Gator

by Ron Guidry

  We spent a few more days hunting after that, but poor Jim saw everything he wanted to see in those first few hours. He got the full Louisiana experience. We’d talk about it all the time during the season. And for my part, I loved giving people a taste of where I was from.

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  By 1980, I was the only guy on the starting pitching staff left from 1977–79. Catfish was done after a tough ’79. We traded away Jim Beattie. Figueroa struggled and got traded to Texas midway through the season. Goose, who I had grown close with, was the most familiar face left. Willie Randolph, Bucky Dent, Graig Nettles, Lou Piniella, and Reggie were still there. Chris Chambliss got traded to Toronto. Mickey Rivers was sent packing too.

  And after missing the playoffs in ’79, Billy was let go again. Dick Howser became our manager in 1980. He had been one of our coaches for a long while, so we were familiar with him, and it didn’t require a big adjustment on my part. He didn’t have a big personality like Billy, so we didn’t have to master a new kind of circus. So many of the managerial changes were just George being George, and George and Billy doing their thing. My attitude was, just give me the ball and I’ll pitch. It didn’t affect the way I played.

  Through all of it, we had the makings of a very solid baseball team. We signed Tommy John, who at age thirty-seven had an incredible season for us, winning twenty-two games with a 3.43 ERA. His name has since become famous because he’s the namesake of the elbow ligament surgery that every pitcher seems to need these days. To us, he was a key veteran presence solidifying a pitching staff that going into the season didn’t have much certainty beyond me. He was on those Dodgers teams we faced in the World Series, and we were glad to have him now. The other savior for our pitching staff was Tom Underwood, who we got in the trade with Toronto for Chambliss.

  The other part of that deal, however, was more important. We acquired catcher Rick Cerone. Rick had his best season at the plate in 1980, hitting fourteen home runs with 85 RBI. Even more critical was his presence behind the plate. Nobody could replace Thurman Munson at catcher, but Cerone brought a lot of good qualities. In the final two months of ’79 without Thurman, that’s when you realize just how much he did for the team, and how much pressure that took off me as a pitcher. I didn’t have to think on the mound with him back there. He knew the opposing hitters better than I did. Heck, he knew my pitches better than I did. He could tell me which pitch to throw and where to throw it, which made it easy.

  Cerone brought some of the same attributes. Coming from Toronto, he was familiar with the batters we’d be facing. For a twenty-six-year-old, he had a lot of experience already and knew how to set up as a catcher, how to call a game, how to manage the pitching staff. It was also comforting that Cerone was a tough, old-school type of player. That’s what you want in a catcher, and it helped our entire pitching staff that we had somebody we could trust back there.

  When you put all of that together, we had a good ball club. And things felt relatively stable. When we fell to 3-6 to start the season, we didn’t panic. By the middle of May we had taken the lead in the division, and we wouldn’t give it up for the rest of the season. Talent-wise, it may have been the best team we had while I was there. It was a damn good, all-around team.

  While people get caught up in Reggie’s antics in ’77 and ’78, mostly because of Billy and the off-the-field stuff, it is easy to forget how good a player he was. And amid everything, he had become a good teammate too. As a hitter, his performance in 1980 was one of the best I ever saw. At an age when you might expect him to decline—he was thirty-four—he only seemed to be getting better. Graig Nettles, on the other hand, was thirty-five and played just eighty-nine games, while batting .244. Father Time catches up with all of us in this game, and it’s never fun to see it happen to somebody you’ve played with for so long. It happens to different people in different ways. Lou Piniella was thirty-six in 1980 and played 116 games, but he’d lost a lot of his power, with only two home runs.

  Reggie, though, had his most complete season as a Yankee that year. He played 143 games, hitting 41 home runs with 111 RBI. He hit for average, batting .300 for the only time in New York, and walked 83 times. He was patient, powerful, and productive. Maybe the spotlight having dimmed a bit helped him, now that Billy was gone. But he was always a tremendous hitter. In some ways, it’s ironic. A couple of years ago, Reggie had been the center of so much drama. Now he was our steadiest player. He deserves a great deal of credit for that.

