Jim Palmer: Nine Innings to Success: A Hall of Famer's Approach to Achieving Excellence
240
Jim Palmer: Nine Innings to Success: A Hall of Famer's Approach to Achieving Excellence
240Hardcover
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781629372266 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 06/01/2016 |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Sales rank: | 1,006,216 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Jim Palmer: Nine Innings to Success
A Hall of Famer's Approach to Achieving Excellence
By Jim Palmer, Alan Maimon
Triumph Books LLC
Copyright © 2016 Jim Palmer with Alan MaimonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62937-226-6
CHAPTER 1
1st Inning: Learning
Life is about opportunity. And if success is important to you, you'll have no qualms about going wherever that opportunity surfaces. With that in mind, let's take a trip back in time to the summer of 1963. The location: a tiny hamlet in southern South Dakota called Winner, a rural outpost tucked away off a lonely stretch of highway somewhere between the towns of Mission and Ideal. One name seemed to be a misnomer; the other had some symbolism. Was the location ideal? No, not really. But was I on a mission to become a winner? Yes, absolutely.
Of all the summers of my youth, this one shaped up to be the most pivotal. I had just graduated from Scottsdale High School in Arizona, where I starred in baseball, football, and basketball. On the diamond I had established myself as enough of a prospect to earn a chance to try out for the Basin League, which was halfway through a two-decade run as a showcase for the nation's top amateur talent. I ended up making the team. Of all the players who passed through South Dakota that summer, I was the only one who hadn't entered college yet. My teammates in Winner included future Cy Young award winner Jim Lonborg, who at the time was just a humble biology major at Stanford.
The Winner Ritz-Carlton must have been booked because my teammates and I were all piled into the basement of a house with no air conditioning. The outside temperature would get up to 90 or 100 degrees during the day, creating a sauna-like atmosphere in the basement. Late at night, however, it cooled off enough to allow us to sleep through until mid-morning. At around 10:00 am, there'd be a knock at the basement door, and the poor guy, who I'm guessing juggled owner, general manager, manager, and wake-up call duties, would tell us to get up and report to our jobs, which the NCAA required that we have. Job? I didn't know I had one. But when I arrived at the ballpark and was handed a rake, I figured it out pretty quickly.
My routine in Winner was simple. Before games I raked the mound. And during games I stood on the mound and hoped opposing hitters didn't rake my pitches. That's how the summer went. We ended up losing in the Basin League playoffs, but my performance got the attention of Orioles scout Jim Russo and Harry Dalton, who ran the organization's farm system. It also drew the interest of Paul Richards, who had recently resigned as Orioles manager to become general manager of the Houston Colt .45s. I met with representatives from both teams when I returned home to Scottsdale, Arizona, and ended up signing a $40,000 contract with the Orioles. That was the best decision I ever made. As I once said in Sports Illustrated, if I had played my career for the Houston Astros, who didn't win their first pennant until I was 60 years old, I would likely have had a good but not great major league career.
I'll get back to South Dakota shortly. But for the moment, let's move down the map to Thomasville, Georgia, the town where the Orioles used to send their low-level minor leaguers for an eight-week intensive course in the fundamentals of the game. In Thomasville, I got my first introduction to "The Oriole Way." And from the day in 1964 that I showed up to camp there to the day that I retired from the game in 1984, I remained immersed in those principles. They shaped my career — and, to a significant extent, who I am. It wasn't an accident that I never played a game for another professional organization.
In Thomasville the players didn't live in a basement. In what may or may not have been an upgrade from cellar dwelling, they assigned us to an old army barracks that shared property with a facility that housed a bunch of World War II veterans. We dined in a mess hall and were roused from bed each morning by a bugle call. In that militaristic environment, the likes of Earl Weaver, who managed the Orioles' Double A farm club in Elmira, New York, and Cal Ripken Sr., who helmed a minor league team in Aberdeen, South Dakota, served as our MacArthur and Patton. They imparted a number of lessons, including that Orioles farmhands didn't cut corners. During an intra-squad scrimmage, I lined out to right field to end an inning. I ran hard out of the batter's box but only made it halfway to first base before the outfielder snared the ball. At that point, I turned and headed to the dugout, where I grabbed my glove and went out to the pitcher's mound. That night at dinner, one of our instructors, I think it was Earl, called me out in front of all the players for my perceived lack of hustle. "Did you run that ball out?" he asked me. "We run balls out in the Oriole organization. We run all the way to first."
This was the first time I laid eyes on the little pudgy guy whom I would come to regard as both a nemesis and a genius. Earl had run the Thomasville camp since 1961. I didn't get to know him well that spring and I don't recall seeing his explosive temper on display either. I just remember we had an incredible two months. I learned a lot about the game from Earl, Cal, and the other instructors. And their teachings paid immediate dividends. Pitted against other teams' best young players, we won 14 games in a row.
