KANSAS CITY • Everything was almost up to date here in 1975. A young Kansas City Royals team under manager Jack McKeon had a winning record (50-46) after 96 games. But there seemed to be a piece missing from the puzzle — one, that if placed properly, might complete the Royals as a championship team.
The club made a change in late July that year by replacing McKeon, a very capable manager who much later would win a World Series with Florida, with one of Kansas City's own. Yes, Dorrel Normal Elvert "Whitey" Herzog.
He had grown up in New Athens, Ill., and now lives in Sunset Hills. But Herzog was living in the Kansas City suburb of Independence, Mo., in the 1970s, having retired there after an eight-season playing career that included a three-season stretch (1958-60) with the Kansas City Athletics.
Mike Swanson, the Royals' vice president of communications and broadcasting now, grew up in Kansas City in the '50s and later worked for the Royals when Herzog managed there. Swanson's mother. Betty, worked in the Athletics' front office earlier and his father, Bob, used to hang out at Crackerneck Country Club, which no longer exists, with A's players Herzog and Roger Maris.
"People nowadays see (pro athletes) out on the street," Swanson said, "and these guys would walk right by them. But in the old days, Whitey Herzog and Roger Maris would sit right there with you in that club bar until, as Whitey says, 'Mary Lou (his wife) is really going to be mad at me unless I get home.'
"He was like family."
Herzog had worked for Royals general manager Joe Burke in Texas, where Herzog lasted less than one season as manager in 1973 — compiling a 47-91 mark before being fired by owner Bob Short.
Short had said he was happy with Herzog as his manager, then later in the year offered him the general manager's job. Herzog said on a Saturday night he turned down the job because he wanted to remain on the field. On Sunday, he heard that Detroit had fired manager Billy Martin. Short, according to Herzog, had said, "I'd fire my grandmother to hire Billy Martin."
On Tuesday, "Grandma" Herzog said, "Short hired Billy Martin."
But a couple of years later Burke came calling.
"I don't think I would have got another chance to manage in the big leagues if Joe Burke hadn't given me the opportunity," Herzog said.
THE ROYAL RUN
Herzog guided the Royals to a 41-25 record the rest of the 1975 season and then led them to three straight American League Western Division championships, followed by a second-place finish in 1979. His Royals teams lost three straight playoff series to the New York Yankees, two of them in the ninth inning of the fifth game.
Lefthander Paul Splittorff, who won 16, 19 and 15 games for Herzog in 1977-79 and now is a Royals broadcaster, noted that when McKeon managed the Royals he had the perceived liability of not having played or coached in the big leagues.
But Herzog had done both, managing Texas for most of that 1973 season and coaching for the New York Mets and California Angels.
"So when Whitey came in, all of a sudden there was a credibility there," Splittorff said. "He was so popular, so honest, so believable. He was a great fit.
"I guess we were closer to being able to win than we realized. He didn't do all that much different.''
It was a good fit.
"We played the style of ball he wanted to play because we had a speed team, a line-drive team on artificial turf, which was about the only team like that in the American League,'' Splittorff said. "We took off and he was our guy and we were his guys. It kind of snowballed and we got there (first place) quick.
"He was already from Independence. It was the like hometown guy came back. He was the most fun guy I ever played for."
Denny Matthews, the Royals' Hall of Fame broadcaster, was calling the team's games in the '70s, too, and recalls very well Herzog's hiring.
"He knew immediately he had a pretty good team, and that's why he jumped at the job," Matthews said.
Royals broadcaster Frank White, a member of the Royals' Hall of Fame as a second baseman, was one of the young players Herzog installed in the Royals' lineup, along with Al Cowens.
"One thing he did," said White, "was that he just kind of got out of the way and let guys play. He said, 'As long you make good decisions, you'll never hear from me. For the first six innings, just play the game aggressively.' He let us put our own hit-and-runs on and he let us play the defense the way we wanted to play defense. But he said. 'If we haven't caught up by the seventh, then it's my game.'''
