Wilmington Evening Journal - July 24, 1980

Phillies must stop crying to start winning

By Ray Finocchiaro, Staff Writer

CINCINNATI – Dallas Green looked up from his plate of spare ribs at the half-dozen writers entering his office. He shook his head and eyed a spare rib.

"Write what you saw," the Phillies' manager said resignedly after the Phils' 7-3 loss to the Cincinnati Reds last night at Riverfront Stadium. "I'm running out of things to say."

And do. "I don't know what more we can do," he said to a question. "If I knew, I'd have done it. Sometimes it just takes a little patience. I know we're not as bad as we played the last 10 days."

Dismayed by a six-game losing streak, stung by criticism from one of his star players, out of new things to say to a team that has proven a bit hard of hearing, Green swallowed last night's loss harder than he did the spare ribs he attacked with little vigor.

Green had heard about injured outfielder Greg Luzinski's quotes, comparing the manager to "a bleeping Gestapo" and suggesting that Green refrain from flaying the players in print. Luzinski felt it "put too much pressure" on the team, as if the club had one of baseball's highest payrolls just to play for the fun of it, though there hadn't been much of that either of late.

"I haven't read what he said, so I can't say whether it makes sense or not,” Green said of Luzinski's statements, which seemingly blamed everyone but the players for the team's current skid. "He's entitled to his position, but how would he know? He hasn't been here."

Wthe Phillies were losing three games in Atlanta and a three-game set to the Reds, Luzinski was rehabilitating his sore right knee in the bowels of Veterans Stadium, where he has been hitting, running and reading the papers.

Luzinski didn't like what he read. "I stay at home and read the papers and it really disappoints me," Luzinski said. "It ticks me off, putting quotes like that in the papers all the time."

Green's reaction? "He shouldn't read the papers."

The Phillies' problems will not go away by clamping a muzzle on the manager. If he hurts a player's feelings after a loss, it's probably because Green is tired of seeing the same mistakes, despite prodding and pleading with the players and talking to the press.

Green talks of the team's character, which he says is improving, and then one of the principal cogs in the wheel claims Green shares in the victories but blames only the players for defeat. "We, Not I" doesn't include the manager when the team loses, Luzinski decides.

Green's own major-league statistics couldn't buy a ticket into Cooperstown, but he hung up the glove years ago. It's the players who make the hits and outs now, who draw the big paychecks and sulk when their egos are singed by a Green quote or a writer's barb. That is when a guy making half a million dollars a year for playing a kid's game acts like a kindergarten crybaby. He pouts, points fingers and does everything but look in the mirror, which Green has also suggested to a few of his players this season.

It is the players who will flaunt their World Series rings and make soft-drink commercials if they go all the way. It won't be Green's face on the cover of a national magazine if the Phillies win it all. So it shouldn't be the manager's job to take the heat for the misplays and half-hearted performances, either.

Last night's game was a typical example of bad plays nullifying good ones.

Third baseman Mike Schmidt, who tagged his 259th career homer to tie Del Ennis' club record, inadvisedly tried to get the lead runner after fielding a seventh-inning sacrifice bunt. Schmidt's throw was late and set the stage for two Cincinnati runs that broke the game open.

Starting pitcher Nino Espinosa, staked to a 3-1 lead and trying to finesse his way past one of the best-hitting clubs in the league, walked three batters in the fourth and watched them all score. Espinosa, who doesn't waste words with Green or the media because of what he considers past slights, was the loser.

A young pitcher named Bruce Berenyi, with the Reds since July 4, won the game by holding the Phils at bay while the Reds counterattacked. Reds' hitters sacrificed, hit behind the runners and did things the team way. Nobody tried to carry the club on his shoulders. And the team won.

The Phillies, meanwhile, hobbled home from a 3-7 road trip, a far cry from the 3-1 start that brought them visions of a shot at first place. Two victories in Houston, first in the West, and another over longtime pitching nemesis Phil Niekro in Atlanta can work wonders for a team's confidence.

So what happened?

"There was no indication that we'd get absolutely nothing the rest of the way," said Green, shaking his head. "You'd have to say we'd roll over these pitchers after beating the guys in Houston and then Niekro."

Last night the Phillies blew another lead and lost again. There were no post-game quotes from the players, who cowered by their lockers and avoided writers' glances until the bus left for the airport.

Today is an off-day for the Phillies. No voluntary hitting or fielding, just a chance to mend old wounds while Green reads Luzinski's comments and looks for new answers.

"After a disaster like this, an off-day will certainly help," Green said. "We'll get our thoughts together, relax a little bit. It may be just the ticket."

LUZINSKI, who is gearing himself toward coming off the disabled list, will be running in the Vet today. The Bull is admittedly concerned about his knee, his career and his fading statistics. He fears the general housecleaning Green has hinted should the Phillies fall on their faces again, as they did in their fourth-place slide last season.

Luzinski doesn't like the boos or the digs in the papers or the pressure from the front office to win. He apparently subscribes to the theory that the best way to dispel bad news is to kill the messenger... or the guy giving out the quotes.

But Green is a rare bird in this major-league playground, a manager who actually might outlast the 25 players you supposedly can't fire. His greatest asset, of many, is a candor that cuts through the soft soap, that doesn't coddle players into believing that all will be well down the road when the foundation is in danger of collapsing before the month is out.

Green is an organization man in an organization that has swallowed more lumps than it has had to. He calls the shots as he sees them and doesn't worry about being a buffer between a prying press and the overbur dened players. He is not the pushover the players had before and would prefer now.

It would indeed be a shame if Green changed his gruff, grind-'em-out style because a threatened player found a public crying towel and had the gall to say of his manager, a guy who had backed him through good times and bad, that "he's trying to be a bleeping Gestapo."

"I'm sure he didn't say bleeping," said Green, who didn't say bleeping. "You couldn't put that in the newspaper."

Luzinski didn't say bleeping. They couldn't put what he said in the newspaper. But people got the idea anyway.

Dallas Green didn't seemed cowed by the Bull's critique. On the flight home, the manager managed a smile.

"He ain't seen nothing yet," he promised.