There’s No Law Against Owners Having Fun Too

A visitor to the visiting team’s clubhouse finds Tony La Russa sniffling and hacking, from something he caught over the weekend. The manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, who has been managing in the majors for 18 years, raises a water bottle to his lips just as his visitor inquires, “So, how well do you know Ted Turner?”

Coughing, La Russa nearly spritzes his water.

“You know what?” he says, with a look more of amusement than amazement. “I don’t think I’ve ever met him.”

Turner has owned the Braves since 1976 and even dabbled in managing himself once, for one funny night. Having just completed a mega-merger with Time Warner that will technically change ownership of the team--although Turner will still be visible in 1997, and the new park will be named for him--the chief Brave executive officer is such a familiar presence, it surprises La Russa that his and Turner’s paths have never crossed.

For one thing, when Turner watches a ballgame, he does so up close and personally. When one of Time Warner’s VIPs came to a recent game, he rode the elevator to the top of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, because he assumed Turner’s private box would be a glass-enclosed luxury suite. Turner, of course, was at field level with his wife, Jane Fonda, cheering, smooching and snoozing.

“Right after I got here,” says Denny Neagle, a pitcher the Braves procured Aug. 28 from the Pirates, “I’m in the clubhouse, maybe around the fifth inning, and my locker’s next to [infielder] Mike Mordecai’s, and we start hearing some guy’s voice, calling out, ‘Bobby! Bobby!’ and, ‘I made it! I’m here!’ Mord and I are wondering who’s this guy who keeps yelling down to Bobby Cox. It turns out to be Mr. Turner.

“I can’t imagine too many guys worth $2 billion who would be that excited, just because he just got to a ballgame.”

Now that the Braves are back in the fall-season picture, the TV mogul is back in his front-row seat. Turner has any number of distractions that require his attention during the course of a year, but with the Cardinals in town tonight to begin a series that will put the winner in the World Series, there is no place Turner would rather be.

Cox expects to hear that voice.

“We love to see him coming,” Atlanta’s manager says.

“Any time our team is in this position, he [Turner] wants to speak to the guys. Five minutes with him, and we’ll get a months’ worth of laughter out of it.”

That’s pretty much how all the employees see the boss.

“I don’t have a bad thing in the world to say about him,” pitcher John Smoltz puts it. “He’s a funny guy. He always makes us laugh.”

Some teams dread their owner, fear or steer clear of them. They aren’t quite sure what to expect, whether it be a public apology for poor play, a detachment from the everyday operation, a downsizing of the payroll, an eccentricity that needs to be ignored or indulged, or a cheerful generosity rooted either in success or change of ownership.

Consider, for instance, the current spirit of St. Louis. The old regime of the august brewer, August Busch, had ended. The new chairman of the board became William O. DeWitt Jr., who, from 1949 to ’51 when his father owned the St. Louis Browns, served as the team’s batboy, and lent his uniform on Aug. 19, 1951 to a rather famous pinch-hitter, midget Eddie Gaedel. That uniform now hangs in the Hall of Fame.

Bill DeWitt had partners who had one thing in common. They adored St. Louis baseball.

“St. Louis got lucky,” says La Russa, who spent his first 17 seasons managing in the American League. “They got people who treated it as more than just a business.”

They got lifelong Cardinal fans like Frederick O. Hanser, who organized the new ownership group and now oversees the daily operations. They got secretary-treasurer Andrew N. Baur, a Redbird backer since childhood. They got Donna “Dede” DeWitt Lambert, sister of Bill, as a principal investor, one of 17.

In turn, they got a huge new payroll, several expensive new players . . . and a place in the National League championship series for the first time since 1987.

If a little fun came their way in the process, all the better.

“I go to the park one day,” says Bernie Miklasz, a St. Louis sports columnist, “and there’s one of the owners [David Pratt] playing ping pong with his shortstop, Royce Clayton.”

You wouldn’t see Gussie Busch do that.

Ted Turner, who, like Busch, will know the feeling of a stadium bearing his name, is someone many in baseball admire, from near or far. La Russa, for example, says, “When he built his empire, bought MGM or whichever studio it was, he turned over the Braves to baseball people, John Schuerholz and Bobby Cox and such, and let them run it. Maybe not right away, but eventually.

“I think that says a lot about the way he conducts business.”

Neagle came here from Pittsburgh, where pockets weren’t so deep.

“If you took a poll,” Neagle says, “a lot of players would tell you that Ted Turner is one of the best owners in baseball, if not the best. Let’s face it, having all that money is a fringe benefit. That’s a luxury we didn’t have in Pittsburgh. And now, with the Time Warner merger and all, it doesn’t appear this franchise is going anywhere but up.

“It was funny. Right after the deal, Mr. Turner comes in here and says, ‘Even if I sell the team, I’ll be there for all of you. I wish there was $5 million a year for each of you.’ ”

Nice perk if you can get it.

Cox, who has a farm near Chattanooga, Tenn., grins and says, “I tried to get some free TV satellite equipment from him, but I didn’t. So don’t tell me about perks.”