Zimmer Has Learned His Share of Lessons

The other day, a red-faced, leather-lunged fan worked his way down to the Chicago Cubs’ dugout and shrieked at him. “You dumb so and so,” he yelled at Don Zimmer. “Don’t you ever bunt? You dumb so and so!”

And Zimmer replied with an ample shrug to his voice, “You’re right.”

Zimmer was Chicago’s miracle worker last year, but then again he has learned from San Diego to Boston and stops between that baseball fans have their own ideas. “You say that to him,” Zimmer said, “and -- you know -- he winds up your friend.”

That’s wisdom from a man who will never be seen as a wise man to the people of Boston, even if they have stopped sending him hate mail for 1978.

Wisdom was taking over the job of managing the Cubs in 1988 and before the season telling the general manager he’d be helping the club if he got rid of three bad actors, even if he got nothing in return. Zimmer proved right last year when the Cubs won a division championship.

His wisdom is made up of a treasure trove of little-known facts and anecdotes from a career that he began as one more guy who couldn’t move Pee Wee Reese out of shortstop.

You know that Gil Hodges was the slickest fielding right-handed first baseman of all time. Everybody knows that. Did you know he hated pop flies?

“Pee Wee had to catch them at first base,” Zimmer said.

In 1955, the blessed year of the Brooklyn championship, Zimmer played a lot of second base. “Everything that went up, I hollered, ‘I got it,’ ” Zimmer said. “Gil loved it.”

Of course, Hodges caught some pop flies very nicely, and Zimmer said he’d like to have $100 for every wild throw -- up the line, in the dirt, over his head -- that Hodges saved for him.

Reese was great on pop flies. Zimmer said his current shortstop, Shawon Dunston, is the best he’s ever seen because he runs so fast into right field.

The issue on the Cubs, when Zimmer came to manage the year before last, dealt with Damon Berryhill, the young catcher Zimmer wanted as backup. General Manager Jim Frey wouldn’t permit Berryhill to merely sit. So Zimmer told incumbent Jody Davis that he’d catch five days a week and Berryhill the other two. And that was fine.

But Berryhill began to hit, and soon Zimmer had him playing three days a week. “And before you knew it, he had the job and Jody made a big thing of it,” Zimmer said. “With six weeks to play, he had the antlers over his locker and a sign that said: 35 Days to Hunting Season. I’d have asked him to take it down or done it myself, but I knew Jody wasn’t going to be here.”

Frank DiPino and Jerry Mumphrey also left by a process known as addition by subtraction. Of course, outfielders Dwight Smith and Jerome Walton burst on the scene last season, but Zimmer couldn’t have known that would happen. He did know what he wanted to do from lessons learned at the feet of Leo Durocher, Walter Alston, Fred Hutchinson and Gene Mauch. Mauch would explain things to Zimmer, who wanted to learn why. Those other guys never explained. “I wouldn’t have asked,” Zimmer said.

Zimmer learned the way those Dodgers learned. Alston used to watch the trainer’s room; players who went for treatment didn’t play that day. One spring, Reese had a bad back, which made room for Zimmer to play. “I pulled a hamstring and I begged the trainer to treat me real early before Alston got there,” Zimmer said. “If he’d known, I wouldn’t have played.”

The manager was illustrating the toughness of Ryne Sandberg, whom Zimmer thinks is the best second baseman he’s ever seen -- better even than Bill Mazeroski, except at turning the double play. “To me he’s a quiet tough guy,” Zimmer said. “You get a lot of tough guys who want you to know they’re playing hurt. Ryne doesn’t care if you know.”

Reese once made the point that if he played only when he was 100 percent, he wouldn’t play more than 70 games. He’d have to make his living as a lookout.

Those Dodgers were the first team to have their own plane, and it was configured with a card table in the tail section. Alston permitted poker but put a limit of 50 cents a card. Billy Loes came equipped with $200 in singles and $40 in quarters.

The game started according to the rule; before long it was $5 and $10.

Alston would sit up front and Reese, the trusted captain, sat in the tail facing up the aisle. Alston would come halfway back and Reese would whisper, “Here he comes.” “All the big bills went under the table and all the quarters and singles on top,” Zimmer said.

Zimmer learned from those times. Do you think his business of walking Mike LaValliere of the Pirates every possible chance last year, because he was being Babe Ruth against the Cubs, or some of those other Zimmer moves came out of thin air?

It was in 1955 that Ed Roebuck was having a sensational relief season in three months of invincibility. Zimmer was playing shortstop, the Dodgers were leading the Phillies, 7-4, and the Phillies had bases loaded. Roebuck got two out and was facing Puddinhead Jones.

“Sinker in the dirt, ball one,” Zimmer said. “Sinker in the dirt, ball two. Sinker in the dirt, ball three. I call time and go to Roebuck: ‘Roomie, the bases are drunk. Walk him and it’s 7-5.’ He says, ‘I know what I’m doing.’ The next pitch is in the dirt. Jones walks. The next batter (Stan Lopata) hits to third base and the game is over.

“Afterwards Roebuck says, ‘Puddinhead never hits a single off me, he hits doubles or home runs. I wasn’t going to let him hit a double to tie the score. Stan Lopata, I can get out.”

So it was that some seasons later, after being fired in Boston as belated punishment for losing the 1978 playoff to the Yankees, that Zimmer was managing Texas. He walked Kent Hrbek with a one-run lead over the Twins, two out and nobody on in the ninth inning. “He was on a home-run streak,” Zimmer said. “The next guy was a good hitter -- I forget who -- but I didn’t want Hrbek to tie the score. (If) the next guy hits a two-run homer ... I’m fired.”

He took his chance, got the next guy out and won the game. “It took me a year more to get fired,” he said.

The Cubs will surprise nobody this season. They have been playing as hard as if they had won nothing last year and are still looking to prove themselves, which was what Zimmer asks. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Zimmer said. “I don’t really know what happens to a guy who goes to the big leagues, has a good year and all of a sudden has three times as much money as he’s ever had in his life.

“People ask me, ‘What do you think of your club?’ I’ll tell you, I feel like a dummy. I can’t give you an answer.”