Larry Dierker pinches himself a lot these days.
His Houston Astros are on their way to a second consecutive National League Central Division title. He has a new toy in Randy Johnson. And, best of all for Dierker, construction has begun on the stadium that will become his team’s home after one more season in the Astrodome.
Dierker sometimes feels like he’s lived half his life at America’s first domed stadium. He was on the field as an 18-year-old rookie pitcher, standing alongside the likes of Nellie Fox, Don Larsen and Robin Roberts, when the Astrodome opened in 1965. He watched with a growing sense of heartache as the building once called “The Eighth Wonder of the World” decayed and attendance shriveled after the Astros allowed native son Nolan Ryan to finish his career elsewhere.
Dierker has called Houston home for almost 35 years. He was preparing himself for the possibility that the franchise might relocate before owner Drayton McLane received approval for a new stadium from the same voters who had allowed Bud Adams to move the NFL’s Oilers to Tennessee.
“I went and looked at the (stadium) project with Drayton the other day,” Dierker said after a recent game. “I was thinking that, just two years ago, everybody was down on the team. We had to sweat the financing and barely got it. If it hadn’t gone through, it’s unlikely that we would still be in Houston.
“From that point to this is amazing. We are attracting so many new fans and have the new stadium still to look forward to. It feels like in a short period of time we have a chance to become a great baseball town.”
Dierker downplays his contribution. But the Astros’ rise from wannabes to major players dates back to General Manager Gerry Hunsicker’s bold decision to move Dierker from the broadcast booth to the dugout.
Dierker won 20 games with Houston in 1969, and still holds franchise records with 2,296 innings pitched and 25 shutouts. But until agreeing to replace Terry Collins, he had not been in uniform since 1977. His last 18 years had been spent as a broadcaster on the Astros’ network.
Almost two years later, Dierker finds himself with the highest winning percentage (.561) of any active manager. He is quick to pass the credit to the hitters in the middle of his lineup (Craig Biggio, Jeff Bagwell, Moises Alou and Derek Bell) and the management that added Johnson and Alou to the team that was swept by Atlanta in the first round of the playoffs a year ago.
By going 25-15 since the All-Star break, the Astros have built a 7 1/2-game cushion in the division standings. The Cubs are faced with sweeping this weekend’s three-game series to simply to get Houston’s attention heading toward September.
Dierker has a standard line when he is complimented on his team’s success. “I hope that I haven’t created the thought that anybody can manage a major-league baseball team,” he says.
Dierker, of course, isn’t “anybody.” His was well known for his baseball insight while serving as a broadcaster.
Milwaukee Brewers manager Phil Garner lives in the Houston area during the off-season. He says Dierker had long been a favorite author before becoming a successful manager.
“He wrote a weekly column in the Houston (Chronicle),” Garner says. “He writes well, and I would always respect his thoughts on the academic part of the game. When I was on the road, I would have my wife fax it to me. It was always interesting stuff.”
Dierker’s column ran from 1989 through ’96 in the Chronicle. It was ghost-written by baseball writer Neil Holfeld initially, but Dierker soon cut out the middleman. He bought a laptop computer and learned how to send his column directly into the newspaper’s system. When he disagreed with changes made by editors, he would leave angry voice-mail messages for the sports editor.
“He did a really good job with that column,” Hohlfeld said. “I would watch the games, keep up with the team, and there was always something in there that I didn’t know.”
Steve Stone has long looked forward to Cubs-Astros series because they brought the chance to exchange ideas with Dierker.
“I’ve always talked baseball with him a lot,” says Stone, a former Cy Young Award winner who is in his 16th year as a color analyst with WGN-Ch. 9. “I’ve talked pitching with him. He’s a quality baseball guy. I thought he was a real good choice. There’s a tendency in this game to miss what’s right under our nose.”
Hunsicker credits Astros President Tal Smith for first giving serious thought to Dierker as the replacement for Collins, who had managed Houston to three consecutive second-place finishes. He says Dierker thought Smith was kidding when he first asked if he would be interested. “When he realized we were serious, he began to get excited about it,” Hunsicker says.
Hunsicker made sure Dierker surrounded himself with experienced coaches. Bill Virdon, who had once been Dierker’s manager, agreed to serve as a bench coach last season. Longtime Astros coach Matt Galante returned to add his experience. Vern Ruhle, who had pitched for Houston during Dierker’s time in the broadcast booth, agreed to serve as pitching coach.
“They really do have a good coaching staff,” Garner says. “I’m sure that has been a tremendous help to Larry. If I was starting my own franchise, Matt Galante would be the first guy I would hire. He could have whatever job he wanted, as long as it was on the field. He is a tremendous baseball man, the best there is.”
If there is a key to Dierker’s success, it is the ability to let his players relax and produce. He does not try to control every facet of the game, as Tony La Russa does and many felt Collins had. He has gotten especially good production from his patchwork pitching staff.
A year ago, the Astros won with two unproven starters (Chris Holt and Ramon Garcia) and a closer (Billy Wagner) in his first full big-league season. They are winning this year despite having lost Darryl Kile to free agency and Holt and Garcia to injury.
Jose Lima and Sean Bergman, who share the distinction of having had the Detroit Tigers give up on them, have combined for 22 victories. Pete Schourek, another retread, had won seven games before being traded to Boston in the wake of Johnson’s arrival.
“It’s been unbelievable,” Stone says. “Sixty percent of their starting rotation from last year is gone and they’ve had to address that. He understands pitching very well. He’s done a terrific job with those guys.”
Dierker isn’t the first broadcaster to get a shot at managing. But it took 17 years for another to get an opportunity after Jerry Coleman put finished last with a 73-89 record while running the San Diego Padres.
Hunsicker believes Dierker’s success could open doors for other people. “The only thing it says is that it is not a necessity to have managed before,” the Astros’ GM says. “There are a lot of other things that go into it, but Larry shows that there are guys outside the pool of usual candidates who can do a good job.”
Stone hopes there is a precedent. He believes broadcasters are in the perfect position to learn the game. Not only do they watch the sequence of pitches closely and dissect the strategy of games, but they get to know players on most teams through interviews or visits around the batting cage.
“Maybe he will cause a lot of us to be considered for jobs we wouldn’t have been considered for before,” Stone says. “It couldn’t happen to a better guy. Larry has a lot of friends, and always will have, from the worlds of baseball and broadcasting. It’s nice to see this happening.”