I thought I would have the chance to spend more quality time with Earl in 1964, but instead of getting assigned to his Double A team in Elmira, I received instructions to report to Cal's A ball squad in northern South Dakota. The town of Aberdeen had mosquitoes the size of B-52 bombers, but it also had a great mentor who taught me life lessons that I would constantly harken back to as I went through my career. Cal distilled his message into a few commandments.
You're never going to let anyone outwork you.
You're going to be a great teammate.
You're going to have fun — and part of having fun is winning.
You're going to have a passion to get a little better every day.
Cal also reminded us to always credit the people who made it possible for us to play the game professionally in the first place: the fans. Without them we were just guys playing baseball in an empty stadium. It's worth mentioning that Cal's four-year-old son, Cal Jr., joined us for the summer and soaked it all in. As I watched him run around the field before games, I thought to myself, Someday, this kid is going to play in 2,632 consecutive major league games. I'm kidding, of course. But there is definitely something to be said for growing up an Oriole.
At 18, I was one of the youngest players on an Aberdeen roster that featured nine future major leaguers. I roomed with Dave Leonhard, who was 23 and a college graduate. Davey and I didn't have a whole lot in common on paper, but we hit it off really well. Davey not only possessed a bachelor's degree in history, but he also had obtained it from one of the nation's premier institutions of higher learning, Johns Hopkins University. The baseball season at Johns Hopkins consisted of about 12 games, which was the precise number of times scouts didn't show up to watch Davey's team play. Upon graduation he put his degree to use by teaching high school English in the Baltimore area. It never crossed his mind that he would have a shot at playing professional baseball. But a chance encounter with an Orioles scout named George Henderson at a local sporting goods store changed the direction of his life. Henderson had watched Davey pitch in a church league against a team he was monitoring and thought enough of what he saw to offer him a contract. This was in the spring of 1963. Davey politely declined the offer, citing his contractual obligations to the school that employed him. When the scout informed him that he wouldn't have to report to his rookie league team in Bluefield, West Virginia, until June, Davey changed his mind. "I needed to find a summer job anyway," he told me soon after we met. Whereas I signed for $50,000, Davey received no cash bonus, but the scout did help him get a 20 percent discount on the spikes he was looking at in the sporting goods store that day. He also encouraged Davey to change his date of birth on the contract so that he wouldn't get heat for signing a player of such advanced years.
Part of the reason why Davey and I became such quick friends is because our teammates viewed us both with a degree of suspicion. Some guys resented that I had signed for a significant amount of money, and they looked for signs that I was pampered and unwilling to pay my dues. I made sure they couldn't find any. Davey was a bit more erudite than everyone else on the team. That opened him up to the scorn of his lesser educated brethren. But he, too, proved that he was willing to outwork anybody. Neither of us drank or partied much with our teammates, getting the most out of our $3 per day in meal money. That, too, fed our outsider status. Davey and I remain great friends to this day.
Cal Sr. treated all of his players the same, but he was enough of a talent evaluator to know which of us had the potential to go places. He also recognized that talent and potential alone weren't enough to take a player from A ball to the majors. An aspiring major leaguer needed discipline and focus, too. I remember one night after an extra-inning game in St. Cloud, Minnesota, when some teammates and I went to a pool hall down the street from our hotel. Our 12:00 am curfew was approaching, but we thought we could squeeze in a couple of games. Right around the stroke of midnight, I was at the table about to strike the ball when my cue bumped up against a wall. Except it wasn't a wall. It was Cal, who looked none too pleased that I wasn't back at the hotel. "There are suspects, and there are prospects," he said. "Prospects make curfew."
"Yessir," I replied before putting the cue back on the rack and walking out the door.
The Aberdeen club started out something like 25–4 and cruised to a league title while cruising around the Upper Midwest (and Canada) on a rickety old school bus. I tied for fourth-most wins on the team with 11 and threw a no-hitter, but I also walked 130 batters in 129 innings and led the Northern League in wild pitches. Davey, the "college boy," led our staff with 16 wins. When I threw strikes, I kept opposing hitters at bay. But I didn't throw nearly enough of them. As crazy as it sounds, I had no idea where the ball would go when it left my hand. Obviously, that is a huge stumbling block for a pitcher who hoped to make the majors. I needed help and, over the next couple of years, I would get it from some of the best baseball minds around.
Billy Hitchcock, the former Orioles manager who served the organization as a roving instructor, took me aside after one of my starts in Aberdeen. If it was like most of my outings, I probably struck out four, walked nine, and got the win. He introduced himself and told me he liked my velocity. Then he asked me a question: "Has anybody ever told you that you don't have to throw every pitch as hard as you can?" As a matter of fact, nobody ever had. I took his comment to heart.
The old adage about baseball being a game of failure is true. Take a starting pitcher who loses four out of every 10 games over the course of a lengthy career or a veteran everyday player who fails to get a hit seven out of every 10 times he comes to the plate. There's a pretty decent chance that at least one of those players is going to end up in Cooperstown. Even the best major league pitchers aren't going to get wins every time out, and the most talented major league hitters are going to be retired far more often than they reach base. If you can't accept and move on from failure and disappointment, you'll drive yourself crazy with frustration.
