Here it is, frigid February, and I am suddenly feeling peppy again – because I talked with my pal Ron Swoboda down in New Orleans, getting his impressions of two very different managers, Gil Hodges and Gene Mauch. We were talking baseball, and I was immensely happy, being in touch with a guy I’ve known since spring training of 1964 when he was a bubbly Met farmhand and I was a full-of-myself young sportswriter in spring training. It is a well-known medical fact that the advent of spring training is an antidote for SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder. When I was a young reporter, as soon as the Super Bowl was over, the wires would run photos of the LA Dodgers working out informally in their pastel playground at Chavez Ravine before going to camp. Winter was on notice. It’s still that way, in the time of the troubles -- the triple-witching-confluence of dead-soul senators and the lack of Covid shots and the dismal weather all over the nation, including New Orleans where Rocky lives. But then, presto, in the past week, the Mets released their spring training schedule plus their regular season schedule, brought in two major-leaguers to fill out their roster, and announced that the very reliable pitcher, Seth Lugo, was having chips removed from his elbow -- plus the new owner and yet another new general manager to learn the job on the fly. That’s a lot of baseball news for a fan to mull. Swoboda and I were on the phone after a friend sent me a recently-discovered video of Branford Marsalis from NOLA, the saxophone master who plays jazz and classical, recalling his occasional appearances with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. (The video was from 1996, less than a year after Garcia passed.) Then our conversation swerved to Swoboda’s joy about the kidney transplant that has kept his friend and teammate Ed Kranepool going, and he tossed his usual rave for the tandem of Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman in the Holy Year of 1969. “If we don’t have those two guys, we ain’t in the World Series,” Swoboda exclaimed, not mentioning the diving catch he made that saved a game and maybe the Series. That’s a given. Then he said he wished the Hall of Fame would get its values in order and find a way to include Gil Hodges – “As a player! As a manager!” Fifty years after Hodges died of a heart attack, Swoboda is one of his greatest supporters, ruing the times he sassed Hodges when he was young, headstrong Rocky. He has realized – and written – that Hodges was a brilliant manager, often ahead of the action on the field. Hodges would make strategic decisions that made sense and often turned out correct. He was a Marine who had run the headquarters for his boss after the landing on Okinawa; he knew a thing or two about chain of command. With the Mets, he moved relief pitchers and pinch-hitters and platooned semi-regulars -- basic stuff -- and he made his decisions with his icy Marine stare, as fixed as a bayonet. Rocky rebelled, and earned himself an exile to another country – Montreal – in 1971 where the manager was Gene Mauch, the intense strategist who, oddly enough, had made his debut with Brooklyn as a teenager, just like Hodges. Two Branch Rickey guys. Swoboda had played against Mauch’s teams and now he wore the same uniform, watching Mauch make moves that had two or three layers that players (or anybody else) could not have predicted. One example of managerial maneuvering came on June 21, 1971, with the Expos holding a 2-1 lead going into the eighth inning in Atlanta. (One more reason I love baseball is that every play in more than a century can be demystified by records, particularly on the invaluable website retrosheet.org.) Jim Nash, a big righty with the Braves, gave up a leadoff single to Ron Hunt, the old Met. Mauch then sent up Clyde Mashore, a marginal right-handed hitter, to bunt for Mack Jones, a fading veteran. (“Mack might have hit one in the gap,” recalled Swoboda who observed all this from a seat in the dugout.) Mashore failed to bunt twice, so with two strikes, Mauch yanked him for Jim Fairey, a left-handed hitter who promptly flied to center field. As a result, Mauch’s machinations added up to nothing, but then Rusty Staub and Ron Fairly, both left alone to swing the bat, made hits, and the Expos scored two runs. But the Braves scored five times in the bottom of the eighth for a 6-4 victory. Swoboda, liberated for the second game of the doubleheader, went 0-for-3 ….and four days later he was traded to the Yankees. His Mets days were long gone. Swoboda has stayed with the game – for decades, broadcasting for the New Orleans minor-league team, now relocated, and appearing at Mets’ fantasy camps, and always one of the most popular old-timers to come back to New York. He suffers with the Mets, and inevitably the talk goes back to his first manager Casey Stengel and his polar opposite Gil Hodges, plus Swoboda’s pals, Ed Charles -- The Glider -- and Cleon Jones and Tommie Agee. It’s cold in New Orleans, and it’s cold in New York, but both of us are warmed. We are talking baseball. * * * The game Swoboda remembers: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1971/B06211ATL1971.htm Swoboda’s career records: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/S/Pswobr101.htm My NYT column about 1969 with help from Ron Swoboda: https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/02/sports/sports-of-the-times-amazin-mets-fans-will-always-have-1969.html The brilliant interview of Branford Marsalis, recently rediscovered:
ED MARTIN
2/17/2021 11:41:27 am
“The sun will come out, tomorrow, betcha bottom dollar....”
