by Ron Darling
* * *
I didn’t get the call to Shea Stadium until September 1—and once I did, there were a mess of new revelations in store.
I was “welcomed” to the big club by my first major league manager, Frank Howard—and by “welcomed” I mean to suggest that my arrival was hardly acknowledged. That was Frank’s way, I would soon learn. He’d find the path of least resistance … and then look for another shortcut or two.
He was from another time.
Frank Howard was old-school all the way. He wasn’t exactly the most cerebral manager, and he was disinclined to nurture or coddle his players. He wasn’t particularly keen on baseball’s nuances or subtleties, and I don’t think he gave a shit about developing young talent or getting the most out of his veteran players.
I’ll tell you what he was: he was tall—like, ridiculously tall. His baseball card had him at six-foot-seven, but he seemed to loom even larger than that. He was just a big, gruff, intimidating guy, and he terrified us rookies.
He’d been pretty intimidating as a player, too. He was Rookie of the Year in 1960, the year he came up with the Dodgers, and he’d go on to make a bunch of All-Star teams with the Washington Senators, and he was always one of those guys who made his presence known. His name stood out in the lineup card. He’d led the league in home runs and RBIs a couple times. He was feared as a hitter. You have to remember, this was a time in the game when players were nowhere near as tall as Frank. Even NBA players in Frank’s day were nowhere near as tall as Frank. Other teams had no idea how to pitch to him. And here on the 1983 New York Mets, no one quite knew how to play for him, what to make of him.
I’ll write a bit later on in these pages about one time in particular that Frank’s general cluelessness as a manager seemed to run counter to the best interests of the ball club and one of its most prized prospects, but for now let’s just say that Frank was a peculiar guy. How peculiar? Well, he used to lift weights in the team sauna. In his jockstrap. It was actually hilarious, to see this giant of a man, damn near naked, pumping iron like that in the sauna, but we knew enough not to laugh our asses off. And this wasn’t just a onetime thing with Frank. This was part of his regular routine.
Also peculiar was the way Frank would pack for road trips: he wouldn’t. He traveled with a simple bowling bag, the kind Fred Flintstone used to carry, only Frank wouldn’t pack a bowling ball. In fact, nobody could figure out what the hell he packed in there, because Frank never changed his clothes. We could be on the road for two weeks, and he always wore the same thing: white patent leather shoes, blue Sansabelt slacks, and a white golf shirt, tucked in. And it wasn’t one of those stylish Arnold Palmer–type golf shirts that were popular at the time. No, Frank’s shirt had a stiff collar that never seemed to lose its crease. He wore his pants high, like some clueless grandpa, but underneath his throwback outfit you could see he was still in terrific shape. You could see it in the locker room, when he walked around in his jockstrap, but you could see it away from the ballpark, too—he was maybe carrying an extra ten pounds from his playing days, but he was ripped.
The thing is, that’s the only outfit he ever wore. Ever. He’d get to the clubhouse, strip naked, hand his clothes to the clubbie to be washed and hung out to dry, and slip into his uniform. Every day, he’d do the same thing, so in Frank Howard’s worldview there was no need for a change of clothes.
Again, pretty hilarious—but, also again, something we knew not to laugh about or comment on or acknowledge in any way.
From time to time, Frank would step away from the ballpark while his one outfit was out of circulation, so he’d get dressed in his uniform and head out for a haircut, say. He’d sit himself down in the barber’s chair like he was about to take the field, stirrup socks and everything, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Once, he left the ballpark with a member of his coaching staff to make an appearance at a local youth clinic that had been set up by the Mets’ front office. We were always being sent here and there on behalf of the ball club, reaching out into the community. Here again, Frank left the stadium in full uniform, which made for another hilarious picture when he found himself stuck at a tollbooth at one of the bridge crossings bracketing Shea Stadium. It was one of those old-style tollbooths where there’d be a basket hung out to collect your change, and Frank just sat there in the driver’s seat, tapping the steering wheel, waiting impatiently for the gate to go up.
