The Mouth That Roared

by Dallas Green

  18

  The Phillies never contacted me about becoming their new general manager. I was loyal to the Cubs, but I didn’t make a secret of the fact that I had deep affection for the Phillies. Early in my tenure, I probably sounded like a man pining for his lost love whenever I talked about “the Phillies way” of running an organization. I was a Phillies player, farm director, and manager. And it had always been my ambition to add general manager to the list.

  I guess if I had been more diplomatic, I might have gotten a call from Giles. When asked my opinion about the Phillies’ struggles in 1984, I suggested poor trades were the culprit. Instead of Gary Matthews and Bobby Dernier, who helped the Cubs immensely in ’84, the Phillies had two underachievers in the outfield, Von Hayes and Glenn Wilson. I also felt Philadelphia’s minor league system, once my pride and joy, had started to deteriorate.

  I was content to remain in Chicago, where the Cubs’ future was still very much in my hands.

  During my first three off-seasons in Chicago, I pursued trades and signings that could help turn around a struggling team. Times had changed. After the 1984 season, I set out to retain our current players. I felt we had a good chance to continue winning with the team that got us to the National League Championship Series.

  My top priority was holding onto the entire top end of our pitching rotation. Rick Sutcliffe, Dennis Eckersley, and Steve Trout all were eligible for free agency. In the span of three weeks in November and December 1984, we re-signed all of them: Eckersley for three years and Trout and Sutcliffe for five. Sut’s deal cost us $9.5 million over the life of the contract. That’s peanuts today, but very few players were making that kind of money back then.

  I knew Sut’s services would be coveted by a number of other teams. The Padres, the Royals, and the Braves all put in comparable bids for him, but his sense of loyalty to the Cubs prevailed in the end. He felt he had more to accomplish in a Cubs uniform. If we hadn’t re-signed him, that would have meant we gave up Joe Carter and Mel Hall, two promising young outfielders, just to rent Sut for half a season.

  As I said at the time, “We made a commitment to the city of Chicago and our ballclub to get our people back.”

  To ensure further continuity on the field, I also extended manager Jim Frey’s contract through the 1987 season.

  I handed out rewards for meritorious performance, and I also received one myself from the Tribune Company. After Jim Finks resigned as Cubs president in December 1984, I took on his responsibilities. A few months later, Andy McKenna stepped down as the liaison between me and the company. My bosses were taking off the training wheels. In announcing the changes, John Madigan, the company’s executive vice president, said my growth as a businessman and success at putting the organization on the right track had earned me more autonomy.

  I didn’t make any major personnel moves that off-season, but I did take a gamble on a marginally talented kid whose passion for the game and will to succeed ranked up there with any player I had ever seen. I figured I’d give him a shot, if for no other reason than to help him get baseball out of his system. That he happened to be my son John was secondary, believe it or not.

  If I hadn’t signed John, he would have convinced someone else to. He had taken part in a College World Series at the University of Arizona and won a junior college national championship. The kid could definitely play. I just didn’t know if he had major league potential, and I hated the thought of him being a career minor leaguer.

  As long as he was in my organization, I knew he would be trained right and that I could keep an eye on him.

  John reported to our rookie team in Wytheville, Virginia. From that point on, he wasn’t Dallas Green’s son. He was just another pitcher chasing a dream.

  * * *

  A couple of things happen when your team puts together a successful season. First, other organizations start taking you seriously. That was a big deal, considering how negatively the Cubs had been viewed for so many years. The second result of winning is increased buzz surrounding your team. I saw that before the 1985 season even opened when, for the first time, the Cubs started selling out spring training games in Mesa, Arizona.

  A lot of people had scoffed at the marketing strategy we adopted when I first got to Chicago. But the slogan “Building a New Tradition” didn’t seem so dumb anymore.

  We had the talent to repeat as division champs, but recent history frowned on our chances. No National League East team had won consecutive titles since the Phillies in 1976, 1977, and 1978. Since then, every team except the Mets had taken a turn as king of the hill.

  As far as I could tell, we had no glaring weaknesses. The only real question mark was whether Larry Bowa would remain our starting shortstop. He had provided valuable leadership in 1984, but at age 39, he had ceded playing time to Tom Veryzer and Dave Owen. Neither of them was our shortstop of the future. That distinction belonged to Shawon Dunston, the first overall pick of the 1982 draft. Shawon’s steady progress in the minors convinced us he was about ready for the big leagues. But “about ready” and “ready” were two different things. I didn’t want to rush him.

  * * *

  Unlike other general managers, I had more to deal with than just baseball operations. The lights issue at Wrigley Field started feeling like a part-time job.

  Before the season, an Illinois judge upheld city and state laws that banned night games from ever being played at Wrigley Field. This was a disappointment, because I knew Major League Baseball would seek retribution by taking home playoff games away from us.

  The judge ruled that 37,000 visitors roaming their streets at night would subject the neighborhood around Wrigley to a public nuisance. He asserted the ban on lights didn’t impact our bottom line or ability to win games.

