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Chapter 2 Ken Aspromonte, who managed the Cleveland Indians in the early seventies, was another manager who had a reputation of having a hot temper. I’m not saying he wasn’t friendly, but he wasn’t real close with the clubhouse guy before a game. I was a little afraid of him. I never saw him blow up, but he did have one explosion in my clubhouse when I wasn’t in the room. It was my fault.
Let’s start at the beginning. When the Brewers came to Milwaukee, I made an hour-long eight-track tape. There was only one song on the tape, the Andrews Sisters singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” What could be more appropriate for a baseball clubhouse? I taped that one song continuously, each time a little louder. At the end, it could almost break your eardrums. When players would get into an argument over what kind of music to play, I would put this tape on, and the players would go nuts. “Turn that shit off, Big Jim!” Comments like that.
I remember Clyde Wright, when he was with the California Angels, walking into my back room with a bat. “Big Jim,” he said. “Take that crap off or I’ll end up doing something I’ll regret.” He was swinging the bat menacingly and left no doubt that the bat would make contact with something if I didn’t put some other music on. I think he was going to bash the tape player to bits, but you can never be too careful. I turned off the tape very quickly just in case he was thinking of taking a couple of swings at Big Jim.
When Aspromonte came to town with the Indians, I played the tape to the usual rave reviews. So I turned off the tape and turned on the radio. Just before batting practice, Aspromonte asked me to clear the clubhouse for a closed-door meeting. I got everybody who didn’t belong there out of the clubhouse, then went over to shut off the radio. Instead of turning it off, I must have hit the button for the tape player.
When I returned later, Jimmy Warfield, the Indians’ trainer, filled me in on what had happened. He was pretty calm but obviously a little shook up.
The Indians hadn’t been playing well, and Aspromonte was chewing ass pretty good. He was just working up a head of steam when the speakers in the clubhouse blared out: “Take me out to the ball game . . .”
“You should have been in here,” Warfield said. “Everyone’s sitting with their heads down, looking real serious, then that music blares out and everybody starts laughing except Aspromonte. He was even more pissed after that.”
When the music started, Warfield raced into my back room, but he didn’t know how to turn the damned thing off. After fumbling around and pushing what seemed to be all the buttons without results, he pulled the plug.
To my relief, Aspromonte never said anything to me about the tape.
Music wasn’t a big thing when the Braves were in town. It might have been playing in the background, but I don’t remember it. When the Brewers came to Milwaukee in the early seventies, there was always music playing in the clubhouse, especially before a game. That’s when eight-tracks were popular.
I went out and bought some eight-track tapes, and I remember setting the tape during the game so the right song would come on when the players returned to the clubhouse after a victory. I would wait for the first player to come up, and I’d turn the tape on. I remember playing “The Bristol Stomp” for some reason or other. It was a lively song, and you could really jack it up. I’d put it on real loud, and after the initial wave of back-slapping ended, I’d turn it down but leave it playing so you would have music in the background. Sometimes I would just tune the radio to a classic rock ’n’ roll station and blare out the oldies. When John Wathan was managing the Royals, I remember talking to him before a game. The Royals had been struggling, and Wathan told me, “Big Jim, we got to win. I want to hear some moldy-oldie music after the game.”
Of course, the music was off after a loss.
There was one exception. When Frank Robinson was managing the Indians, they came into the clubhouse after a tough loss to the Brewers. It was a pretty quiet room, typical for a team that had just lost a game it could have won. Frank called me over to his locker.
“Put some music on,” he said, “but keep it low.”
I didn’t say anything to Frank, but I put some music on. It was pretty lively music, but the volume was real low and you had to kind of listen to hear it. I didn’t want to bother him that night, but the next day I told him, “You’re the first manager that allowed music after a loss.” He said, “Hey, they played a good game. It sounded like a morgue in here. I wanted them to start getting up for tomorrow.” |