  My 1980 season was in many ways reminiscent of 1979. I was good but not dominant. I went 17-10 with a 3.56 ERA, respectable numbers, though it wasn’t as smooth as that. During the middle of the season I hit a tough patch and straightened myself out in the bullpen. As a reliever, I pitched in eight games with a 1.96 ERA in eighteen and one-third innings. Some pitchers view going to the bullpen as an insult or a demotion. To me, it was a new opportunity to work things out and help the team. I’d have played outfield if that’s what they thought was best.

  It all added up to a 103-59 record, the most games we’d ever win while I played for the Yankees—the most we won since 1963. And once again we were set to face the Royals in the playoffs. But in 1980, George Brett was better than ever. Which is saying something, because he was damn good every other year, too. To emphasize how good he was that year: He played just 117 games and still won the MVP over Reggie, hitting 24 home runs with 118 RBI, and a .390 batting average. Incredible.

  As many times as we had beat Kansas City in the play-offs, it was just their turn that year. After returning from the bullpen, I was tapped as the game one starter against the Royals. For the first time, we lost a playoff game that I started. For whatever reason, I had no control that day. It might’ve been the worst game I ever had. I had issues locating the ball, walking four guys in three innings. Only thirty-nine of my seventy-five pitches went for strikes. It was very uncharacteristic. When I wanted the ball inside, it ended up away. When I wanted it low in the zone, it was above the batter’s head. I gave up four runs, and we were eventually swept, 3–0. It stank. But I felt the Royals were due against us. The sun can’t shine on the same dog’s ass every day.

  In some ways I wondered if the 1980 season felt too easy for us. We won 103 games. Baltimore challenged us a bit for the division, but we were really able to coast the second half—we were that good. At our best, though, there was no coasting. In ’77 and ’78 we were always on our toes, for better or worse. Billy made sure of that. Thurman made sure of that. And the finicky nature of baseball is that you can be the best team in baseball for six months, but if the other team is better than you for a few days in October, that’s that. And that’s what happened. For three days, they were better than us. As tended to happen when we didn’t win it all, Dick, our manager, was fired. That’s just the way it was.

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  If 1980 with the Royals was a case of what goes around comes around, that’s what happened to us again against the Dodgers in 1981. Losing to them in the World Series was a bitter pill to swallow, more crushing than losing in the playoffs the previous season. At the same time, 1981 wasn’t like a true baseball year because of the players’ strike in the middle of the season. The strike meant the playoffs had this weird format, with the winners from the first half of the season playing the winners of the second half.

  George’s shiny new toy during the off-season was Dave Winfield, the All-Star outfielder from San Diego who signed for $25 million, a record at the time. He acquitted himself well in the shortened season, with 13 home runs in 105 games. But in general our bats struggled. I’m not sure if it’s because we had a hard time getting into a rhythm or if age had caught up with some guys, but our bats were quiet. Willie, who’d had perhaps his best year in 1980, struggled in ’81. Rick Cerone wasn’t the same hitter again either. Graig Nettles and Reggie were a year older and didn’t have their best season.

  Wha
t we had, though, was our best pitching ever. That’s how it was with so many of our teams. Different days, different heroes. In 1980, Reggie, Willie, and some of the other guys picked us up. This year the pitchers were in peak form. I pitched in 23 games, starting 21, with a 2.76 ERA. I had some of the best command I ever had, with only 26 walks in 127 innings. Tommy John had another marvelous season at age thirty-eight with a 2.63 ERA. And out of nowhere, a twenty-two-year-old Dave Righetti, who as a minor leaguer was part of the trade for Sparky, had a 2.05 ERA in 15 starts. All three of us were lefties, and we gave other teams fits.

  When we gave our bullpen a lead late in the game, the other team could forget about it. I didn’t pitch one complete game, but we had George Frazier, Dave LaRoche, Doug Bird, and Ron Davis in the bullpen, and all had sub-3.00 ERAs. And Goose, boy, I had never seen him be so lights-out. In 46.2 innings, he had a 0.77 ERA. He gave up only four earned runs all year.

