BALTIMORE — The news arrived via cellphone, from Buck Showalter’s wife, Angela, on Thursday morning.
“You hear things that make you pull off the road, that’s one of them,” the Orioles manager said.
This was the sad news that Yankees icon Gene Michael, the man who gave Showalter his first big-league managing opportunity a quarter-century ago, had died at age 79. The call rocked Showalter, who grew emotional as he discussed “Stick” with reporters but didn’t cry. He had cried enough for now, he said.
“Huge loss for me, personally,” Showalter said.
“Best baseball evaluator I ever saw,” he added.
In the fall of 1991, Michael, the Yankees’ general manager, called Showalter, who had been the Yankees’ third-base coach the prior two seasons, with an update: He probably was not going to be hired to fill the Yankees’ opening at manager, so he was free to pursue employment with other clubs. Michael preferred guys with major league experience like Hal Lanier and Doug Rader.
About 10 days later, Michael called Showalter again: There would be a press conference the next day, to introduce him as Yankees manager. Michael had been overruled by ownership; George Steinbrenner was suspended from baseball at the time, with a group of limited partners taking over.
“Seven to 10 days into spring training, [Michael] walked into my office and said, ‘OK, this is gonna work. You can do this,’” Showalter said. “It gave me a great confidence. ‘OK, I’ve got one less thing to worry about.’”
He added that he wasn’t sure whether Michael meant it, but then again, Showalter praised his former boss for being “so blatantly honest and ethical, when it came down to it.” Michael fought for Showalter to get a higher salary in 1992, when some folks upstairs tried to short him. He did what he could to protect him from the mood swings of Steinbrenner, whom Major League Baseball allowed to reassume his duties for the 1993 season.
“Some of the stuff, he screened me from. Some he couldn’t,” Showalter said. “He’d tell me the stuff he couldn’t.”
They both got in hot water with MLB over their defense of Steve Howe, the reliever with repeated drug offenses whom Michael signed for the Yankees.
Michael’s gift as an evaluator, Michael said, came from his ability to project.
“He knew [Danny] Tartabull was going to have a problem [with the Yankees], but that was done without his approval,” Showalter said. “He knew [Derek] Jeter had made 40-something errors (actually 56 in 1993, with Class A Greensboro). He tells me, ‘This guy’s going to be an All-Star shortstop.’ Really? ‘He’s got a little footwork issue that [instructor Brian] Butterfield and him are working on.’ … How do you project those things and then stand by them?”
He was, Showalter said, “the right kind of stubborn.” Michael told Showalter, “The biggest mistake you make as a general manager is you make a mistake and compound it by holding onto it.” And this: “If you’re fighting on every little thing, it’s a lot of wasted time.” He would make the calls to postpone Yankees home games before the days of sophisticated weather systems, and when you wouldn’t wait until 9 p.m. to give up, he would tell Yankees people, “Don’t call me.” He would live with the consequences of a potentially bad decision.
Showalter made his audience laugh, too, as he talked about him and Michael playing golf during spring training, only to get found out by one of the Boss’ endless network of spies in the Fort Lauderdale area. Or when he recalled, “Anybody who ever has been in a car with Gene driving, it was a roll of the dice. When they started the cellphones, it was not good.”
The two men remained close in the many years since Showalter left the Yankees and proceeded to rack up wins. Nearly every time the Orioles came to The Bronx, Showalter said, Stick would drop by his office to chat, “hair all over the place.”
“Good man,” Showalter said. “I’m going to miss him.”