CONFIDENCE FACTOR EMERGES
Splittorff recalled one meeting when Herzog was discussing an upcoming series with a division contender and Herzog said, "We'll beat these guys. Actually, you guys play them even. I know I'm five games better than their manager.'
"Nobody had anything on us, as far as managing," Splittorff said. "Go ahead, you can have Billy Martin (then with the Yankees). We've got Whitey. We're covered."
Former Royals catcher-first baseman John Wathan said, "He's the best I ever saw at game management. He'd be two or three innings ahead of everybody. Whitey would have been a pretty good chess player."
Matthews said, "He gave the guys the confidence — the meaning of winning and what it took to win. He knew that most of the American League teams would come in here with those big plodders and he'd look at the vast expanse (of Royals Stadium) and say, 'We can run most of these teams right out of the ball yard.' And he did. It was fun to watch."
The best of those Royals teams, and maybe the best Herzog ever managed, was the 1977 club that won 102 games and had a two-games-to-one lead over the Yankees in the American League Championship Series with the final two games to be played in Kansas City. The Royals lost those two games to the Yankees, who went on to beat Los Angeles in six games in the World Series.
Had Kansas City won that pennant and then the World Series, Herzog, with another World Series title to go with the one he won in St. Louis in 1982, probably would have been in the Hall of Fame several years before his induction this coming Sunday in Cooperstown, N.Y.
"If you've got that résumé that you've won the World Series in both leagues, that's pretty solid," Matthews said.
THE MAYBERRY INCIDENT
Royals first baseman John Mayberry showed up just a few minutes ahead of game time for that 1977 Game 4 and was pulled by Herzog after four innings — Mayberry had dropped a foul ball that kept a Yankees inning alive. There are various theories as to what was wrong with Mayberry that day. Herzog said, "I lied and said John had a toothache." Others will say Mayberry was in no condition to play.
Herzog, though beseeched by some of his players, stubbornly did not play Mayberry in Game 5 of the five-game series. He said he didn't think he could really face his players or be true to his principles if he played Mayberry.
Splittorff pitched the Royals to a 3-1 lead after seven innings. But the Royals, trying to use starters to close out the game rather than the top-flight closer they didn't have, gave up a run in the eighth and three in the ninth and lost 5-3.
Mayberry never again played for Herzog. He was sold to Toronto the next spring.
"We would have had a chance to go to the World Series," Herzog said, lamenting the events of that Saturday and Sunday.
Herzog said he told Burke and owner Ewing Kauffman that "it's either him or me. I didn't want to bring him to spring training." Finally, just a couple of days before the start of the season, Mayberry was moved.
"John was a good guy. He was never late. He was always one of the first guys at the ball park," Herzog said. "But I just felt it wasn't going to work. Maybe I took too hard a stand on him.
"He came up to me in Kansas City this year and said he made a terrible mistake."
Wathan, who replaced Mayberry at first base in the fourth game and started the fifth game of that playoff series, said Herzog "wasn't afraid of any player. He wasn't afraid to sit a guy who was not playing well or being a bad guy."
White is one of those who wanted Herzog to reinstate Mayberry to the lineup for that last game.
"To me, it wasn't anything but the team at that point,'' White said. "I felt that whatever was going on between John Mayberry and Whitey could have been handled in the offseason. We'd worked too hard to get to that point of the season not to have him in Game 5.
"I know you're talking about integrity and letting the team down and all that stuff — Whitey was all about the integrity of the game and respecting the game. But when you've got one more game to play and you've got your power hitter and your best first baseman not in the lineup, that didn't set too well. Losing that game without John Mayberry was kind of bad.I thought we were a much better team'' than the Yankees.
BULLPEN BLUES
"The fact that we didn't have a good closer back then. … Whitey always said that was the difference in us losing to the Yankees in '76-'77-'78,'' Wathan said. "They had Sparky Lyle and then they got Goose Gossage" in 1978.