  The strange playoff format meant we had to go through two rounds to reach the World Series. The first was a series between us and Milwaukee, the two teams that won the AL East during the two halves of the season. They took us to five games after we won the first two. I pitched game one and game five, and neither went particularly well. I didn’t get through the fifth inning either time. But I didn’t get hit really hard, either, and with our bullpen there was a lot less pressure on me. Goose saved all three of those wins, as we won the series 3–2.

  In the ALCS we faced Oakland. But the matchup wasn’t billed as much around the Yankees versus the A’s. Everybody seemed to pay attention to the man managing in the opposing dugout: Billy Martin. He did a great job with that Oakland team, but our pitching was too good for them. They scored four runs all series, in a three-game sweep. I didn’t pitch because I had pitched game five of the series before.

  The World Series brought us face-to-face with the Dodgers, again, the team we had beaten to win it all in ’77 and ’78. Whenever I see Tommy Lasorda, their manager, he says to me, “Aw, we should’ve beat your ass three times.” I always tell him they won the one they deserved. It was especially fitting for them, because it was the exact reverse of ’78, when they had a 2–0 lead and then we won the final four games. This time we took the first two and then they cleaned us out.

  I pitched well in game one, seven innings and one run. What still eats me up is I pitched so damn well in game five but still lost it. That day in Dodger Stadium I had everything working. I had my velocity, my command, my slider, all working. Lou gave us a 1–0 lead with an RBI single in the third, and it was one of those days when I felt it might be all I needed. Through six innings I had allowed only two hits. To start the seventh, I struck out Dusty Baker on three straight pitches. Then I got ahead of Pedro Guerrero, and thwack. Solo shot to left center. Next batter, I had Steve Yeager on a 1-2 count, and thwack. Solo shot to left center. I struck out nine, walked only two, and felt like in most respects it was the best game I had ever pitched in the playoffs. But it was the worst time to make the worst pitch, twice in a row. We lost the series in game six.

  It was frustrating. And of course, we didn’t know it was the last time our team would ever win a pennant during my career. But, look, how do you think those other guys felt when we won and they lost? Sometimes you need to take the good with the bad, the bad with the good. The game can bring you way, way up. And it can humble your ass.

  11

  LOSING BUT LEADING

  The Sunday before the All-Star break in 1985, I was at my locker taking a nap. That was often the case for me on days when I started. I liked to get a little bit of rest before loosening up, to make sure I was fresh. We were a few games back of Toronto in the AL East standings. It was the last game before the break, and George felt the need to stress the importance of this game. And George had one way of doing that. He marched into the clubhouse, found me snoozing, and slapped me awake.

  “Hey,” he bellowed, his finger in my face. “I don’t want to tell you how big this game is. We’ve got to have this game. We can’t lose it. You’ve gotta have a great game. You’ve gotta win this for us.”

  I had to get up in about ten minutes anyway, but he’d just taken ten minutes out of my nap. And hell, he’d just slapped me. I was not happy. I was hardly awake and still orienting myself. When I finally had my senses, I responded in the only way George would have wanted me to respond.

  “What the f—k are you doing in my locker?” The entire clubhouse was watching us. “Get your ass out of my locker. Get out of our clubhouse. Get back in the f—king office where you belong. I don’t come into your office. Don’t come into mine.”

  We screamed back and forth a while longer. It was mostly “you mother” from him and “you mother” from me. What I noticed, more than anything, was his outfit. He was wearing a yellow turtleneck with a pair of beige pants and a green jacket. Not like the color jacket you get for winning the Masters. It was an uglier, lighter green.

  So I turned around before he left and added: “When you leave here and get back in your office, take that ugly frickin’ jacket off. You look like a damn parrot.”

  He was red in the face as he stormed out. The entire clubhouse started laughing.