George Vecsey
2/17/2021 11:52:15 am
Ed: Nothing like the team of your childhood. I loved being around the LA Dodgers of early 80s -- my friend Bob Welch, Al Campanis (a good man), Newk,Rick Hunnicut, Dusty Baker, a few old Brooklyn hands in the organization. But once that time was over, I realized I was a Met fan , with many more work and fun experiences....and last year in the World Series I was watching strangers. GV
Altenir Silva
2/17/2021 12:41:42 pm
Dear George,
bruce
2/18/2021 01:33:44 am
george,
bruce
2/18/2021 01:50:10 am
george, another bad editing job by my editor....
George Vecsey
2/19/2021 10:20:07 am
Bruce: Fire your copy editor.
bruce
2/19/2021 10:33:03 am
george,
ED MARTIN
2/18/2021 06:32:44 pm
Apropros of Bruce’s post, I saw a game in Montreal featuring, “Le Grande Orange.” (Fortunately, it was Rusty Staub, not you know who.
bruce
2/18/2021 07:30:22 pm
ed....he was the first real star for the expos and, if memory serves, there was a lot of very unhappy montreal fans who were more than a little angry when he was traded.
George Vecsey
2/18/2021 10:03:16 pm
I covered the first game in Jarry Park, 1969. League champion Cardinals at Expos -- they were still painting odd corners of the place when I got there 3 hours before gametime. Talked to fans down the right-field line -- older ones all wanted to talk about seeing Jackie Robinson in 1946. Great fans and great city, Snow still melting in shady places in downtown Montreal. I miss Montreal.
bruce
2/18/2021 10:15:52 pm
george,
George Vecsey
2/19/2021 10:25:56 am
Bruce, the flip side is Montreal in mid-summer -- spirited people wearing not very much center city. We were there one July -- swam in some pretty little lake in the Laurentians, great dinner, heard Lambert, Hendricks and Ross in some club, then wandered into the disco in the basement of the Loew;s Hotel. Memorable, partially because it was Montreal.
bruce
2/19/2021 10:40:17 am
george,
ED MARTIN
2/19/2021 11:54:40 am
Re Montreal Memory, Peggy and I celebrate our anniversary, Sept. 5 and we attended a Charles Aznavour concert at Palais d’Arts. Aznavour sang “Happy Anniversary.” When we spoke with him later he said he would have dedicated it to us, if he had received Peggy’s note.
George Vecsey
2/19/2021 10:30:15 am
Mendel: Because of scorecards and sites like Retrosheet, games are never over. You can replay them, batter by batter, forever. I can find my first games -- one in the Polo Grounds, 1948, ended by a cheesy 254-foot homer, still hurts. Or go back to October, the Tampa Bay mgr taking out his best pitcher because that is his policy. (Even in the World Series.) That one is over...but it aint over. GV
bruce
2/19/2021 12:22:38 pm
ed,
Andy Tansey
2/20/2021 07:28:28 am
At the risk of consciously hijacking the stream back to New Orleans (and then maybe Flushing), thanks, George for the insight that Ron Swoboda is friendly with the Marsalis family. That may explain what I thought was Branford's questionable choice of headwear. Even as that deeply scarred 10-year-old Yankee fan living in a Flushing ZIP code in 1969, I still have fond memories of Swoboda. 2/21/2021 12:56:05 pm
It was a joy for baseball fans growing up in Upper Manhattan’s Washington Heights, years 1942-1947. There was a very heated, but civil, rivalry among Giant, Dodger and Yankee fans. Although we were in Manhattan, most of us were Yankee fans and most others rooted for the Giants. One lonely brave soul survived being an avid Dodger fan. I do not know if there was any correlation, but he was also left-handed. I say this with respect as Herbie was my best friend. Comments are closed.
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