On this week's Memory Lane, I caught up with former Pirates manager Jim Leyland. As someone who wasn't alive for most of Leyland's time in Pittsburgh I've always enjoyed hearing and reading stories about him.
When I started this podcast, Leyland's name was near the top of my list of guests I hoped to book. Sometimes it can be dangerous to get your hopes up when you have a big interview because the person could disappoint. Thankfully that was not the case here.
Jim was more than generous with his time. He was open, honest and even smiled a few times. We discussed a wide range of topics including his relationship with Barry Bonds, the infamous Sid Bream game, him winning the 1997 World Series with the Marlins and more.
I hope you all enjoy reading this transcript of the interview as much as I did putting it together.
Noah: You spent a lot of time in the minor leagues before getting your first opportunity to be a big league manager. What did it mean to you to get that first chance to be a major league manager in Pittsburgh?
Jim: Well, I was, you know, I was in the minor leagues 18 years with the Tigers and I moved over to Chicago to coach third base for Tony La Russa. As soon as I did, after my first year, I got a couple of interviews for jobs. I always seem to be the bridesmaid, always the runner up, and didn't know if it was really ever going to happen. I can remember when I finally did get the call from Pittsburgh, I remember telling Syd Thrift that if I was a serious candidate. I didn’t want to be just a newspaper article for another week. I resigned to come back with a White Sox as a coach but said he was serious. So I did come in for the interview. And I guess the rest is history.
Noah: You were named co-Manager of the Year in 1988. I bring this up because I heard in another interview how when you told your dad that you won a share of the award he joked back and said he wouldn’t be impressed until you won the whole thing for yourself. You followed up that story by talking about how your dad always motivated you. Could you discuss how he always found a way to get you to go further?
Jim: Well, I think your parents always have a lot of influence. Obviously, my dad was a former semi-pro player. Very much a competitor and things of that nature. So yeah, he always kept me humble. And he always kept me moving towards the next goal. So he didn't want you to be satisfied. I think he was thrilled that I was co-Manager of the year with Tommy Lasorda that year, but he really didn't want to let me know that. I think he would just have a good way of motivating you to, you know, to keep going forward and to try to keep achieving things and get better as you went along. So, I was a little disappointed when he said that at first, but I realized I knew my dad. And I realized that, like I said, that was just a motivation to keep me going.
Noah: Did you emulate his style of motivation with your players or even your own children?
Jim: I think so. I probably wasn't quite as hard as he was but I always tried to keep people motivated. I guess what I wanted to do was, I wanted to get the best out every player I had. I tried to get the best out of my family and my son and my daughter, you know, not being pushy, not being ridiculous, but at the same time, I always wanted the players to set their bar high. I thought the only way you could do that was to keep them motivated. Sometimes it's hard to motivate major league players. I've always taken the attitude that if you're playing the game of baseball at the Major League level you really shouldn't need to be motivated. You ought to be thrilled by the fact that you're in the big leagues, and you're playing at the highest level. That should be enough motivation. But sometimes things are going rough for players, you know, maybe they're not having a good year, and you just have to be there for them. My philosophy has always been you don't need the manager when things are going good. The press loves you, the fans love you. But when you've gone bad you're kind of an orphan, to be honest with you. Nobody talks to you much and you're not getting good publicity and things of that nature. So I always tried to be there when my players needed me the most.
Noah: You arrive on a team in 1986 that is in a very bad spot. Over your first four years you play a major role in helping the Pirates go from last place to a division title. Take me through that process. What was it like to see the big prospects called up, the trades be made and the wins start to come?
Jim: Well, I don't know if people really realize what a great job Syd Thrift did as our General Manager. He came in with a new attitude. He was a sharp baseball guy who had been in development and scouting for a long time. He knew how to go about it and he had a lot of nerves. He was not afraid to make a trade. Some GM’s can be kind of gun shy about that stuff but he was very good at it. Also, in practically every trade he made, he brought back some type of a pitcher. Maybe some no-name pitcher, but he always brought a pitcher back because he wanted to build up the pitching depth in the organization. So I think that turnaround really started with him doing a great job. And then we kind of, you know, carried it on from the clubhouse and the field, so to speak. But Syd Thrif deserves a lot of credit for what he did here. He did a great job.
Noah: So he brings the players in, then you're in charge kind of molding them. It becomes your responsibility to turn those young ball players into a winning team. How do you keep a young group like that, who had so much talent and promise, focused and composed through all the distractions and growing pains?
