Game Over 
Caught Looking
When I was asked to step down as the manager of the Houston Astros last year, I bade a bittersweet farewell to a team I had loved for more than three decades. Among the many lessons I learned: how to motivate millionaires, how to lose in the playoffs, and how to wear a Hawaiian shirt.
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It was also the last hurrah for the Astrodome. A Team of Honor was selected from all the players who had ever worn the Astros' livery, and I was on it. Confetti flittered down from the top of the 'Dome as we lined up along the infield. It was great seeing all the older guys again. While some people were drinking champagne, I was holding back tears. Hey, we old-timers may have been good players, but none of us ever got what the Astros earned that afternoon, a championship.
I hoped we could capture the feeling of that finale and carry it through the playoffs. The Braves' pitching staff had other ideas. We were down two games to one, and we had Shane Reynolds on the mound with our backs against the Astrodome wall. Shane pitched well, but the Braves chinked him to death. Bloopers, choppers, you name it—they attacked him like a horde of Lilliputians. The last batter he faced hit the ball up the middle, and Shane deflected it. The ball rolled toward third, but he didn't go after it. His body language told me that he had about given up. After the game, I was asked why I hooked him so fast. I said that when Shane didn't go after the ball, he seemed to have had enough. But he objected when the reporters told him what I had said. He wanted to keep pitching. It reminded me of a time when I got a visit on the mound from the manager. He said, "Larry, you're not concentrating." I asked, "How do you know?" As it turned out, I should have left Shane in the game. He had the strength to keep going, but I couldn't read his mind. When I said that he looked finished, it only made things worse by insulting him. I had to call him at home the next week to apologize.
The next season was a disaster: We were horrible that first year at Enron Field. There was so much enthusiasm, and expectations were so high after three straight division titles. Even though we traded Mike Hampton, Derek Bell, and Carl Everett, I still thought we could win our division. That's the way I felt, and that's what I said in spring training. That's also where old hubris got me. I never should have mentioned it. We lost our home opener. And we kept on losing. It broke my heart to see us play so poorly with the stadium sold out night after night. It didn't help much that we finished strong. We lost ninety games and finished fourth. I stunk. We all did.
I WAS PRIVATELY APPREHENSIVE LAST YEAR. I knew we would be better, but how much? Drayton doesn't like second place, but he is not going to spend as much on salaries as a team like the New York Yankees. The Cardinals looked good again. I thought they were the best team in the league in 2000, yet the Mets beat them and went on to the World Series. That's what gave me hope. If we could just get in the playoffs, we had a chance. I didn't know if we could beat the Redbirds, but I thought we could at least get a wild-card berth.
Well, we won our division, but we stumbled to the finish line, beating the Cardinals on the last day of the season in St. Louis. During this stretch, it seemed like I was angry all the time, and that is not my nature. I could have just played "blubbermouth"—talking a lot and saying nothing—instead of sharing my feelings with the media. I had been warned several times not to be so forthcoming, but I had trouble doing it. Toward the end of the year I said some things that fanned the flames of disorder.
My first snap came after the last game of the series with the San Francisco Giants at Enron Field. All we had to do was win one game to clinch a playoff berth, but we got swept instead. To make matters worse, Barry Bonds hit a home run to tie Mark McGwire's single-season record. I was fried. But the media didn't set me off. Our so-called fans did. We had walked Barry a bunch of times that series, and they kept booing. In some cases we didn't want to pitch to him; in others we were trying to get him out. The pitchers could have been too careful, or they could have just been wild. In several cases it looked like they were getting squeezed by the home plate umpire. I resented the implication that we were pitching him differently than we did in San Francisco the week before. And I felt betrayed when our own fans cheered for him after he hit the homer. It's one thing to recognize an extraordinary accomplishment. It's another to rub your own team in the dirt with repeated hosannas to the enemy. I said that anyone who reacted that way couldn't be an Astros fan. I don't know if I have ever gotten over that. The next day I learned that some of the players didn't agree with me. I overheard Biggio saying that the fans were "awesome."
Five days later we lost the first game of the playoffs at home against Atlanta. We had a 3-2 lead after seven innings, and we blew it. The bullpen, which had been a surpassing strength for us in the second half of the year, lost the lead and lost the game. Todd Fedewa, who works in media relations, ushered me into the media room afterward, and he could tell I was boiling. "Do you want to take a few minutes to cool off?" he asked diplomatically. "A few minutes isn't going to change anything," I said. "Let's get it over with." Little did I know, I was about to get it over with for good.
Tim Melton from Channel 13 asked me why I had used Mike Jackson instead of Octavio Dotel in the eighth inning. I bristled. "Because Mike has been better lately," I said. "Check the record." Well, they did, and it was pretty ugly. Both pitchers were ineffective after the September 11 hiatus. Dotel was having severe control problems after the layoff, and his velocity was down. He was a hard-throwing kid with no fear who could be overpowering but was prone to control lapses. Jackson was the veteran. He could throw strikes and generally forced the hitter to swing. He got hit a few times that way, but he didn't walk many batters. When Billy Wagner was injured early in the year, Jackson was our closer, and he succeeded on all four tries. I guess I should have pitched Dotel anyway. The media had a field day. I learned a lesson from the events of those last two weeks, but I'm not certain I could apply it. I know it's not good to wear your heart on your sleeve. Knowing it is one thing, doing it yet another.
In our four failed attempts in the playoffs, we never really hit. I frankly have no idea why. I know that fourteen games is a small sample, but 2-12 is just not acceptable. In that way I concurred with Gerry when he said that I had probably run my course. It hurt a lot. I had spent 35 years with the team, never coming close to the World Series as a player but having a chance almost every year as a manager. I had another year on my contract and was ready to serve, but it would have been hard to create the right atmosphere.
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