Herzog Spends Time Motivating Fish to Bite

Last inspected, Whitey Herzog was fishing for largemouth bass. Whitey likes to fish for largemouth bass, in whose absence he will fish for something with an oral aperture that is smaller.

The point is, whatever Whitey is fishing for, he rates it better than managing the St. Louis Cardinals, from whom he recently parted with the charitable explanation:

“It was a team I couldn’t motivate.”

Translated, he was saying this was a group he didn’t especially care for, and the quicker he put distance between it and himself, the richer the life of Whitey.

Too often in baseball, you hear about players who don’t like managers, but it isn’t often reported when managers have a problem developing a fondness for players.

Earlier this year, a manager, who must remain nameless, confided he hated at least half the performers on his team, describing them as knaves who merely showed up.

“They don’t care if we win or lose,” he complained.

Sparky Anderson always has figured that a third of the players on teams he has managed haven’t liked him.

“And I’ll tell you something else,” Sparky added, “I haven’t liked them, either.”

Whether Whitey Herzog continues fishing for largemouth bass or substantiates whispers he will yield to blandishments of the California Angels isn’t yet known. The present manager of the Angels might tell him:

“If you didn’t like the Cardinals, you will hate these turkeys.”

But it is a commentary on baseball’s neurotic interplay with managers that the Angels had Whitey captured long ago as a coach--and manager of four games--and let him escape to Kansas City, where he did a powerful amount of winning until ownership fired him.

In normal environments, one isn’t fired for winning.

Next, he goes to St. Louis, where the late Gussie Busch, then 82, assures him: “You’ve got a lifetime job.”

Whitey inquires dryly: “Your lifetime or mine?”

But the Cardinals remain faithful, then respond to Whitey’s pulling stakes by hiring temporarily coach Red Schoendienst, and now Joe Torre, previously fired by the Mets and the Braves.

And why did St. Louis hire Joe? Joe had prepped for the job in the broadcasting booth, where an observer, like one who writes a column, is never wrong.

Pitchers may fool hitters, but they never fool analysts and columnists.

In American industry, the art of hiring is a prodigious science. New methods of research, ferreting out every detail, have been developed. Computers have been introduced.

And incisive ways to interview have been complemented by evaluation systems that size up applicants with the accuracy of a gyrocompass.

Many employers even resort to psychological testing, not only of the principals, but their mates and mothers.

In view of these advancements in the personnel field, you are left to wonder what considerations are given today by baseball ownership in the selection of managers.

By what rationalization, what punditry do clubs hire and fire those who command their forces?

Why would the Chicago White Sox fire Tony La Russa, who proves what kind of managing he can do at Oakland?

The Sox, challenging the A’s, hire Jeff Torborg, fired by Cleveland, which now employs John McNamara, fired by Oakland, San Diego, Cincinnati, California and Boston.

Amid deep and profound study, Boston hires a guy who last manages in Pawtucket, Joe Morgan, and Boston is winning. So is its rival, Toronto, which, desperate for leadership, hires its batting instructor, Clarence E. Gaston, billed as Cito.

And Cincinnati, leading the National League West? It hires Lou Piniella, fired by the Yankees.

Intrigued for years by the phenomena of hiring and firing in baseball, we once asked Alvin Dark for an explanation.

Fired by San Francisco, Cleveland, Oakland and San Diego, Alvin, who turned to heaven for daily guidance as some turn to their William Morris office, assured us the answer is simple.

“Each accident,” said Alvin, “was God’s will.”

But Richie Allen, distinguished batsman and philosopher, offered us another view.

“Managers aren’t fired,” said Allen. “They merely are moved. If you want to say they are fired, you then have to say that players are fired, too, in which case I have been fired five times.”

In Allen’s mature judgment, mangers win and lose without reason because they aren’t important to the operation.

“That’s why I never called a manager, ‘Skipper,’ ” he told us. “My mother was my skipper, and I haven’t had another since I left home at 17.”