Free The Mouth That Roared by Dallas Green Page A

prevent the pitcher from hitting into a double play. Richie hated that move with a passion, because he saw it as giving up an out. “Goddamnit, Dallas, you can’t do that!” he yelled one time right before the cameras started rolling on a pregame interview. “Let the pitcher swing the bat!” Not that Richie was opposed to bunting. An outstanding bunter himself, he’d sometimes work with our players on how to best lay one down.
    When Richie returned to Philadelphia in ’63, he joined a group of us who played pick-up basketball games during spring training and the off-season. I had nowhere near the baseball ability of Richie, Curt Simmons, Chris Short, Johnny Callison, and some of the other Phillies who took part in the games. But on the basketball court, where I had many proud moments in high school and college, I could claim a certain degree of superiority. Only Robin Roberts, who captained the Michigan State basketball team for two seasons, had bragging rights over me.
    Robbie was the self-appointed team leader. Before every game, he’d say, “Alright, big boy, get the ball, throw it to me, and I’ll put it in the basket.”
    The strategy usually worked. We took on all comers and usually came away with a win.
    One time, Bobby Wine arranged for us to scrimmage against Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a church parish in North Philadelphia. Father Larkin, the parish priest, planned to raise funds by selling tickets to the exhibition.
    It sounded like a worthy cause, so we accepted the invitation without even asking who exactly we’d be playing. We figured it’d be a high school team or a group of priests, but it turned out to be teachers who worked with troubled kids at a school affiliated with the church. These weren’t kindly old schoolteachers. I noticed in warm-ups that quite a few of them could dunk the ball.
    A pretty large crowd filed into the gymnasium to watch the parish team take on a squad that included a couple of future baseball Hall of Famers. Father Larkin had a front-row seat for the action.
    From the opening tip, we took it to our opponents—at least on the scoreboard. But the teachers didn’t seem to care about the score. They were too busy knocking us around.
    I was getting banged around pretty hard in the lane. After a particularly flagrant foul, Richie looked over at Father Larkin and yelled, “Goddamn, your guys are the dirtiest sons of bitches I’ve ever played against!”
    At halftime, we regrouped. Dating back to high school, I could play the game as rough as anybody. I got a little physical with the teachers in the second half.
    I don’t remember the final score, but I know that if someone had pledged a dollar for every foul committed that night, the parish would have made out very well.
    It was exactly the type of situation Quinn wanted to avoid when he tried to ban us from playing these games out of fear one of us would get hurt. Maje McDonnell, a member of the Phillies coaching staff who also liked to shoot hoops, helped convince Quinn to let us keep playing.
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    In 1963, Gene got closer to his lofty goal of being the best manager in the business by guiding the Phillies to a record of 87–75.
    My future with the team hinged largely on Gene’s opinion of me. I was never going to be the ace of his pitching staff, so I went out and did the little things Gene admired. In 1963, I bunted when asked and didn’t commit an error. I also put together my best year on the mound, going 7–5 with a 3.23 ERA in 14 starts and 26 relief appearances. Above all, I worked hard and learned every facet of the game.
    It was hard to know, however, if any of this impressed a manager who had a reputation for loathing pitchers and younger players. I was a pitcher, and at least for a while longer, still a younger player.
    Ruben Amaro Sr., my Phillies teammate from 1960 to 1964, describes Gene this way: “Gene Mauch wasn’t an easy manager. He was a very ornery man who was angry at the world. He was