Noah Webster, the great American lexicographer, was working late in his study. At slightly past midnight, his wife entered the room and saw that her husband’s secretary was sitting on his lap.
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“Noah,” she said in admonishment. “I am surprised!”
“No, my dear,” Noah replied. “You are not surprised. You are astonished.”
So it was with me at Comiskey Park during a dugout visit with Phil Garner, the highly successful manager of the Milwaukee Brewers. Despite an anemic player payroll of $22 million, less than half as much as the White Sox’s, Garner has the Brewers in second place in the American League Central, ahead of the fading Sox.
Wherever the Brewers go, Garner acknowledged, reporters are expressing surprise that his club has made such a strong showing.
“We have astonished most people because they don’t know who we are,” Garner said. “Here in Chicago, you know all about Frank Thomas and Albert Belle and Robin Ventura. And Sammy Sosa and Mark Grace. You know all these players. But you don’t know who Jeromy Burnitz is because he’s hardly played. You don’t know Fernando Vina or Mike Matheny. I’ll bet you’ve never heard of Jesse Levis. Or Al Reyes.”
Burnitz is the best known. A 27-year-old outfielder, he has been bouncing in and out of the big leagues since 1993. This year, for the first time, he is playing every day and has blossomed into a genuine power hitter with 27 home runs and 67 runs batted in.
“I’m always picking on him. It’s a joke between us,” Garner said. “I tell him, `Jeromy, it has been a couple of days since you’ve done something good. Let me see something tonight.’ He enjoys it because he knows he has been given an opportunity on this club. Opportunity is everything. You can’t be a star sitting on the bench.”
A reporter told Garner–who was known as Scrap Iron when he was a player–he should be a strong candidate for manager-of-the-year honors.
“It’s nice to hear. I’m flattered that someone would think that, and I’d like to take the credit,” Garner said. “I have as much pride as the next guy. But the players and the coaching staff deserve the credit.”
Garner went on to explain that his pitching staff, both starters and relievers, has been the centerpiece of the club’s success. Then he said something I never have heard before and which isn’t likely to be music to any of the 28 club owners.
Middle-relief pitchers, the so-called long men, who always have been baseball’s most anonymous performers, are just as valuable as the club’s top two or three rotation starters and the primary closer.
As a result, the Brewers now have a fortress of essentially four middlemen who form the bridge between the starters and the late man: right-handers Mike Fetters and Bob Wickman and left-handers Ron Villone and Joel Adamson.
“If it was up to me, I’d pay them as much as our best starters and closer,” Garner insisted. “Ever since I’ve been here (six seasons) I have tried to convince our people to put more emphasis on middle relievers.”
Garner said this realization came to him in 1989 when he was a coach with the Houston Astros.
“We had good starters and the best closer in the league (Dave Smith). But our middle relievers couldn’t hold a lead. We lost a lot of games because of that.”
Garner was asked about the general assumption that teams with the lowest payrolls often play with more enthusiasm and zest than the clubs with a generous blending of multimillion-dollar superstars.
“A team’s payroll is not a condition for playing hard,” Garner said. “It may seem players on the low end of the salary scale play with more enthusiasm. But I don’t think it’s true.”
Evidence that this is so, Garner said, is that most managers in a pennant race, given a choice between an experienced or a young player, would take the established player “unless you’re rebuilding a club for a couple of years down the line.”