Jim: Well, I think you have to understand that patience is a virtue. They're not going to come up very rarely, even the star players that turn out to be stars and superstars really, don't come up to the major leagues and tear it up right away. So you have to be careful that you modify your expectations a little bit. You don't try to put too much pressure to break them in. You try to give them a little, take a little bit a little off, put a little on. You're just using your own site to, to kind of mold those players into the type of players you think they could be. That's your responsibility. My job is making players better. Ultimately, your job as a major league manager is to win. That's the bottom line for major league level. The prospects are for the minor leagues. The major leagues are about winning. We knew it was going to take some time. We were a young team and we tried to go slow with it. It actually came about right on schedule. I think in our fifth year, we won the division title for the first time. So it was a process, but it was a process that I think had to play out the way it did. You can't rush it. You can't make a five year player out of a two year player. It just doesn't work. There has to be some patience involved. But you could see at the end of the tunnel, there was a lot of light within that particular group.
Noah: I want to talk to you about one of the guys you managed in Pittsburgh: Barry Bonds. Obviously, there was the notable dustup you guys had in 1991 in spring training, and I know you've talked about this a whole bunch of times. But for those who haven’t heard your side of the story, can you explain what happened? Do you think that that moment changed your relationship at all with Barry and or anyone else on the team?
Jim: No, I don't think it changed anything. I think it was kind of an unfortunate situation, you know, come to find out later, it wasn't everything I thought it was. I'm not really proud of that situation. My language wasn't too good. I wasn't very proud of that. But at the same time, I just felt like Barry was being a little disrespectful to one of my coaches, Bill Virdon, in particular, a veteran guy, with a lot of thought behind his name. I kind of took it wrong, and I reacted and Barry reacted to me. Pretty much all my career, if you had something come up like that, where, you know, things don't always go great in the cut-offs. Every day, there are disagreements, there are some arguments. There's some yelling once in a while, I think if you don't tell that to people, you're lying, because they do happen. You have some friction every now and then. As a manager, your responsibility to handle it. Sometimes you handle it perfectly, other times you don't. That was a situation that just came up. It was kind of impulsive on both of our parts. It was over a half hour after it happened. We were in the clubhouse the next day basically not laughing about that but having conversation about trying to get better and making our team better and what kind of player he was and what kind of career I expected out of him because you can see the ceiling was so high. By the way he’s the best player I’ve managed and maybe the best player to ever play the game. We have a great relationship. I went out to his retirement ceremony in San Francisco when they retired his number. I spoke on the field. Barry and I remain very close. Barry was one of those guys that you had to keep him guessing whether you really liked him a lot or not. If you fell all over him, he didn't like that. He didn't like people throwing themselves all over him, asking him for stuff and trying to be his buddy. So I always tried to keep him guessing. Some days I'd walk by him and say hello and other days I'd walk right by and say nothing. I always wanted him to be a little uncertain on whether the old man likes him at all. But yeah, he's a great guy. He's got a great heart. He did a lot of behind the scenes and turned out like I said, to be one of the greatest players ever.
Noah: Do you think Barry deserves to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame?
Jim: I do. I think Barry Bonds is a Hall of Famer. I don't know if he will or won't get in. That's not up to me. That's up to the people that vote and I certainly respect that. You have to honor that. So whatever their decision is, you know, that's what you have to go with. But I think anybody in baseball that knows the game and knows how good he was, believes that he belongs in the Hall of Fame. He's certainly a good enough player to belong in the Hall of Fame. It's just whether he's going to get in or not. And I really don't have any idea. He has gained some, some votes the last couple times. Hopefully he gets in. Like I said, I don't pick the people to go to the Hall of Fame. But I think it's ridiculous that Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds are not in the Hall of Fame, I think are both Hall of Famers.
Noah: You're one of the few guys who managed during different eras of baseball. You were managing the Pirates in the mid-80’s but also were managing the Tigers in the 2010’s. You were around to see the game change. You had to adapt to all the new information. With that being said, if you found yourself in a similar situation in 2012, that you had with Doug Drabek in the final inning of game seven in 1992, do you think you would have made a different move? Or would you have approached the decision with the same mentality?
Jim: No, I don't think so. I think I would have made the same decision I made. We had a good closer in Stan Belinda. Drabek was really hot that night. I thought he deserved to go out there and try to end it. If we had Mariano Rivera I probably would have made the change. And that's not to disrespect Stan Belinda. He did an unbelievable job. In fact that night he pitched as good as you could have pitched. He got a ground ball. He almost got out of that thing with no runs at all. I thought he did a terrific job. So no, I don't think so. We had all the information, but I was going by what I saw. Doug was handling pretty good. You know, I believe in all that stuff with the information and everything, but I also believe you gotta use your eyes and your gut a little bit. And no, I wouldn't have done anything different.
Noah: It's tough, because every time you go with your gut and you’re right, people don't really remember. It's just always when it's the opposite end. So, I hear what you're saying.
