Collier Heads for Hall

For 38 years now, the byline has made it to baseball fans throughout San Diego.

It has been scooped up off of driveways, taken out of newspaper racks and picked up from newsstands. It has had orange juice spilled onto it in the morning, jelly dribbled onto it and syrup soaked into it.

By Phil Collier, Staff Writer.

You see it, and you know there was a baseball game last night, and Collier was there to write about it.

He has been writing about baseball in The San Diego Union for 38 years. This weekend, in a short speech in Cooperstown, N.Y., he will tell what it feels like to be inducted into the writer’s wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

In truth, Collier isn’t quite sure how best to handle all of the attention.

“It’s embarrassing, really,” he said. “I’m flattered. I’m honored. It will be a great thrill.”

He has been writing baseball since before Padre Manager Greg Riddoch was born. Andy Benes was 1 when Collier started covering the Padres.

He has been in the business for 52 of his 65 years, starting in his hometown of Baytown, Tex. He has written about Pete Rose and Tony Gwynn, Duke Snider and Dave Winfield--four of his all-time favorites, incidentally. He is an authority on the Padres, chronicling their losses--which occupied most of his time through 1986, when he moved from the Padre beat to the national baseball beat--and their victories--which filled up much of his summer in 1984.

He has seen all but one World Series since 1959. He has reported on eight or nine--he can’t remember which--no-hitters.

He covered the Dodgers when Don Drysdale put together a record 56 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings. He was at Shea Stadium the day Tom Seaver struck out the last 10 Padres in a row. And he was in Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium when the U.S. landed men on the moon.

He broke the story when Sandy Koufax retired.

“That’s the biggest one I’ll ever do in my life,” he said. “I’ll never top that.”

Hall of Fame players get plaques with short biographies that hang on a wall in Cooperstown. Collier is a writer, which brings up a natural question: How would Collier write his own biography, if he were putting it on a plaque?

Short pause. Then, a simple answer.

“Probably, ‘No one ever enjoyed a profession more.’ ”

The award Collier will receive this weekend--he will be the 42nd man to receive it--is called the “J.G. Taylor Spink Award,” and it was started in 1962. Spink, a long-time publisher of The Sporting News, was the first recipient. The purpose of the award is to recognize a few of the historians of the game.

“He enjoys the ABCs of reporting baseball,” said the New York Times’ Joseph Durso, the chairman of the three-person committee who recommended Collier for this award to the Baseball Writers’ Assn. of America (BBWAA) last winter. “He’s not ivory-tower. He’s a field-level reporter. He’s open. He’s not mysterious in any way.

“People like him. When a team like the Mets visits, Phil has as much entre to them as our own writers. They know him and trust him. He’s a cheerful part of baseball.”

Said Dodger announcer Vin Scully: “Phil has a great quality, which I think is one reason he is such a successful writer and why he is justly being rewarded by the Hall of Fame, and that is he has the rare and great ability to listen.”

Writers spend most of their time trying to peek into the lives of others. If you flipped that around and looked at Collier, you would find, first, one of his favorite lines, something written by Ring Lardner.

How can anyone expect to write, Lardner asked, if they don’t know how to cry?

“To be worth a damn,” Collier said, “I think you have to have feelings.”

Collier came to the Union on Feb. 3, 1953, and covered the Padre entry in the Pacific Coast League until 1958, when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. He covered the Dodgers beginning in 1958 and, from 1961-1968, he covered the Dodgers and the Los Angeles Angels for the Union, Associated Press and The Sporting News. He was also the official scorer.

His years around the game have yielded volumes of stories--the kind that don’t carry the Collier byline but nonetheless possess the man’s signature.

The first time he was in Vero Beach, Fla., with the Dodgers in 1958, the team was on its way to Miami for an exhibition game. Collier, who is under 6 feet tall, grabbed a taxi with Don Drysdale, Duke Snider and Gil Hodges. The driver looked at Drysdale. He looked at Snider. He looked at Hodges.

Then he looked at Collier.

“Pee Wee,” the driver began, thinking Collier was the legendary Dodger shortstop Pee Wee Reese, “how in the hell could you guys have left Brooklyn?”