  I don’t recall ever showing the judge our books, so I’m not sure how he came to those conclusions. The sole basis for his argument was our division title, which in his opinion proved we could accomplish our goal by playing exclusively day baseball. I thought our goal was winning a World Series. Then again, I was just president and general manager of the team.

  I guess the judge was out of town when new commissioner Peter Ueberroth told us future postseason games might be played “elsewhere than at Wrigley Field, perhaps not even in Chicago.” The only downside to starting the 1985 season 35–19 and selling out almost every home game was that that the damn judge probably felt further vindicated.

  At that point, a third of the way into the season, we led the National League East by four games. Our record put us on pace for 105 wins.

  Then the June swoon we had avoided the season before hit us doubly hard.

  What a difference a year can make. On the one-year anniversary of the Sandberg Game, we got shut out in St. Louis on just two hits. Another defeat a couple of days later against the Mets gave us a 13-game losing streak, which tied a franchise record. The skid included a pair of three-game sweeps on successive weekends by the Cardinals, who were establishing themselves as the class of our division.

  After such a hot start, we soon found ourselves in fourth place.

  Injuries were at least partly to blame for our downfall. Matthews and Dernier had played vitally important roles in 1984. Matthews’ knee surgery and Dernier’s foot problems caused both to miss games during the streak. Even more damaging, all of our starting pitchers lost time due to injuries in the first half of the ’85 season.

  We never recovered from that awful stretch in June. The Cardinals held onto first place for most of the season and ended up with 101 wins. We finished 77–84 and in fourth place.

  * * *

  During a difficult summer, I opened my mouth and turned a lights controversy into a full-blown stadium controversy.

  I felt Cubs fans needed to confront reality. If the residents of Wrigleyville didn’t budge on their opposition to night games, the Tribune Company would consider replacin
g Wrigley Field with a new stadium in the northwest suburbs.

  “I don’t get a sense of any cooperation with the neighborhood,” I told a local radio station. “We’re dead here.”

  The possibility of leaving Wrigley wasn’t a secret. We had already shared the plan with the Illinois state legislature. Now I was taking the news directly to the fans. Suddenly, all of the good will I accumulated in 1984 went out the window. I was a bad guy with a big mouth again.

  Some neighborhood denizens banded together to form a group called Citizens United for Baseball in Sunshine. That was an acronym, or so I was told. They were never going to be confused with the Dallas Green Fan Club.

  Given the choice of putting up lights in Wrigley or abandoning the stadium altogether, I felt Cubs fans, even those in Wrigleyville, might start to see things my way. Apparently the Tribune Company didn’t want me publicly announcing its thought process. A couple of days after letting the cat out of the bag, I was sent out before the media to try and put it back in.

  “We are trying to work out our problems and stay and work in peace with the Wrigley Field community and the people of Chicago,” I told reporters.

  We had struck out in the courts, the legislature, the court of public opinion, and with Chicago aldermen. Other than some buddies at Murphy’s Bleachers, a bar that wouldn’t have minded nighttime patronage at their Sheffield Avenue address, we had few allies.

  I asked some aldermen to set up a town meeting in Wrigleyville, so that I could take my point of view to the people in an interactive, face-to-face setting.

  A couple hundred people showed up to hear me give my old speech about how the beloved 1969 team faded in the final weeks of the season because of the wear and tear of so many day games. I talked about how TV was taking over the game and that the Cubs would lose playoff games if Wrigley didn’t get lights.

  I loved day baseball, I told them. It’s what made Wrigley Field special. But Major League Baseball was trying to impose its will upon us. Under the circumstances, a limited slate of night games seemed the only reasonable option.

  “We have to live like everybody else in the game of baseball, or we’re not going to be able to win championships,” I told them.

  Soon I was drowned out by booing, screaming, and hollering.

  “They’re going to piss on my lawn!”

  “The dogs will bark all night!”

  “Lights will be a pain in the ass!”

  I put up with the heckling for a few minutes. Then I restated my point, a bit more firmly this time.

  “I’ve told you what I think is necessary to build a championship team, and we’ll do everything we can for the neighborhood. But I’m tired of only hearing about what’s negative about lights. The positives are very simple. If you want a championship baseball team in Chicago, you better put lights in there.”

  Okay, it was a little more profane than that, but that was the gist of it.

  The leader of the neighborhood group, Nancy Kaszak, told reporters that our disappointing season had clouded my judgment.

  “One of the things I like about Dallas is that he always speaks from his gut, and I think like the rest of Chicago, he’s just upset about the losses,” she said.

  For Nancy’s information, I was perfectly capable of being upset at more than one thing at a time.

  * * *

  A lot of people in Chicago wanted to wring my neck. But at least I had a pretty amicable relationship with the local media. I think the writers liked my bluntness and the opportunity to verbally mix it up with me. I got along particularly well with Chicago Tribune columnist Jerome Holtzman. Jerry and I had one important thing in common: we both could be antagonizing as hell. He knew I wouldn’t lie to him, and I knew he’d research the hell out of a story before having it published. He understood the ins and outs of the lights situation and did a thorough job representing all sides in his column. Jerry also got in the occasional jab at me. When asked by a reader in 1985 whether I should make a trade for a “take-charge guy,” Jerry responded, “Dallas has already made a half-dozen deals for take-charge guys, and, from the looks of things, they’re taking charge of fourth place.” A sentence like that made me feel like I was back in Philadelphia.