Jim: Well, you know, the people talking about all this stuff in today's game, they might not all know what they're talking about. There's information you get from these people and when you're sitting up in a box, any one through nine, that's easy to look at all things as if all they are is addition and subtraction. That's really not the game. That information should all be relayed to the manager prior to the game and let the manager use that information when he sees fit and let the manager manage. Those people need to get the information provided for people. They're very valuable and very smart. Nobody's arguing that. But once they get that information, they need to stay out of the way because they can't manage.
Noah: Do you think that that was an example of that was in game six of the World Series this year with Kevin Cash’s decision to take Blake Snell out of the game?
Jim: Well, I have two opinions on that. I respect Kevin Cash. I think he's one of the best managers in all of baseball. I don't think there's any question about that. I respect Kevin Cash, because of the fact that he did it the way the Tampa Bay Rays do things. He stuck with that. He did not deviate from what they do. That's what they do. However, I still think it was a wrong decision for this reason: He had his number one starter pitching. He had given up two scratch hits, and had nine strikeouts. So to me, if you're talking about a fourth or fifth starter, and you know that it’s the third time around, maybe, but the way Snell was pitching that night, I think you've got to use what you see a little bit more and kind of get away from from what they had done. I think that's one of those things where, you know, no two games are the same. It's a little bit different. In my mind I looked at it like this: If I would have taken Justin Verlander out after two scratch singles in five innings, I probably would have been shot. I respect him because he stayed with the script and he stayed with what they did. He believed in it and he brought in a reliever that had not been that successful during the postseason, but had been a great reliever for him. I respect all that. I just think it was probably the wrong decision.
Noah: Moving on … After 1992 comes and goes, it's been said by many people that they knew that team wasn't going to stay together. Did you have any idea how hard it was going to be to compete in 1993? Did you know that it was going to be a significant drop off? Are you approaching that offseason with the mentality that you were losing some major guys, but you could still compete?
Jim: In Pittsburgh during those years, you knew we were not going to have the finances to go out and get the big free agents. We knew the payroll was not gonna be great. That's okay. I mean, in 1986, people don't believe this, our payroll was $10 million. I mean, you get that for just a little bit better than utility player today. So it was very unique, you know, I knew that we were never going to have the finances to go big and really make a lot of additions, but I thought that we could kind of maintain it with our farm system and maybe go out and get just a little bit of help. I thought that'd be possible. So I wasn't really shocked. I knew it. I knew that some guys were going to be leaving, I knew Bonds was going to be leaving. But we had a pretty good farm system. We still had some things going for us, like Jeff King, so you know, I thought we could maintain a lot. I didn't know for sure that we'd be able to win the division, necessarily, but I thought we could be okay for a while.
Noah: Did it hurt to leave Pittsburgh? Or were you excited for another opportunity?
Jim: Well, I never wanted to leave Pittsburgh, but I could see the writing on the wall. You know, when Kevin came in with the team, originally, they thought they might be able to get a couple guys at you know, smaller salaries and stuff, but maybe we can maintain a while. Then Kevin basically told me that they were gonna have to start all over again. So I could see the writing on the wall. But no, I did not want to leave. I mean, you know, it's pretty nice when you're living in your hometown, and you're managing your hometown, and the only time you're away is on road trips. So you're there. All year long. You're there all winter. You're there all summer, with the exception of the road trips and stuff. And I love Pittsburgh, I had a great relationship with the city and the people and I met a lot of people, a lot of friends. So now the last thing I wanted to do is go somewhere else. But you know, when you're a competitor, and your peers are telling you, you know, you're not gonna be able to compete, and people are gonna start questioning if you are a competitor. You need to move on. So they were right, I did need to move on. It was the right time. And now I'm very good friends with Kevin McClatchy. I understood what he was going through and what they were doing. I have no problem with any of that. But it was time unfortunately for me to move on.
Noah: In 1997 you moved on to a pretty good opportunity with the Florida Marlins. You win the World Series in what you’ve been on record saying was one of the best game sevens of all time. Can you talk about how important that game and series was for the history of baseball?
Jim: Well, obviously it was very important to me. And yeah, it was on those two teams. But, you know, I've been on record as saying, I truly believe this, if that game had been between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, it probably would have gone down as the second or third greatest seventh Game of the World Series of all time. Because, you know, because it was Cleveland in Florida, I think it never got the respect that it deserved. I mean, how can you have a better game seven, then good to go extra innings? 11 innings and the home team wins on a base hit with the bases loaded. I mean, that's pretty exciting. And that's a pretty good series. So I felt like that series never got the credit and deserved, it probably never will. But that was one of the greatest game sevens of all time. Without question.
Noah: Do you think that that was your best managing performance of all time?