Finally, Frank turned to his coach and said, “Motherfuckers are taking a long-ass time to get me my change.”
The coach, perplexed, looked at the manager and said, “What the hell you talking about?”
Frank said, “My change. What’s taking them so long?”
“You paid the toll, right?” the coach asked, making sure.
“Damn straight,” Frank said. “Five fucking dollars.”
Yep … that was Frank Howard. A different animal, from a different time. The kind of animal who’d put a five-dollar bill in a coin slot and wait the whole damn day while wearing his whole damn Mets uniform for the tollbooth gate to magically lift and his change to magically appear.
I heard that story and wanted to laugh my ass off—but here again, I was afraid to even crack a smile. We were all terrified of Frank—we rookies, especially. And we had good reason to be afraid, because there was one bus ride, early on in my first September sojourn with the team, when one of the veteran ballplayers at the back of the bus made a crack about Frank that seemed to make its way to the front on a wave of snickering. Frank must have had a sixth sense, to have been able to pick up on such as this. Or maybe he was just paranoid and had it in his head that any derisive laughter was somehow meant for him. Either way, he directed the bus driver to pull over, then stood up in the aisle, his big head practically kissing the arced ceiling of the bus, and lit into us.
He said, “You sonsabitches! You motherfucking sonsabitches! Talking about me behind my back like that! I’ll tell you one thing, not a one of you chickenshits has the balls enough to come up here and talk that kind of shit to my face, ’cause you know I’ll pinch your fucking head off!”
In all my time in baseball, then and since, I never heard a grown-ass man in what was ostensibly a leadership position scream with such cartoonish ferocity. His face was red, and I could have sworn there was steam coming out of his ears, and I thought, Holy shit! And underneath that one thought I could actually close my eyes and picture Frank Howard pinching the head from one of my wise-alecky teammates.
It was so … right there. And, like I said, it was so … completely terrifying.
The bus fell quiet, and the driver continued on his way, and I don’t think I said a word to Frank the rest of the season.
I made my first start a couple days after joining the team—and as big league debuts go, this one was way more intimidating than the bluster that spewed from our clueless manager. I was due to face a Phillies lineup that featured three surefire Hall of Famers at the top of the order: Joe Morgan, Pete Rose, and Mike Schmidt. One, two, three.
As tough assignments go, this one had teeth! And hair!
I was staying in a crappy hotel by LaGuardia Airport on the night before the game, and as I tried to visualize and internalize and actualize the moment I wrote down all three names on a little scratch pad by the phone in my room. Then I tore off the piece of paper and brought it with me to the bed, where I looked at it long and hard. I lay down on the pillow, my head facing the ceiling, and tried to imagine how that first inning would go, against these three players headed to Cooperstown.
Morgan … Rose … Schmidt …
I spoke their names out loud. Over and over. I started chanting them. Over and over. I had no idea what the hell I was doing, or why, but I got it in my head that this was one way to stare down these all-time greats and psych myself up to where I could come at them the next day from a place of ownership, strength, confidence. Instead, I think I psyched myself out, and the prospect of getting through my
first big league inning with anything resembling my dignity seemed less and less likely each time I ran through that list of names.
I wrote about that first game at length in The Complete Game—in fact, I devoted a full chapter to it!—so I’ll thumbnail that opening inning here:
I struck out Joe Morgan, swinging.
I struck out Pete Rose, looking.
I got Mike Schmidt to ground out to third.
Then I walked off the mound to a standing ovation.
Indeed, there was a whole lot more to it than that, and looking back I’m sure the gloved hand of third baseman Hubie Brooks is still stinging from the screaming one-hopper he somehow managed to field off the bat of Mike Schmidt and throw down to first in such a way that the first ball put in play off of me could go down in the books as a routine grounder. Too, I’m sure the crowd’s reaction had more to do with the promise of what lay ahead for the team and the young talent that was starting to fall into place than it did with any kind of command I might have shown on that mound.