  A week or so later, when we were back from the All-Star break, it was still all anybody wanted to talk about. I was back at my locker goofing off, drinking some coffee. Somebody asked me if it was true that I’d called the old man a big frickin’ parrot. I said yes. Standing not too far from us was George’s driver, Bobby. After everybody cleared out, Bobby came up to me.

  “Well,” he said, “after that happened, the old man came upstairs into his office. I was sitting on the couch, and he threw the jacket at me. George goes, ‘Goddammit, Bobby, put that frickin’ jacket in the closet. Don’t ever let me wear that jacket again. Gator said I look like a big frickin’ green parrot. Make sure I never wear that back into the locker room.”

  But here’s the thing about George Steinbrenner: That’s exactly what he wanted to have happen. He’d rather you tell him to screw off than to not say something. Not unlike Billy. Say anything, but say something. Just don’t say nothing. Sure, he ranted and raved like he was the king of the world. He always thought of himself as the toughest son of a bitch who walked this earth. He figured if you’d fight him, fighting the other team would be a piece of cake.

  He was a master motivator. If you got embarrassed when he chewed you out, that was your problem. But everybody seemed to respond on the field. If he said you’re not hitting home runs, the guys usually started hitting home runs. If he told me I sucked and wasn’t pitching well, I started winning. You wanted, more than anything, to prove that he was full of shit. And he got exactly what he wanted.

  It was all in good fun, too. One second we’d be cursing at each other. The next minute, if we bumped into each other in the hallway, outside the view of the rest of the team, he’d put his arm around me. “How’s Bonnie? How’s Jamie? How’s Brandon? How’s Danielle [our younger daughter]? Are your parents doing okay? Do they need anything? Don’t hesitate to call.” He didn’t want to portray himself as a nice guy, is all. He had a reputation as a pit bull, and he wanted to maintain that.

  The later I got into my career, the more it became my responsibility to stand toe-to-toe with him. I was the guy the younger players looked to on how to handle difficult situations—the person who’d tell George to get out, the person to talk to the manager if there was an issue, or talk to George. In the early part of my career, that was Thurman. I wasn’t Thurman. He was more outspoken and forceful. Generally, I was more quiet.

  But on a day-to-day basis, I didn’t have to be an asshole. Part of that was because the character of the ballplayers had changed over time. The players coming up in the eighties weren’t as boisterous and crazy as we were. There were fewer Sparky Lyles and Lou Piniellas. In the seventies we couldn’t wait for the shit to hit the fan, because it was fun to watch. In the eigh
ties the players were meeker. They didn’t yell or fight with the manager as much. They still played the game, but I’m referring to their demeanor. They didn’t want to get into fights. Maybe they realized there was no upside in it.

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  George named Willie and me co-captains prior to the 1986 season. Obviously, it was a tremendous honor. Since the passing of Lou Gehrig, no Yankee had been captain until Thurman. After Thurman passed, it was unclear if there would ever be one again. After all, the post was left vacant for decades after Gehrig. In ’82, George had made Nettles captain. Then he was traded to San Diego. The funny thing was, Graig and Thurman both fought a lot with George. Not like that clubhouse jawing—this was real, tense stuff. Thurman fought over some contractual stuff and at one point asked for a trade. Nettles and George said a lot of nasty stuff about each other in the papers. Graig leveled a lot of that in his book, Balls, which precipitated his trade away from the team.

  Willie and I met with George during spring training that year, and George outlined what he thought the role of captain should be. He thought we should be a voice for the players, to speak up about any issues and represent them if anything came up. Willie and I were cut from a different cloth from Thurman and Graig. We didn’t have any simmering feuds with management. Sure, George and I would exchange barbs in the clubhouse, but that was just good sport. Especially later in my career, he and I got along well and had a special friendship. (Don’t forget the stew.) And as for Willie, he was as low-maintenance as it got—stoic, quiet, the type of ballplayer who just professionally went about his business every single day. He never created a problem and largely kept to himself. He wasn’t the type of guy who would verbally spar with George in the clubhouse. There was no riling Willie. He was impressively levelheaded.