THEY get away with this stuff in the movies all the time, so why not a harmless little newspaper column? Patrick Swayze’s ghost is the big star of “Ghost.” Warren Beatty spends most of “Heaven Can Wait” – as Casey Stengel once said – “dead at the present time.” Albert Brooks gets more laughs dead in “Defending Your Life” than most human beings get when they are very much alive.
The imagination can be a wonderful thing.
So let us imagine, for another few hundred words, what it would be like if the spirits of the two most beloved managers in the history of both of our baseball teams were released from their eternal addresses for a little bit, allowed a return to this mortal coil, permitted to reside in the souls, the stomachs and the brains of the men currently occupying their former offices.
Let’s face it: the poor guys could both use the help. I actually counted the other day while in the car: on both 660 and 1050, pushing the button madly, there were 47 consecutive callers who declared that Willie Randolph should be fired. And the dissenting voice who played Ken Keltner to that amazing streak said, “Wait until the season plays out, THEN fire him.” Joe Girardi? Even in New York, nobody is willing to start panicking over him. Yet. But admit it: there are times when you can maybe understand what was going through Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria’s head that day in his field box a few years ago.
Here’s the thing: what makes Willie Randolph and Joe Girardi such easy targets for angry fans – and what makes Gil Hodges and Billy Martin’s legacy grow ever stronger the more years pass – has only about 10 percent to do with strategies, batting orders, pitching changes and double switches. Ninety percent of the fondness for the old guys and the frustration for the new ones can be summed up thusly: attitude. New York loves a tough guy. Martin was a tough guy: kicking dirt on umps, challenging lazy sluggers, punching out marshmallow salesmen. Hodges was a tough guy: pulling loafing outfielders, fining recalcitrant players, chilling rookies with what his players called “The Stare.”
Maybe if talk radio and blogs were around in 1971 or 1983, years when their tough-guy magic didn’t work quite as well as, say, 1969 or 1977, there would have been waves of outraged fans barking about how the Mets needed “a players’ manager” or the Yankees needed “someone who understands them,” since fans are among the great contrarians of all time. But I doubt it. Mets fans are convinced that if Hodges hadn’t died, the entire deluge of 1977-83 would never have happened. Yankees fans believe that if Martin had the job security of Joe Torre, he’d have won more championships than Joe McCarthy and Casey Stengel put together.
Would that stuff play now? Would it work?
What if Willie Randolph, after watching Jose Reyes ease after a pop-up in short left field, or jog out a ground ball, or inexplicably decide to race to third base on a sac bunt (after not exactly making like Carl Lewis into second) methodically walked out to shortstop, chatted with him, hand in back pocket, then all but led him back to the dugout by his ear lobe? What if, in the fifth inning of a big game, with Oliver Perez a few outs from a win, with Perez having just surrendered a 450-foot foul ball to Chipper Jones, Randolph slowly walked to the mound, called in, say, Joe Smith, and made Perez take that walk of shame in the middle of a hitter?
Gil Hodges, rather famously, did both those things. Mets fans, you practically can knock them over with a feather when they recall those stories. Hodges got away with that, gets away with it still. Even Cleon Jones and Gary Gentry recall those moments fondly.
This is even more fun:
What if Joe Girardi, after a bad call at the plate, came out and covered Dana DeMuth’s shoes with dirt, then for fun ripped first base out of the ground and threw it into the expensive seats? What if Girardi, after allowing Mike Mussina to pitch to Manny, answered his media critics by saying, “[Bleep] you, you [bleeping] [bleeping][bleep], play the [bleeping] game once in your miserable [bleeping] life”? What if, for kicks, in a pennant race, he ordered Hideki Matsui to bat right-handed against B.J. Ryan? What if he ordered Derek Jeter to steal home in
the ninth inning with Alex Rodriguez up? What if, after Kyle Farnsworth blew a seventh-inning lead, Girardi went to his hotel room and knocked him cold with a straight right hand? What if Chien Ming-Wang and Andy Pettitte were on pace to throw 350 innings? What if, referring to A-Rod and Hank Steinbrenner, Girardi said, “One’s a born con man, the other was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple”?
Billy Martin, rather famously, did all of those things. And Yankees fans aren’t sure what gets them more verklempt, Gary Cooper’s “luckiest man” speech or the memory of Billy the Kid stalking Ron Luciano so angrily, Luciano should have sought a restraining order. Martin got away with that, got hired five different times to manage the Yankees. Hell, even Reggie Jackson can laugh about Martin now.
How you think that would work out for Willie, though? How you think that would work out for Major Joe? Still think it’s worth a shot?
Mike Vaccaro’s e-mail address is michael.vaccaro@nypost.com. His book “1941: The Greatest Year in Sports,” will soon be available in paperback in bookstores.
VAC’S WHACKS
And now, for this annual May rant: Fernando Tatis is the latest Met to wear No. 17, making him the latest reminder that the number, Keith Hernandez’s number, belongs off his back and on a fence at Citi Field next year. And because no one is presently occupying No. 30 for the Knicks, can’t we please finally plant Bernard King in the Garden rafters soon?
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I hate to point this out to Nelson Figueroa, who is a good guy and is one of ours and all that, but if the Nationals’ “softball girl” routine got to him that badly – and it got him badly enough that it knocked him all the way to the minor leagues for now – then maybe it, you know, worked.
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One point about Manny Acta, too, whom certain Met front-office types perceive as the second coming of John J. McGraw: He knows how to beat the Mets. But it sure seems he has a problem directing a cast of knuckleheads-on-parade as they slip on banana peels against the rest of the National League.
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You’d have to call it a fairly tough week for the distaff side when the No. 1 player in women’s tennis and the most famous name in women’s golf announce that they’re packing it in within a few days of each other.