But he never put the finger on him, because he wasn’t quite sure how Mike would react to being singled out.ĭel Unser, part-time outfielder: There was no other guy on the team that was going to take it to you like Dallas would. It was actually very canny in that way, because when he said it, everybody knew who you’re talking about. He would say to the team, “We got too many guys in here who have to stop being so effing cool.” Whenever he talked about too many guys in here trying to be Joe Cool, that was Mike. They started asking questions - it made headlines and everything else.ĭidinger: Dallas never really called out Mike Schmidt. I walked out, there were 10 press people standing there, probably their ear to the door. I said to him, “If we do something wrong in a game or something you disagree with, why do you give it to the press? The team wants you to come to us individually.” He slammed the door. Greg Luzinski, left fielder: I went to see Dallas in his office. He wasn’t afraid to bench guys if they weren’t playing good, you know, and he had a meeting when he first came down: “You guys think you’re better than you are - you haven’t done anything.” When he said that, it got people’s attention, because we had done some things. Larry Bowa, shortstop: I think Dallas was very important in winning the World Series. New manager Dallas Green with coach Bobby Wine. It was a total 90-degree departure, and they didn’t like it even a little bit. Danny totally covered for those guys, which was part of the problem. He had no problem pointing fingers at a team that had been coddled by Danny for as long as they were. Ray Didinger, columnist who changed papers that August from the Bulletin to the Daily News: Dallas had no problem calling out the players. Lee Elia, third-base coach: I think that was a profound three words, and I think it really meant something to him. Green started off spring training in 1980 by hanging signs in the clubhouse that sent a message: “We, Not I.” Fired manager Danny Ozark had a light touch Green was much more likely to scream at his players in the dugout, then tell the press exactly what he thought. Green, who ran the team’s farm system for most of the ’70s, was strikingly handsome, huge at six-foot-five, and a take-no-prisoners leader. Rose was known for his über-confident, hustling style of play with the Cincinnati Reds.
#PHILLIE SPLAYER WHO DRANK 60 BEERS FREE#
The local media, rougher then than now, called the team pampered, underachieving chokers for those losses in the playoffs in the late ’70s.īut two things had changed by 1980: free agent Pete Rose (actually signed the season before), and a new manager, Dallas Green. But those failures in the late ’70s had the city skeptical that this group could break through. It was a team, as Schmidt says, of great talent, developed in the Phillies’ farm system and obtained in trades. But it also kept the pressure on. … You know, you end up maybe trying too hard.
And I think it made us all very, very hungry.
#PHILLIE SPLAYER WHO DRANK 60 BEERS SERIES#
“We knew how much it hurt them for us not to get in a World Series and win it all, because we had great talent for three years, and we failed in the postseason. “We were all tuned in to Philadelphia as a city - we felt what the Philadelphia fans felt,” says Mike Schmidt, who was in the middle of his Hall of Fame career with the Phillies in 1980. That was the year the team blew the pennant by losing 10 games in a row at the end of the season. “I think it would be fair to say that most fans of the Phillies were still picking the scab of 1964,” says Katz. The Flyers had won the Stanley Cup in ’74 and ’75, but the other three major teams - the Sixers, Eagles and Phillies - hadn’t brought a championship to the city in more than a decade. The city’s sports teams were no help in alleviating the mood. Photograph by Sam Nocella/Temple University Libraries, Special Collections Research Center A graffitied wall in the Northeast in 1980.