”Hello, Jim? Jim Frey? Where the heck have you been? I`ve been trying to call your place there in Chicago for months.”
”Between broadcasting on radio for the Cubs, playing golf, having dinner with my lovely wife, Joan, and then sleeping like a baby every night, I haven`t spent much time by the telephone. It`s been a rat race since I was told I was too dumb to manage, but I`m surviving. Joan, honey, where are my slippers? Who is this, anyway?”
”It`s Tony. Tony LaRussa out here in Oakland. Remember me?”
”Hell, yeah. Nice to talk to you again, Tony. We haven`t talked in a year or so. I got fired from the Cubs one week in June, and you got fired the week after by the White Sox. I don`t know about you, Tony, but it`s been murder since. Why, we don`t have a game today, and I feel like 80. Unless, I sink a few putts. Then I`ll feel like 77. It`s torture, but what can you do?” ”I know what you mean, Jim. Here I am stuck in sunny California, in the midst of a pennant race, and my lovely wife, Elaine, is bugging me about wanting to come with the A`s on the road if we make the American League playoffs. It was a lot simpler last year in Chicago, when you and I were dumb, wasn`t it?”
”Let me think now, Tony, when you got the pink slip, what was the White Sox record?”
”We were 12 games under .500, in sixth place, Jim.”
”No wonder you got the ax, Tony. Now, they`re 20 games under .500, in seventh place.”
”Yeah, Jim, but Fregosi`s done a good job. They haven`t quit under him, and besides, he`s had to do it with mirrors there. They decided that Bobby Thigpen should be a starter instead of a reliever, so they sent him to Hawaii. And Bill Long, who was a pretty good starter, was switched to relief. That gets pretty confusing for a manager.”
”It`s so confusing that Thigpen has been brought back from Hawaii to go back to the bullpen and Long is now back to being a starter, Tony. It`s amazing that Long could crack that great pitching staff they had in spring training, even though they haven`t gotten one win out of two of the five guys who were part of it. Neil Allen is 0-7 and Joe Cowley was traded for a leadoff hitter who isn`t batting leadoff. Crazy.”
”That`s enough to drive a manager to drink.”
”Fregosi ain`t allowed, Tony. There`s no beer in the clubhouse. Which is just as well because he couldn`t sweat it out, anyway. They`re wearing their socks so low, one of the players said it was cutting off his circulation. I think they shipped the guy to Hawaii so he could breathe again.”
”Yeah, but they`re finally getting some hits out of their catcher.”
”Trouble is, Tony, it`s Carlton Fisk, and he`s 39. Ron Karkovice went to Hawaii, but it wasn`t because his socks were too low. It was his batting average. If I could shoot his batting average-71-I`d be a professional golfer and to hell with this broadcasting.”
”Jim, you don`t sound very happy.”
”Well, I`m not, Tony. Since I became stupid, I also became very bored. I sleep eight hours a night, wake up and drink coffee while I`m reading the newspaper, then go to the ballpark and do my job, and when I come home, whether the Cubs win or lose, I have a couple cocktails and a nice meal before I go back to bed again for eight hours` more sleep. I don`t even get aggravated anymore. It`s terrible.”
”Sounds like Dallas Green is aggravated, though.”
”Yeah, Tony, he held a clubhouse meeting the other day saying something like we got a good ballclub here and we ain`t out of it yet and that if we put it all together with the right attitude, we can still win this thing.”
”Is that right? Jim, what did he say last year after you were fired and after Gene Michael was hired and before he was almost fired, too?”
”Tony, Dallas held a clubhouse meeting and said something like we got a good ballclub here and we ain`t out of it yet and that if we put it all together with the right attitude, we can still win this thing.”
”And where were the Cubs when you got the bullet, Jim?”
”We were in fifth place.”
”Where are they now, Jim?”
”Fifth place. But they`ve added Andre Dawson, who`ll hit 50 home runs and knock in 130, plus Rick Sutcliffe has been great again. So they`re making a lot of progress.”
”All of that, and they`re still only in fifth place? What does that say for Gene Michael?”
”Gene doesn`t say much, Tony. We had a pitching staff that finished the year with an earned-run average of 4.49 and I didn`t think was so good and I said so and I got fired. Now, I can say it on the air and people realize I`m telling the truth. They don`t think I`m so dumb anymore, I guess.”
”What`s the ERA for them now with the ballclub that isn`t that bad, the ballclub that`s got a chance to win it all?”
”Last time I looked, Tony, it was 4.50. But that`s not the whole story. A lot of teams have been cheating against the Cubs. It`s not fair.”
”How come nobody cheats against the White Sox, Jim?”
”I don`t think it`s gotten to that point yet, Tony. The White Sox look like they`re pitching with the new lively ball but they`re still hitting the old one. I don`t know what they`re doing in Honolulu, except flying in and out of there all the time. Instead of Reinsdorf and Einhorn building a new stadium in Chicago, they should build a new airport.”
”Say, Jim, how`s my old buddy Harry Caray?”
”Terrific, Tony. The doctors told him that he shouldn`t get too excited going back on the job after his illness, but then they took a look at the standings and gave him clearance. I don`t think he could handle broadcasting for your team, though, because you`re just dumb enough to get into the World Series with those A`s.”
”That`s another reason I called, Jim. If we make it, I`d like to invite you to be our guest.”
”Tony, I appreciate that, but I have to wind down from this season. It`s been real tough, and besides, right after the last game, I got some plans with another old buddy of yours, Hawk Harrelson.”
”How is the Hawk, Jim?”
”Bored, Tony. He`s very bored. He left the White Sox, too, and now all he`s doing is broadcasting and playing golf. Another dumb guy who just couldn`t cut it on this highly competitive Chicago baseball scene.”
