May 08, 2008 11:15 am
—
By ERIC AHLQVIST
Cooperstown Crier
Dick Williams managed
over 3,000 major league
games during his career, and
had a winning percentage
just slightly over .500.
That’s because his gift as
a manager was taking over
perennially losing ball clubs
and transforming them into
winners, sometimes even
World Series champions.
Williams was elected to
the National Baseball Hall of
Fame by the Veterans Committee
last February, along
with four others who will be
inducted on July 27 along
with BBWAA electee Rich
``Goose’’ Gossage.
He made his orientation
visit to the museum last
Thursday, which included a
tour of the Hall, and spoke
with reporters afterward in
the plaque gallery.
``I’m absolutely blown
away,’’ Williams said of his
tour, which was the first time
he visited the museum despite
playing in five Hall of
Fame Games over the years.
``It’s unbelievable. This is the
pinnacle of your profession,
and I’m just tickled.’’
After an uneventful 13-
year major league career,
Williams’ first managerial
job was with the Boston Red
Sox in 1967, a season now
known as the ``Impossible
Dream.’’
The Red Sox were a dismal
franchise when Williams
took over, but he led them to
an improbable pennant, the
franchise’s first since 1946,
and lost a tight, seven-game
World Series to Bob Gibson
and the St. Louis Cardinals.
``The only thing I said
when I took over was that we
were going to win more
games than we would lose,
and people laughed,’’ Williams
recalled. ``But everything
went right that year,
and that was the beginning
of what is now known as Red
Sox Nation.’’
After that season, Boston
leftfielder Carl Yastrzemski,
who hit for the Triple Crown,
was named MVP, pitcher
Jim Lonborg won the Cy
Young and Williams was
named Manager of the Year.
While that season put him
on the map as a manager, it
was his next stop in Oakland
that he said was the highlight
of his career.
Williams was fired by the
Red Sox late in the 1969 season,
and took over the A’s in
1971.
Like he had in Boston
with Yastrzemski, Williams
had other future Hall of
Famers with the A’s, including
outfielder Reggie Jackson
and pitchers Jim ``Catfish’’
Hunter and Rollie
Fingers.
They won back-to-back
World Series titles in 1972
and 1973.
``Players make the manager,
managers don’t make
players,’’ Williams said.
``Winning the World Series is
the thing I cherish the most.
The ’67 season in Boston was
very special, and ‘Yaz’ had
the best year of anyone I’ve
ever seen even to this day,
but winning the World Series
is why you play and why
you manage.’’
Williams described his
style as ``My way or the highway’’
and insisted his team
play hard and play sound
fundamental baseball. While
his strict style was effective
for a couple of seasons, it
usually wore thin with players
after that.
``I was usually three seasons
and done,’’ Williams
said. ``I learned how to play
baseball the right way and I
expected my players to do
the same.’’
Williams went on to manage
the Montreal Expos to
back-to-back 90 win seasons,
although they did not even
win their division, and led
the Padres to the 1984 National
League pennant,
where they lost the World
Series to the Detroit Tigers.
Rich ``Goose’’ Gossage was
the closer on that team, and
will join Williams on the podium
this summer. Gossage
is the lone inductee from the
baseball writers vote.
``The first thing Goose
said to me after he heard I
was elected was ‘I shouldn’t
have pitched to (Kirk) Gibson,’”
Williams said with a
laugh.
Gossage famously talked
Williams out of walking Gibson
in Game Six of the Series,
and Gibson promptly
homered on the first pitch to
all but seal the Series win for
the Tigers.
As the July Induction
draws near, Williams said he
is constantly tinkering with
his speech.
``I’m not going to give it all
away, but my wife and children
come first,’’ he said.
``I’ve learned a lot of things
about the game from a lot of
different people, and I want
to make sure I mention them
all.’’
Note: Williams was one of
five inducted by the Veterans
Committee in February. Also
to be honored July 27 are
Barney Dreyfuss, Bowie
Kuhn, Walter O’Malley and
Billy Southworth.
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