Herzog jovially liked to refer to his bullpen as Hungo (Al Hrabosky), Mungo (Steve Mingori), a Duck (Marty Pattin) and a Bird (Doug Bird).
But after losing to the Yankees in the playoffs for the third straight time in 1978, he was bitter in the visitors clubhouse at Yankee Stadium.
"They go out and sign Reggie Jackson, Sparky Lyle and Gossage," Herzog said. "And who do we sign? (Reserve infielder) Jerry Terrell. ... All we needed was Gossage and if we'd paid him $600,000, we could have had him but (the Royals' front office) wouldn't do it."
UTILIZING THE BENCH
Herzog is considered one of the best managers in history at getting maximum mileage out of his bench players.
Wathan said, "He was interested not only in me but he was just as interested in my wife and my family. And if something came up, family-wise, he wanted to know what it was. I'd do anything for him because I felt like he would do for me.
"It might just be idle chatter," said Wathan, a former Royals manage who still with the organization in the player development department. "It just might be, 'How's your family? I know you haven't been in there (the lineup) in a while. I'm going to try to get you in there.' When I managed those four years, I tried to do the same thing. The guys who play every day ... they're happy. The guys who might cause trouble are the guys who aren't playing."
Wathan will never forget how Herzog treated him during the 1979 season when Wathan's mother, Mary, was stabbed to death with an antique sword by Wathan's half-brother-in-law.
Herzog "gave me all the time I needed," Wathan said.
One of the hallmarks of Herzog's managing style in Kansas City and St. Louis was his conviction.
"He's always got a pretty solid reason for what he does," Matthews said.
WHITEY'S WISDOMS
Matthews, recalling the pregame shows he used to do with Herzog, cites several classic Herzog lines of the day. One was, "It's hard to be lucky when you're horse (manure). Or, if you're going to play horse (manure), play fast."
Like anyone else, Herzog had a temper but rarely used it in front of his players. But, almost to a man, the Royals of that era cited the same clubhouse meeting as the maddest they ever saw Herzog.
In the visitors clubhouse at Comiskey Park in Chicago, first baseman/designated hitter George Scott and Herzog got into a profanity-laced tirade, the origin of which was Herzog's displeasure with Scott hitting into too many double plays and Scott's resenting that he wasn't playing more.
Splittorff recalled it was the first meeting in which young reliever Dan Quisenberry had been involved.
"Afterward, 'Quiz' asked me, 'Are all your meetings like that?''' Splittorff said.
Royals pitching coach Bob McClure, a reliever for Herzog in 1975-76, said, "He had an air about him — the way he carried himself. It was like 'I don't know if I want to say anything out of line to this guy.'''
A BONE OF CONTENTION
Herzog's attendance bonus, though a modest one that he was due, rankled Kauffman and Herzog continually was peeved that the front office didn't help him more with free-agent talent.
If the Royals drew two million fans, which they did in 1978-79, Herzog would get a $50,000 bonus each year.
Kauffman "said I didn't draw the people," Herzog said. "And I said, 'You couldn't even draw a million before I got here.'''
Herzog won many arguments in his career — but not this one —and he was let go after the 1979 season even though the Royals had won 85 games. The next year, under Jim Frey, they went to the World Series, losing in six games to Philadelphia.
"The saddest thing for me," Wathan said, "was him not being there in 1980 — because he laid the foundation. Jim Frey came in '80 and reaped the benefits."
Matthews said, "Whitey didn't feel that ownership went the extra mile to get him the extra player that he really needed. He said many times, 'If we'd had a closer, we might have won three instead of losing three."
If that had happened, Herzog probably would be going into the Hall of Fame as a Royals manager and not a Cardinals manager.
Whatever the case, said Swanson, "He was just a human being — who happened to be a great manager."