Jim: I think I had really good players.
Noah: I think you did a pretty good job, too, no? You don’t think your management helped win the Marlins the World Series?
Jim: Well, you help win that game. You know, you're going to every game you try to manage to the best of your ability to try to put your team in a situation to win, you try to put your players in the most successful situations for them. So that's all part of management. I hope I did a good job. We won a World Series, so at least I didn't screw it up.I managed the best I could. Mike Hargrove managed the best he could. And we just have to come out on top.
Noah: So you do a couple years with Miami, you manage one year with Colorado and then you take a break from managing and you had different jobs in baseball. What made you want to take a break from managing?
Jim: Well, in Colorado I just did a bad job. I was a misfit there. I just I just made a mistake. I had a couple of friends that were on the club and I decided to go out there. It was a mistake. I just didn't do a very good job. I just couldn't manage the pitching staff in that ballpark. And I knew it. I didn't think it was right to stay there. So I left and as soon as I left, I ended up going back to St. Louis Cardinals. I worked for my friend Tony La Russa for six years. I went to work for the Cardinals and did some scouting right out of Pittsburgh. About the third or fourth year I saw how much fun the Cardinals were having they had good veterans clubhouse atmosphere was great. You know, Tony, kept pushing me a little bit and it started to come back a little bit. I said, ‘You know, I might want to do this again.’ And I didn't know for how long or if I'd ever get an opportunity. But the opportunity came up with the Detroit Tigers, which is the team I signed with as an 18 year old kid. So, you know, that took me a long time to get there when I finally got there.
Noah: How cool was that to come full circle, after all those years, finishing things where they started?
Jim: It was neat. During my time there, I was a minor league manager at triple A and had some success. There were some good teams but they had Sparky Anderson, a Hall of Fame manager. There was no way that I was going to get an opportunity there with Sparky there, which I understood. So I moved on to Chicago with Tony to coach for a while. I called him to tell him I was going to manage the Tigers. It was a big thrill because like you say, I signed up as an 18 year old kid and, and, you know, it looked like I was obviously gonna finish my career there.
Noah: I wanted to ask you about another managing job you had, which was with Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. Take me through the time you helped bring home the gold in 2017.
Jim: It was probably the best worst job I ever had. It was great because we built already accumulated a bunch of great players, both outstanding players and the right players for that venue. And it takes a special group of players I think for that particular venture. There was a lot of pressure and in that job because you were dealing with a lot of players that were under big contracts. Not that the money means anything, but it does. I mean, you got some of the star players that are making big salaries and everything, they just got to spring training. They're really not ready and you're asking them to amp up a little early. Earlier than they normally would. So you're a little nervous about injuries and things of that nature and you're responsible for some other teams players. So from that standpoint, it was a little bit of a nerve wracking job. On the other side of the coin, like I say, we put together a great group of guys with great personalities. Just great players and just the right mix. We really had a perfect mix in the clubhouse for that thing. And these guys were all in. They were all in from day one of the first workout. They were determined to win this and they were tired of hearing about the USA never winning it. Never getting to the finals, actually. So they were all in. And we just tried to kind of keep urging them along easy, you know, not put too much pressure on them, but just kind of, you know, prepping them along the way and trying to get them in the right mindset. So it worked out great. I'm proud to say that I was the first manager ever to win that thing with the USA. But you know, once again, it goes back to the players. I mean, we had the right players, we had good players, they performed and we ended up being the best team in the tournament.
Noah: My Final question: You got to talk with Derek Shelton, right after he was hired in Pittsburgh. I just want to go over that talk and ask you if you've remained in contact with Shelton throughout this past season.
Jim: Yeah, I just had breakfast with him a couple weeks ago, actually. I didn't talk to him too much during the season, but a few times, just through a text or a phone call because I didn't want to get in his way. When he came here I felt it was proper to go out of my way to welcome him and to let him know a little bit about what I went through here and how much I loved it and how much he was gonna enjoy the city and what a great place Pittsburgh was. I felt that was important. Maybe it would help relax him a little bit. Sometimes, you know, you've come up with your wife and kid and you're moving to a different place, it can be a little disruptive, but I just wanted him to know how much he was gonna love it. Pittsburgh people are gonna love him. I knew they would, and they will. So yeah, I keep in a little bit of contact with him, I really like him. I think he's a perfect fit for the job. And he's kind of where I was my first year. You're gonna have to have some patience, you know, you can't become impatient. I think he understands that. They’ve got a very bright General Manager, very smart. So I think things are going to work out. They're never going to spend a huge, huge dollars, I don't believe, and that's okay. There are teams with lesser payrolls, that one like Oakland and Tampa Bay, so you know, it can be done. And I think he's a perfect fit.