  Twenty-five years after leaving Chicago, I still get calls from reporters there. Usually it’s for a story or just to yak about baseball. But our personal bond also prompted a lot of them to drop me a line when my granddaughter was killed in Tucson, Arizona, in 2011.

  I may have had trouble convincing some people that I had the right vision for the team, but at least I felt Chicago’s baseball writers gave me a fair shake.

  * * *

  As Jerry pointed out in his column, many of our players had down years in 1985. Our fourth-place finish was doubly disappointing coming on the heels of a division-winning season and a promising start in ’85.

  We had looked forward to having Sutcliffe for a full season, but a pulled hamstring meant he wound up starting just as many games in 1985 as he did in a partial season with us in 1984, posting only half as many wins. Eckersley was the only pitcher on our staff to reach double-digit victories. And only two players, Ryne Sandberg and Keith Moreland, reached the 80-RBI mark, compared to six players in ’84.

  It was a rough season in many ways. In August, a story broke linking Eckersley and Steve Trout to cocaine use earlier in the 1980s, before either joined the Cubs. We had heard rumors that Eck and Trout had dabbled in drugs when we traded for them. I was confident they were now clean.

  The issue of drugs in baseball weighed on my mind, however. I didn’t think it was a rampant problem, but I still supported mandatory drug testing for all players. I felt it was the only way to prove that drugs hadn’t in fact taken over the game—at least not yet.

  For the time being, I had more pressing problems to deal with. Keeping the team intact in ’85 didn’t work out.

  In August, when it became apparent we wouldn’t compete for another division crown, I released Bowa, who was in a seesaw battle with Dunston for the starting shortstop job. It was a tough decision. Bowa and I had waged some highly publicized battles in Philadelphia, but my respect for his work ethic and passion prompted me to bring him to Chicago. He was an undrafted free agent out of high school in 1965 who became a starting major league shortstop for 16 seasons. In the course of his career, he collected more than 2,000 hits and won a pair of Gold Gloves. I could only hope that Dunston would have as impressive a career.

  The release of Bowa signified larger changes for the team.

  “Every effort will be made to bring in new blood to increase the competitive spirit,” I said after a six-hour meeting with manager Jimmy Frey and our coaches and scouts during the final week of the season.

  Dunston represented a significant part of my hopes for the on-field future of the team. I just wished there had been more promising news about a major off-the-field matter.

  As the season drew to a close, the Illinois Supreme Court unanimously upheld the ban on night games at Wrigley Field. In addition to trying to help the team win again, I also had to deal with the prospect of the Cubs moving out of Wrigley.

  And to think just a year earlier we were celebrating a division championship and the dawning of a joyous and successful new era on the north side of Chicago.

  * * *

  A down season forced me to get tough. I issued an ultimatum to all Cubs players eligible for free agency: if you put yourself on the open market, we’re done with you. That convinced Gary Matthews, Scott Sanderson, and Chris Speier to bypass free agency and re-sign with us.

  I then traded for Manny Trillo, one of my favorite players from my Phillies days. I managed Manny at Class-A and again in Philadelphia. He wasn’t a vocal guy, but he went about his business in a professional way. In the twilight of his career, Manny wasn’t going to have a major impact on our team, but his versatility as an infie
lder would allow Jimmy to give third baseman Ron Cey and second baseman Ryne Sandberg an occasional day off.

  The only other significant addition to the roster was Jerry Mumphrey, a veteran outfielder who made the 1984 All-Star team with the Astros. We picked him up in exchange for a young outfielder named Billy Hatcher. They were similar players, but I hoped Mumphrey’s experience would help us more in the short term.

  Some people expected us to go after Kirk Gibson, the best available free agent that off-season. Gibson had helped lead Detroit to a World Series title in 1984 and put up even better numbers in ’85. Rumors of our interest in Gibson persisted until I spoke up and quashed the speculation. “We’ve told Kirk’s agent that we were going to the winter meetings with the hopes of making a couple of trades, and we made the deals,” I said. “We told his agent we weren’t interested in other people’s free agents.”

  The second part of that quote got the attention of Marvin Miller and the players union.

  A month after Gibson re-signed with the Tigers for almost twice his previous salary, the players union threatened to file a grievance alleging owners were acting in collusion to prevent free agents from signing deals with anyone but their current teams.

  It is true that major league teams had become acutely aware of the escalating costs of free agency. And we took steps to try and keep those costs down. We didn’t call it collusion, because there was no overt conspiring to keep player salaries at a certain level. As baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth correctly noted, we were simply using common sense. And that meant sharing information with each other, a well-established practice among player agents. The opportunity to see other teams’ ledger books was a real wake-up call. As I told the Chicago Sun-Times in 1986, “It was like the first chance to get to see somebody else’s checkbook. We looked [at the books] and said, ‘Ugh.’”

  As a result, we general managers made a gentleman’s agreement not to pursue other teams’ free agents. That practice eventually landed us in court.

  I had developed serious concerns about lucrative, long-term free agent deals.