Several years later, Collier and two other writers were driving from Tucson to Phoenix during spring training. This was before the days of freeways and most of the roads winding through the small Arizona towns were speed-trapped.

Along the way, the trio stopped in a couple of roadside saloons. Then, one of Collier’s companions decided to take a nap in the back seat of the rental car.

Collier was driving about 12 m.p.h., he figured, when he suddenly saw flashing lights behind him.

Collier pulled over and up walked a policeman.

“Have you fellows been drinking?” he demanded.

“Why would you ask a question like that?”

“Because the guy in the back seat is on fire.”

Cigarette ashes had dropped onto the seat, causing it to smolder. The smoke had been pouring out the back windows.

They put out the fire, and Collier didn’t get a ticket.

“The cop thought it was funny,” he said.

Collier’s nickname is Phantom, although nobody is quite sure why. It could be because he is never in the office. Union staffers say he picks up his mail there two or three times a year, but that’s about it. It could be because he has the reputation for being one of the quickest workers on deadline and, therefore, one of the first out of the press box after a game.

He was the national president of the BBWAA in 1980. He estimates he has covered more than 6,000 baseball games for the Union.

Collier covered the Padres exclusively for his paper from the team’s inception in 1969 through August 1983. In that time, he didn’t miss one game, home or road. Finally, he got a couple of days off that August. Chris Jenkins replaced him.

“Come to find out, this is the first time anybody has ever filled in at home for Phil,” Jenkins said. “I was still relatively new to the town, and very new to the game. I was sitting in the press box by myself with a phone. Everybody was coming up to me asking, ‘Where’s Phil?’ I told them no big deal, he’s just taking the day off.

“As deadline approaches, I’m getting more and more nervous. Then the phone rings. ‘Chris, this is Phil Collier. Listen, buddy, here’s my number. If you need anything, just give me a call.’ ”

Mark Kreidler, now a Union columnist, succeeded Collier on the Padre beat in 1986.

“A full year after, in 1987, I was still getting asked by people around baseball, ‘Where’s Phil?’ ” Kreidler said. “He knows everybody. It’s the most amazing thing. Following Phil was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I’ve never seen anybody so well-liked, so well-known.”

In early 1985, Kreidler made his first trip to Dodger Stadium when then-Padre second baseman Alan Wiggins had gone AWOL with, as it turned out, a drug problem. It was one of Kreidler’s first assignments with the paper. Collier was there.

“As soon as he saw me come in, he took me by the hand,” Kreidler said. “He took me up to (Dodger Manager) Tommy Lasorda and said, ‘You want to meet him.’ Then he took me to (then-Padre Manager) Dick Williams and said, ‘You want to meet him.’

“I was terrified, but I found myself in the hands of someone who knows everyone. He saved me a seat next to him in the press box.”

Then, in the third inning, Kreidler heard a booming voice from the back of the press box: “Where’s Phil Collier?”

“I think, ‘Geez, the guy is under arrest,’ ” Kreidler said. “It was Vin Scully, taking his third-inning break, and he wants to talk to Phil.

“He was awfully nice to me. I’ll never forget how kind he was.”

Collier, as his paper’s Padre writer and then national writer, has seen Preston Gomez and Don Zimmer and John McNamara come and go as Padre managers. And Bob Skinner and Alvin Dark and Roger Craig. And Jerry Coleman and Frank Howard and Dick Williams. And Steve Boros and Larry Bowa and Jack McKeon. A team’s entire history.

He soon will start writing his book, and he already has the title: The Bases Were Loaded, and So Was I.

He was reading The Sporting News by the time he was 7 or 8. He fell asleep each night listening to radio accounts of the Texas League’s Houston Buffs. And when he woke up in the mornings, he rushed outside to get the Houston Post.

“A lot of people go through their life and never know what they want to do,” Collier said. “They never know what they’re best at.”

He couldn’t wait until he was old enough to cover baseball. By the time he was 12 or 13, he was keeping his own Texas League statistics. He was offered his first job--by the Baytown Sun--when he was 13.

His break came four days after he was hired at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, when the paper hired Jack Murphy. Eventually, Murphy moved on to become sports editor of the Union and hired Collier.