I revisit the moment here for the way it bumps into an observation I want to share about Pete Rose, who of course never made it into the Hall of Fame after it was determined that he’d bet on baseball—and after former Yale president A. Bartlett Giamatti, now acting as commissioner of Major League Baseball, placed Rose on the game’s ineligible list, effectively banning Rose from what had been all-but-certain enshrinement, and from participating in any and all baseball-related activities.
As a Yalie, I feel compelled to note that Bart passed away just eight days after issuing his ruling in the Rose case, suffering a massive coronary—and there are those who believe to this day that being forced to remove this apparent stain on the game he so dearly loved simply broke his heart. His death was one of the game’s great sadnesses, and the fact that it was tied to one of the game’s great shames made it sadder still.
It’s easy for the baseball purists among us to dismiss Pete Rose’s career on the back of his gambling addiction, but the Pete Rose I’ll always remember from my playing days was a gracious student of the game. He couldn’t have been nicer to me, whenever our paths crossed—couldn’t have been more generous with his time or his insights. He had one of the game’s most infectious personalities. He played with joy and abandon. If you suited up against Pete during his heyday, you probably hated him, because he did everything at full throttle. He was out to beat you in whatever way he could … in every way he could. But if you played with him, or if you rooted for him as a fan, he was a presence to behold.
Really, I don’t think I ever met a player on the field who loved the game of baseball more dearly than Pete Rose—a game he ultimately betrayed, a game that rejected him in turn.
Our time in the game overlapped at the twilight of Pete’s career, so I only faced him as a competitor when he was already something of an icon, chasing history. If you remember, the last couple years of Pete’s career, his story line was all about whether or not he’d break Ty Cobb’s all-time hit mark. That had become his focus—and the eyes of the game were upon him as he pursued his goal. What this meant, as far as we opposing pitchers were concerned, was that National League umpires were loath to call a strike when Pete was at the plate. You could throw the ball right down the middle, and you’d never get the call. Nobody ever said as much, and it’s not like there was this great conspiracy to help him along, but Pete clearly had the game on his side—not because umpires wanted to hand him the record, but because they didn’t want to take the bat out of his hands while he was in pursuit.
Understand, it’s not like Pete Rose was up there looking to walk. I suppose there’d been a time in his career when a walk was as good as a hit to Pete, but that time had passed. He wanted to get on base, and find a way to help his team win, but he wanted to get there by putting the bat on the ball. He wanted to do it on the merits. So if you had him 1–2, late in his career, you couldn’t put the ball on the black and expect to get the call.
You had to give him something to hit … or blow it past him.
4
“H” Is for “Hodges”
No, not that Hodges … the other one. Ron Hodges—the Mets’ (mostly) backup catcher, who’d been with the team for 10 years when I was called to the big leagues for the first time, on September 1, 1983. His tenure on the club went all the way back to the Mets’ “Ya Gotta Believe!” World Series team of 1973, so he was a bridge from how things were when I was growing up to how they were when I was coming up. He’d played with a lot of those Phase I Mets, like Buddy Harrelson, Jerry Grote, Cleon Jones, and Tug McGraw—and founding Met Ed Kranepool—so he’d been around, seen some things.
I was a student of the game, then as now, and I understood Ron Hodges’s place in Mets history, so it was a little bit thrilling to see him walk into the dugout a couple beats after I’d arrived, dressed as if for my first day of school, the white of my neatly pressed home uniform looking like it had been dipped in fluoride. But Hodges didn’t make an appearance in this story straightaway. He was more of a kicker to the tale—and it was a kick to the stomach, as you’ll see.
A little setup is needed for this one, and it has mostly to do with getting the call to the bigs and reporting to the stadium for my first day of work as a big league ballplayer. Let me tell you, there’s nothing like putting on a major league uniform for the very first time. It’s one thing to wear the Mets togs in spring training, but to arrive at the stadium to find a jersey with your name on it, hanging in a locker with your name on it … well, it’s one of the game’s true pinch me moments.
(Go ahead … pinch me!)
