk

  Frying frog legs for spring training.

  10

  THE ALMOST YEARS

  In many ways the 1979 season began a new act in my career. I had experienced so much, and so quickly: toiling away in the minors, almost quitting, and then overnight success. Despite the squabbling and managerial changes, the one constant was that we won. In ’76 we reached the World Series. In ’77 and ’78 we won it all. But it wouldn’t always come so easy.

  Even before Thurman’s death, 1979 had a different feel to it. During the spring of 1978, we were all fired up after winning that first World Series. You walk in the first day and everybody is high-fiving, talking big about doing it again. There was an electricity in the clubhouse, as we looked forward to April and getting our World Series rings. We had signed Goose in the off-season, and the thought of having two dominant relievers pumped us up. And in general, spring training was usually fun. During the first couple of weeks, you’re done before noon and can enjoy the Florida weather. We’d go bass fishing in Lake Okeechobee or play golf. Starting in 1977, Bonnie and I would rent a house. Jamie, our eldest daughter, was born in November of ’76, and we needed a bigger place. Some years we rented one right on the beach.

  But �
��79 began with a strange tenor, because we had traded Sparky to Texas during the off-season. He had meant so much to me, and had done so much for the team, it was odd arriving there and not seeing him. In some ways I was happy for him, because he would again be the closer. I could never for the life of me figure out why he’d been treated the way he was treated the previous year. A season after winning the Cy Young, it was like he was invisible. He deserved a fresh start with a team that could appreciate him.

  There was a lot of pressure on me after my performance in ’78. That was a magical season, and no matter how well I pitched, expecting to duplicate that would be unrealistic. Winning that many games with that good of a win-loss record and that low of an ERA requires everything falling perfectly into place: me pitching my best, my teammates making incredible plays behind me, the offense giving me big-time run support throughout the season, and so forth. So a lot of my personal statistics that season are really a credit to my teammates. The Cy Young Award was just as much ours as it was mine individually.

  Regardless, the season raised my profile nationally and raised expectations along with it. What would I do for a follow-up performance? Could I do it again? People seemed to expect that. Either I’d go out there and do it again, or my arm would fall off from throwing so hard and so much.

  Since I had been a starter for the Yankees, I had been blessed with an incredible bullpen behind me. It’s so important for the staff, having guys like Goose and Sparky who can throw not just one but multiple innings of shutout ball. Not to mention other stalwarts like Dick Tidrow. It gave me a great security blanket, knowing that even if I didn’t go all nine innings, I could trust the guys who I was handing the ball to. It’s one of the many things that made us so good as a team.

  But in 1979 our bullpen went into flames, and quickly. First we traded Sparky. Then Goose hurt his thumb during a brawl in the clubhouse with Cliff Johnson, who played some designated hitter for us and backed up Thurman behind the plate. It started off as a joke when Cliff was asked if he could hit Goose when they played against each other. Goose replied with something like “only when he could hear it.” Goose was saying that he threw so fast, Cliff couldn’t see the ball. Now, these were two big men; both were six foot three or more. Goose threw a ball of tape at Cliff, and halfhearted, joking, and playful shoves devolved into an actual fight. Goose was out until the middle of July. We traded Cliff to Cleveland.

  Last, in May we traded Tidrow, my other mentor out of the bullpen, to the Cubs. Goose’s injury had pressed him into being one of our late-inning guys, and that wasn’t the ideal spot for Tidrow. He had mainly been a starter in ’78, with guys like Cat hurt for stretches, and when he was in the bullpen he was best suited as a long-relief man. In shorter outings he struggled. I felt Bob Lemon didn’t put him in positions to succeed, leaving him high and dry out there. One day Tidrow told Lemon his arm was bothering him and he couldn’t keep going. In Tidrow’s final two outings for us, he threw four and one-third innings, allowing fourteen hits and nine runs.

  Bottom line, Sparky was gone, Tidrow was gone, and Goose was injured.

  As a result, I offered to pitch out of the bullpen. Some in the media questioned that: Why in the world would you put the guy who had one of the best seasons in baseball as a starting pitcher in the bullpen? Some speculated it could be bad for my arm. But my offer was approved by Al Rosen, our general manager, George, and Lem. We needed somebody to get outs, even just here and there. And I was happy to volunteer. I wasn’t concerned with records or trying to appease people’s expectations. I wanted to do what was best for the team, and that was that. It’s how we operated in the clubhouse. And I know my teammates appreciated that. “You’re showing me a lot,” Reggie said to me after I volunteered. That, in turn, meant a lot to me.

  I always maintained that I could be an even better reliever than I was a starter. I threw only two pitches, and I could be even more overpowering if a batter only got to face me once in a game, as opposed to two, three, or four times, when seeing me throughout the game might help him figure me out. In shorter stints, I could throw harder, too, without having to worry about going a full nine innings. Before I became a starter, I had proven myself as a star reliever in Triple-A. I knew I could do it well.

