From Raspberries to Tomatoes

By Tom Callahan

Earl Weaver has never been shy, but he is retiring

The gruff, obstinate, foolish, flammable, superstitious, supercilious, boorish, brilliant, wonderful manager of the Baltimore Orioles still means to throw himself out of the game after this year.

"This isn't enjoyment," Earl Weaver has been insisting all season and for much of the 15 years that he has been the most durable, deranged and delightful manager in baseball. "This is just my way of making a living. It's work. It's research." He points to his three-by-five cards, his directory of probabilities and statistics. "I'm so tired of making decisions. I'm really looking forward to going home with nothing on my mind, never having to worry about some quote I might have said wrong, or some writer or player cutting my throat."

He is pacing and smoking in his office after a one-run victory, "shaking in my boots," he calls it. The Orioles are making their move on the American League's Eastern Division leader, Milwaukee. Jim Palmer, 36, Baltimore's preening pitcher, has won ten straight games. So Palmer is going to outlast Weaver after all. Neither man brooks any opinion but his own, and they have been legendary adversaries. "Every single gray hair I got," says Weaver, 52, "I got from Palmer." Once, when Earl was hopping mad at Palmer, Palmer chose the moment of Weaver's highest hop to say, "Earl, I've never seen you look so tall." Weaver is 5 ft. 6 1/2 in. tall.

Insubordination has always been rife on Weaver's teams. He and Catcher Rick Dempsey act out their disagreements by throwing shin guards. "The only thing Earl knows about pitching," onetime Ace Dave McNally declared for all time, "is that he couldn't hit it." Weaver and Mark Belanger feuded for more than a decade, but Belanger stayed Weaver's shortstop by the grace of his bright talent until, near the end, the three-by-five cards dwindled for Belanger and eventually ran out this year.

Weaver's teams, all different manner of teams, have won six division championships, four American League pennants and one World Series. Twelve out of 14 years, they have finished first or second. Among all managers, only Connie Mack had as many 100-win seasons (five) and only Joe McCarthy had more (six). Weaver did it largely by being, in his own words,"a truthful, rotten little s.o.b." Though he once screamed at an umpire, "Only you, me and God know the truth!" irreverence has served him as a kind of creed. "Skip, don't you want me to walk with the Lord?" a born-again outfielder, Pat Kelly, asked him when Weaver once implored Kelly to hold down the piety. "Kell," Weaver said, "I'd rather have you walk with the bases loaded."

Kelly was cut after the 1980 season, but, as it happens, he is back in the Oriole clubhouse on this day to conduct chapel services. Weaver is praying for Lefthander Scott McGregor's sore arm to improve. "Or let whomever I choose to take Scottie's place--another damned decision--get the job done." When these decisions pan out, isn't this a pleasure that he will miss? "Momentarily gratifying," he grumps. "But the only real satisfaction is winning it all." He pauses. "Only did that once."

His small office in Baltimore's Memorial Stadium is almost pathetically spare, without any glorious decorations, not one picture on the wall. By nine years, Weaver has stood his post longer than any other manager now in the major leagues. Some how he blended Eddie Stanky and Leo Durocher and made it wear like Walter Alston. Weaver has never been fired.

For someone who spent 20 impoverished and insecure years busing around Knoxville and Omaha in the minor leagues, selling used cars on the side or toiling as a hod carrier, Weaver is walking away from a handsome income rather blithely. But he says that he saved his money, and his needs are small. He continues to grow his celebrated tomatoes and zucchini, and both he and his wife Marianna are fiends for golf. Besides, his book, It's What You Learn After You Know It All That Counts, seems to be prospering. And the television networks are interested in using him as a "color" man, provided he's not too colorful.

Obviously, rhubarbs will scarcely be the same. Ron Luciano and Marty Springstead share the record for Weaver ejections (seven). Otherwise, space was saved in the Oriole brochure by simply stating: "The only umpire with substantial seniority who never threw Earl out of a game was the late Nestor Chylak."

Weaver has been thumbed 88 times: from spring training and World Series games, both halves of doubleheaders, even before some games began. For shenanigans like shredding a rule book on the mound or walking off the field with a base, he has been suspended by American League President Lee MacPhail so regularly that Weaver refers to his short absences as earned vacations. For a while this year, his superstitiousness kept him from returning after a one-week sentence for, uh, slapping an umpire. The team was winning without him.

Some Oriole players think they win without him a lot, or at least that he receives too much credit. Nobody on the team seems completely sure whether they unite against him or come together for him. Says Weaver: "There's always somebody to replace you.

Before long, nobody will be talking about me any more."

Before long, general managers might be. To make future suitors at least have to consult the Orioles club, Weaver has offered to sign up as a scout. Still, a few people, and more than a few players, share Ron Luciano's cynicism: "Old managers never die. They just end up working for George Steinbrenner." --By Tom Callahan

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