I was assigned number 44, which would not have been my first choice, or even one of my Top 40 choices, but I was not about to quibble. That was a slugger’s number (Willie McCovey, Hank Aaron, Reggie Jackson); a running back’s number (Leroy Kelly, John Riggins); a logo’s number (Jerry West). I thought it looked out of place on the back of a pitcher … but what the hell did I care, really? It was just a number, and it was stitched to the back of a uniform that fit like one of Dennis Eckersley’s suits, and as I put it on I took the time to wonder how they’d managed to get my measurements exactly right.
These big leagues were a magical place.
It just so happened that I was the only September 1 call-up that season; the Tidewater Tides were still contending and the parent Mets didn’t exactly have a pressing need for extra bodies, since the bodies they already had in place weren’t going anywhere. A couple of my minor league teammates would join me in the days to come, but for the time being I was the only newbie in the clubhouse. At first, I was the only player period in the clubhouse, because I’d arrived to the ballpark early—like, an hour or so early. I didn’t want to miss anything, didn’t want team management to realize they’d made a horrible mistake and called up the wrong guy.
I dressed and soaked in the scene, the quiet and splendor of a big league clubhouse. If we had cell phones in those days I suspect I would have snapped a picture to capture the moment, but as it was I had to make do with my eyes and ears to take it all in and file it away for posterity—and now, going on thirty-five years later, the watery eye of memory tells me I moved about that room like I belonged. In truth, that’s not how it was. I was tentative as hell, careful not to touch or upset anything or anyone. I knew a few players from spring training, but only enough to nod hello, so as these actual Mets started to trickle in and get ready for the game I flashed a couple tentative-but-knowing smiles, maybe said “Hey” a time or two, tried to play it cool.
When you’re a rookie, you’re careful not to step out of line, not to call too much attention to yourself, so I was definitely hanging back, and if someone was kind enough to offer a handshake in greeting, I was only too happy to take it. That’s kind of where I was in my thinking when I wandered from the clubhouse to the dugout. I wasn’t scheduled to make my first start for a few days, but I wanted to check out the field, see what Shea Stadium looked like—what it felt like!—from the
players’ seats. I was the only one there, didn’t really have a job to do that day except to familiarize myself with these new surroundings and try not to come off as an overanxious fool, so I sat down on the bench and imagined myself into the scene. It’s telling, looking back, that even though I was actually in the scene, I was still thinking a dream was required.
One by one, the Mets players spilled in from the clubhouse, and the dugout started to fill with the hum of pregame chatter. Nobody really paid any attention to me. I was just sitting off to the side, taking it all in, and it was then that I noticed Ron Hodges—the lesser Hodges, as what happened next would reveal. He’d been out in the bullpen, warming up the pitcher, and he’d just walked across the field to get himself situated. What I was realizing, in these early moments, was that major league ballplayers were creatures of habit, believers in routine. Everyone seemed to have a spot on the bench they liked, a series of warm-ups they fell into without thinking, a way they liked to park their gear. Ron Hodges was just going through his usual motions, such as they were, and at some point he took note of this Day One rookie, sitting ramrod straight in his starch-white uniform with the slugger’s number on the back, looking brand spanking new and (probably) completely out of place.
He started to walk over to me—and, greenie that I was, my first thought was that he was coming over to say hello.
Yeah, right.
Oh, I was in his sights. And he was coming over to greet me … I guess. It’s the way he did it that I found surprising, and more than a little dispiriting. He stopped about a foot away from where I was sitting, still just a handshake’s reach away. But Ron Hodges didn’t extend his hand. He didn’t say a word, didn’t even make eye contact. Instead, he suck-whistled on the considerable store of tobacco juice he had working in his cheeks, turned ever-so-slightly to face me, and sent a stream of the stuff hurtling toward my virgin uniform. A thick, brown wad of tobacco spittle alighted on my pant leg, where it immediately formed a kind of Rorschach ink blot pattern that looked, from a distance, like my thigh had the runs.