  It also helped settle me down mentally. Whether it was the pressure on me or just a short funk, I can’t really say, but I had a 5.25 ERA after the first two starts of the season. That’s only a couple of games, sure, but I had only four strikeouts total. It’s possible I was letting things get to me. After that I made a relief appearance and got a clean save. Then I moved back to the rotation with two complete games, allowing just one run in each. It cleared my head, loosened my arm, whatever, it helped. I made a couple more relief appearances in May, and I threw six and one-third innings without allowing a run.

  We finished the season 89-71, which was respectable, but fourth place in our division, and thirteen and a half games behind Baltimore. Billy was brought back as manager in the middle of the season. It wouldn’t be the last time he’d go in and out of the job, but for now I enjoyed having him back. But again, to me the entire season was colored by Thurman’s death.

  * * *

  —

  During the off-season, I invited Jim Spencer, a first baseman who played for us and was a big power bat off the bench from 1978 to 1981, down to Louisiana to show him a good time and give him a taste of our way of hunting. He came for a few days, but I’m not sure he knew exactly what he was getting into.

  I picked him up at the airport, and he had supper with me and my family before we hit the sack for a couple of hours before heading out to our hunting camp for a few days. Jim had hunted plenty before, but he had never been hunting in Louisiana, and he was a little nervous.

  “Mr. Guidry,” he asked my father before we left, “you think we’ll see alligators? Water moccasins?”

  “Oh yeah,” my dad said. “You’re going to see them, Jimmy. The best advice I can give you is to just stay close to Ronnie.”

  I didn’t know about that conversation, and I didn’t quite realize yet just how nervous Jim was. During our ride to the camp, where we picked up my cousin Joe, Jim kept asking, “You think we’re gonna see a couple ducks?” I was wondering why the hell he was asking if we’d see a couple of ducks. The thing was, I had never stopped to consider how different it was where he hunted up in Maryland. There, they’d go out by a lake and on a good day would see two ducks and on an excellent day would hit one. Louisiana was a different world. There were hunting limits on how many we could shoot based on the type—mallards, pintails, wood ducks, gray ducks, wigeons, blackjack ducks, and so forth—but we could see hundreds or even a thousand or more in one shoot.

  “Oh, you’re in for a real awakening,” I told him. “Jim, you’re going to miss a lot more than you’re going to shoot at, I can promise you that.”

  The great part about hunting isn’t the hunting itself, though. It was the bonding, spending time with someone, getting to know them.

  It was still dark when we arrived at the camp. I got out to get some stuff from the back of my truck. You could hardly see a thing, but I turned around and Jim is right behind me, sticking to me like wallpaper. He made me nervous with how close he was, following my every move. “What the heck is going on?” I asked him.

  “Your dad told me wherever we go, stick close to you.”

  At this point, I could finally see how nervous he was. It was just different from what he was used to. We got in our mud boat and started toward the blind we’d be hunting from that day, which was about twenty minutes away. We had Jim sit in the front of the boat so he could take in the scenery. At one point, there was a sharp turn and you could get thwacked by all the tall reeds if you weren’t careful. So Joe grabbed Jim on the back to yell above the boat’s motor. “Jimmy! Watch your face!”

  Jim feels Joe’s hand on his back and shoots right up. Then he get
s smothered by all those reeds. When we got to the duck blind, he looked like a damn Sasquatch with all this stuff sticking to his body. He was as white as a napkin.

  So to get into the blind, you had to crawl through a little hole. When we told Jimmy that, he refused.

  “You came here to hunt—why the heck not?” I asked.

  “I think I crapped my pants when you grabbed me back there! I was thinking some creature could reach out from the grass and drag me into the bayou and nobody would’ve ever heard from me again.”

  After laughing our asses off for the next ten minutes, we eventually got into the blind and began the actual hunting. At one point, Joe nudges me. About twenty yards away, he points to a bull alligator meandering through the pond. The thing looked like a damn submarine. But all he was doing was patrolling his territory—you could tell because he was maintaining the same speed as he swam by. He wasn’t any threat to us. But if I thought Jim was nervous before, he was almost jittery now. I guess he reacted pretty much the way anyone would who had never seen a huge bull alligator up close before out in the swamp.

  “If that thing comes another foot closer, I’m out of here.”

  Well, we had a great hunt and got back in the boat to come back. As we slowed up around the curve, I saw one of the biggest water moccasins I had ever seen. Must have been eight feet long. And where Jimmy sat in the boat, he couldn’t have been more than a few feet away. Like a lot of creatures when they are startled, water moccasins like to puff themselves up and put on an intimidating front. So this water moccasin opens its mouth wide, showing off its white mouth—its other name is cottonmouth—and those big fangs. But it had just been swimming in the bayou, minding its own business. It wasn’t actually a threat to us.