In 1964 I played with Lou Piniella in Aberdeen and in the Florida Instructional League. You couldn't miss Lou in the dugout because he would lose his mind every time he made an out. I mean he'd really go crazy, smashing his batting helmet against the dugout wall until it split in two. After lining out with the bases loaded to end an inning, Lou stormed back to the dugout and took his anger out on the helmet. As the spectacle unfolded, our second baseman Bobby Litchfield said, "You know, Lou, just relax. Even if you hit .300, you're going to break seven out of 10 helmets. With the kind of money we're making, I'm not sure you can afford that." Lou started laughing. He controlled his temper enough to enjoy a successful major league career in which he hit around .300 every season. All his bottled up emotions didn't boil to the surface until Lou became a manager and threw some Weaver-like tantrums on the field.
In June of 1964, the Orioles and a select group of the organization's high-level minor leaguers came to Aberdeen to play an exhibition game against us. Sometimes you get humbled, and this was one of those times.
My teammate Eddie Watt, who dominated the Northern League that season with a 14–1 record, got the start. I remember that Eddie's dad had hopped in his car and driven up from Sioux City, Iowa, to watch his son go up against major leaguers. Facing the likes of Brooks Robinson and Boog Powell, Eddie didn't fare well at all. I forget how many runs they scored off him, but I distinctly remember a downtrodden Mr. Watt getting up from his seat in disappointment after an inning and a third and driving back to Sioux City.
I didn't throw a pitch that day, but I still got a real education, watching established major league pitchers like Milt Pappas and Steve Barber having an easy time with our lineup. We all get afflicted with self-doubt from time to time, and I found myself overcome by a wave of uncertainty that day. I was coaching first base late in the game when our opponents brought in a Double A pitcher named Steve Cosgrove. He had a zippy fastball that seemed to accelerate an extra couple of miles per hour as it neared the plate. And he had a curveball that absolutely dropped off the table, freezing batters and buckling their knees. It was one thing watching the mastery of All-Stars like Pappas, who had won at least 10 games in a season every year since he was a rookie, or Barber, who won 20 games in 1963, but Cosgrove was a 20-year-old minor leaguer playing for Earl Weaver in Elmira. I silently mused, If they throw like that at Double A, how are you supposed to ever get to Triple A or the big leagues?
As I observed him from the first-base coaching box in Aberdeen, I didn't know the whole story about Cosgrove. It turned out that he was a lot like me as a young pitcher. He could blow away hitters with his fastball, but he struggled with control. Some pitchers can work through that kind of problem, but Cosgrove's high-strung personality didn't mesh well with Earl's managerial style. When he pitched for Earl at Elmira, and later at Triple A Rochester, he would let Earl get into his head. Whenever he threw a couple of balls to a hitter, Earl would grumble, "Here we go again!" In Earl's complicated mind, those represented words of motivation. He signified his trust in you by sending you out to the mound. What you did out there was up to you. Cosgrove had the tools to be an accomplished pitcher, but at the end of the day, he could never pitch effectively for Earl. He never made it out of the minor leagues.
There's a simple lesson there: you can have all the natural ability in the world, but you have to figure out a way to channel your talent — and to forge at least serviceable working relationships with those in charge. I'll return time and again in the pages of this book to Earl Weaver and his leadership style. I figured out early on in my major league career how to deal with Earl's bluster, but I recognized that not everybody had that same capability. Life and baseball can be unforgiving, and we all know a few Steve Cosgroves, people who had extraordinary ability but, for one reason or another, couldn't get over the top.
Did Earl Weaver destroy the confidence of his players with his sharp tongue and crusty personality? Yes, that had to be considered an occupational hazard of playing under Earl. But it doesn't do him justice. He was a great player development guy during his time in the Orioles' minor league system and, when he became skipper of the Orioles after the All-Star break in 1968, he invested himself fully in trying to get the most out of his players. But here's the most important thing you need to know about Earl: he didn't want you to like him ... And he didn't want to like you. In his mind any type of kinship between player and manager prevented him from being a true leader. I'm not sure I fully agree with that opinion, but it certainly worked for Earl.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Jim Palmer: Nine Innings to Success by Jim Palmer, Alan Maimon. Copyright © 2016 Jim Palmer with Alan Maimon. Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books LLC.
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Table of Contents
Contents
FOREWORD BY ROY FIRESTONE,INTRODUCTION,
1ST INNING: LEARNING,
2ND INNING: BECOMING SUCCESSFUL,
3RD INNING: PERSEVERANCE,
4TH INNING: BUILDING TRUST,
5TH INNING: EXCELLING,
6TH INNING: SUSTAINING SUCCESS,
7TH INNING: DIVERSIFYING,
7TH INNING STRETCH,
8TH INNING: APPRECIATION,
9TH INNING: ENJOYMENT,
EPILOGUE,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
Photo Gallery,