Collier became his paper’s man on the baseball scene and, in 1966, had the greatest week of his career.

It started after a game in September 1965. Koufax had an arthritic elbow and had been taking medication when, in the midst of an interview, he looked at Collier and said, “When everybody leaves, I want to talk to you.”

Collier stuck around and couldn’t believe what he heard.

“I made a very important decision tonight,” Koufax told him. “Next year is going to be my last year.”

Said Collier: “If you say that, I know you mean it, but it’s really a shame. No. 1, that you have to retire this young, and No. 2, that it’s going to be a great story and I won’t get to write it. There’s no way you can keep a secret like that.”

Said Koufax: “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”

They made it all the way through the next season until, after the Dodgers were swept by Baltimore in the World Series, Koufax turned to Collier on the way home and said he was thinking of announcing his decision on the airplane.

“If you do,” Collier said, “you’re going to screw up every newspaper west of the Mississippi. And you’re going to knock me out of a great story.”

There’s no big hurry on this, Collier told Koufax. Why not wait two or three weeks? What’s the difference?

Koufax agreed. He told Collier he would call him when he was ready to make an announcement. A couple of weeks later, Collier’s telephone rang.

“I’m going to call the wire services tomorrow morning and announce a noon press conference,” Koufax told him. “You need anything?”

Said Collier: “I wrote the story many months ago, and it’s in a drawer in my desk. All I have to do is call my office and have them update a couple of things.”

Fine, Koufax said. And the next morning, Collier broke the story.

Collier broke other stories in those days--sometimes from two time zones away.

When the Philadelphia Phillies and the St. Louis Cardinals made a big trade, Collier got the scoop from then-Phillies Manager Gene Mauch. Collier even predicted most of the players who were involved.

When Leo Durocher was named manager of the Chicago Cubs, Collier had the story first. Burned Chicago writers swamped him with early morning phone calls.

By the time he broke the story of Koufax’s retirement, Collier knew he was on a roll.

“I walked around for months shaking my head,” Collier said. “Saying, ‘You lucky SOB. Nobody can be that lucky.’ ”

Not everything has been perfect. What was it Ring Lardner said? How can anyone expect to write if they don’t know how to cry?

Collier was divorced in 1969 and has since remarried. He has three children from his first marriage and inherited three more with his second marriage. They range in age from 25 to 35.

“If there’s one regret I have, it’s that I did it seven days a week for eight straight months for 25 or 26 years,” he said. “I thought you needed continuity. I thought that was very important. As a result, I neglected a lot of people. I didn’t get to spend as much time with my children as I should have.”

And during spring training on his last year on the Padre beat, in 1985, he learned he had prostate cancer. He has been in and out of the hospital several times since, has undergone radiation treatment, but continues to cover Padre, Dodger and Angel games for his paper as well as write a weekly national baseball notes column. He is feeling fine, he says.

More than 200 people have called to congratulate Collier since the Hall of Fame announcement was made last December. Former Padre General Manager Jack McKeon is making the trip to Cooperstown this weekend because of his affinity for Collier.

“Any time you’re with Phil, you feel like you can learn from the man,” McKeon said. “His wisdom and great stories. . . . He is a pleasure to be around.”

Said Lasorda: “I’ve known Phil for over 30 years, and I’d have to say (this honor) is long overdue. His contributions to the literary field, his contributions to baseball, his contributions to the newspaper he has worked for and the contribution and commitment he has made to people who subscribe to his paper. . . . He did it with pride and flavor, character and dignity.”

Now, the director’s chair belongs to Collier. He is the star. It is time to join his second-favorite favorite sportswriter, Red Smith, in the writers’ wing of the Hall of Fame. His favorite, of course, was Jack Murphy.

“They were storytellers,” Collier said. “That’s what I’ve always tried to be.”

He hasn’t prepared a speech. He says he knows what he wants to say. That much isn’t a surprise. After all, the man has made a living stringing words together.

No, only one thing will be different Sunday afternoon. He will be behind a microphone talking instead of behind a keyboard writing. The byline will stir to life and, whatever it says, it will speak the language of baseball.

It always has.