The word “zen” does not exist in Don Baylor’s vocabulary.
But after agreeing to manage the Cubs, Baylor borrowed a trick from former Bulls coach Phil Jackson, a.k.a. “the Zen Master.”
Just as Jackson had told the Lakers’ franchise player, Shaquille O’Neal, that he could not be the team leader if he did not improve his foul shooting, Baylor pushed for Sammy Sosa to become a more “complete” player.
“I’ve been a Laker fan all my life,” Baylor said. “I’ve always watched them. When Phil came in and said, `We’re going to play defense,’ and when he told Shaq, `You’re going to improve your free-throw shooting,’ they didn’t take it as if he didn’t like them.
“Shaq accepted it and said, `I’m going to work on my game.’ And he ends up being the MVP.”
Baylor pauses, collecting his thoughts. It has been a dizzying month for the Cubs’ first-year manager. Sosa accused him of having “no class,” his team continued to spiral toward the National League gutter, reporters asked countless questions about Sosa trade rumors and he turned 51.
Baylor has no interest in starting another war of words with Sosa, but he wants to make one more point about taking criticism.
“It was done to me,” he said. “It was done to other star guys.”
What Baylor did to Sosa–or at least tried to do–was motivate him.
On the heels of the Cubs Convention in January, Baylor sat in a hotel suite with the team’s beat reporters and gave an assessment of Sosa’s defense. The scouting reports, he said, were “not favorable.”
Looking back on that day, Baylor said he believed he was doing Sosa a favor.
“When I was [hitting coach] with the Braves, I had a book of notes on every player,” he said. “I had their weaknesses–run on this guy, don’t run on that guy. I was just giving [Sosa] information: `This is what they’re saying about how to beat you.’
“Now [Sosa] is my guy and I have to do everything I can to help him. But it was probably going to be taken out of context anyway, just because of who he was with the 60-something home runs.”
Baylor could have gone to Sosa directly with his concerns, but he believed it would have a greater effect if Sosa saw his words in print.
Either way, the debate is moot now. Baylor has made efforts recently to reach out to Sosa, whether it’s joking with him in the clubhouse or offering tips in the batting cage. The feud is over.
“In the last three or four weeks,” Sosa said, “he’s been treating me nice and with a lot of respect, and I really appreciate that.”
Sosa also informed Baylor that his dispute is with Cubs management, not the manager.
“We talked the other day and he said it wasn’t about my comments,” Baylor said. “He’s in the middle of a salary extension. This isn’t about anything but [his contract].”
Baylor knows what people think, that the Sosa camp tried to use him to force a trade to a team that would meet Sosa’s demand for a five-year, $85 million extension.
“I don’t know about being used,” Baylor said. “I guess that’s part of being a manager. If it was Jim Riggleman standing here, it was going to happen to him too.”
Baylor said he can take the heat. And when a reporter started a question by saying that Sosa probably will remain a Cub for the rest of the season, Baylor cut it off.
“Good,” he said. “It’s good for us. Believe me, I like writing his name in the lineup every day. I can hit him third or fourth and I know every day he walks up there, it could be the day that he gets hot.
“The other day his shin was bothering him after three days on the AstorTurf in Pittsburgh. I said, `I’m thinking about giving you a day off.’ He said, `How about Thursday?’ And I had to think about it.”
When Baylor realized that Thursday was an off day, he couldn’t help but smile. In his American League MVP season of 1979, Baylor played all 162 games despite tendinitis in his wrist and a strained hamstring. He knows the value of punching in every day.
Now if he could only get that kind of effort from his entire 25-man roster.
Second baseman Eric Young, who knows Baylor better than any player in the Cubs’ clubhouse, said last week that Baylor needs to take the next step in his quest to transform the Cubs into winners.
“I think it all comes down to attitude,” Young said. “It has to be changed. [Baylor] eventually has to bring in the players who play the game like he did. … You have to love this game and play it with a passion, not just come to receive a check. You just don’t see enough of that [passion] around here.”
Baylor wants his players to understand the value of being in the lineup, instead of seeing it as their right.
He recalls when he was first promoted to the big leagues in 1970. After hitting .327 at Class AAA Rochester with a league-high 34 doubles, Baylor expected to contribute immediately. Instead, he languished on Baltimore’s bench under manager Earl Weaver, earning just 17 at-bats the rest of the season.
Although Baylor described Weaver in his autobiography as an “intimidating, gruff, sarcastic little guy,” he also called him the best manager he ever played for.
“Once you earned a spot on the field, you knew it was not a gift,” he said. “You deserved to be there. When I first got called up, we were ahead by 17 games [in the American League East] in September. He told us young guys to sit on the bench and watch because he wanted to win by 20.”
And Weaver wasn’t shy about confronting his players.
“If you made a mistake, he was going to correct you because that mistake might come up again and you could cost him a game,” Baylor said. “It was constructive criticism.”
Baylor has vowed not to change his style. The players must adjust.
“He tells it like it is,” Mark Grace said. “He came out the other day and said I wasn’t hitting the ball out of the infield. I have no problem with that because he was right.
“I’ve always found that your manager is not just going to make something up. If you look in the mirror, you’ll find out that there are things you can improve upon.”
