Lou Brown, greatest manager in Indians history, dead at 70

In the early spring of 1989, I was 9 years old. A nine-year-old who loved baseball. My team, the Cleveland Indians, had never won a pennant in my lifetime; somewhat incredibly, the last time they'd sniffed the World Series my father was 9. During the '88-'89 offseason, the longtime owner of the Indians, Donald Phelps, died of an apparent heart attack, leaving majority stake in the hands of his 40-years-junior wife Rachel. She was lampooned in the press for her career choices prior to her marriage to Donald, having been a Vegas showgirl (and who knows what else) before marrying into her good fortune. These were things that, while aware of them, I was unable to process wholly in my ten-year old mind. To me, March just meant Spring Training, the weather turning, school's end on the distant horizon, and Hope. Hope that this might be our year.

Most of the city of Cleveland did not share my optimism. On paper, this looked to be the most anonymous collection of has-beens and never-weres ever to populate a "major league" squad. Our most proven starting pitcher, 41-year-old Eddie Harris, was coming off a subpar season and looked to be playing out the string of his long, up-and-down junkballing career. Our third baseman, Roger Dorn, while still a very good hitter, was nothing short of a complete liability fielding his position. And our catcher, former All-Star Jake Taylor, around for his second stint with the Tribe, had spent the past two years playing in the Mexican league. The rest of the roster was filled with non-prospect rookies and similarly unspectacular veterans.

"Do you think we might be good this year?" I remember asking my Dad.

"We don't look too good," was his unenthusiastic response.

"I think we'll be good," I retorted. "I think so."

The roster and coaching staff itself were topics of great debate in the Cleveland media and between barstools across the region. Rumors swirled that Rachel Phelps was trying to lose on purpose so as to exercise an "out" clause in her lease with the City of Cleveland for Municipal Stadium. Such rumors were not entirely unfounded, as Miami (among other cities) looked to be an attractive, willing destination for an owner looking to relocate. In hindsight, however, her moves look to have been acts of brilliance- and none moreso than her choice to manage this hodgepodge of unripened or expired talent, one Louis Brown of Sandusky, Ohio.

I only met Lou once, and to say I "met" him is a bit of an overstatement. In May of 1989 on my 10th birthday, I asked my father to take me and some of my young friends to a ballgame. This was not then the exorbitant expense that it is today, as right field general admission tickets cost only $4.25 apiece and hot dogs cost 2 bucks. The Indians were not drawing well at the time, either, as befit their uninspiring 10-18 record. As such, we had the run of the place. I liked to get to the ballgame early for batting practice, in the ever-optimistic hope that I might be able to shag a ball that reached the stands.

As we were walking towards our seats and the small throng of hopefuls in right field, Willie Mays Hayes was taking some swings. Through the first few weeks of the season, Hayes had been underwhelming, as the only suspense during his at-bats was whether he'd pop up to the catcher or give himself a chance to beat out the inevitably weak grounder to the shortstop. As I noted as I watched him, his batting practice display hardly inspired confidence in projected improvement. Which is why, when first base coach Pepper Leach lobbed in a batting-practice fastball as we passed the Indians dugout, I was in perfect position to field the foul pop off of Willie's bat.

I'd brought my glove with me to the ballpark, as kids do. I only had to back up two steps to get right under it. I was about to catch my first baseball at the ballpark- on my 10th birthday, no less.

Until some grown-up jerk reached over my head and caught it himself.

I was crushed. My Dad yelled at the guy, who slinked off into the concourse as the few onlookers who had seen the atrocity launched epithets in his direction. I sat down in a seat and felt tears beginning to well up in my eyes. That ball was mine. It was mine.

Suddenly, as I was about to suffer greater indignity by crying in front of my friends at my birthday party, a gravelly voice shouted from the direction of the field.

"Hey kid!"

It was Lou Brown. He was holding a baseball.

"Catch!"

He underhanded the ball to me, smiled, and turned back towards the field to berate Hayes on yet another popup. I'm not sure if he knew that he'd just made me the happiest kid in Cleveland, but he'd just gained his biggest fan.

The rest of that season is well documented in Indians lore. Brown coached through a slow start, taking a zero-tolerance stance on any overblown egos in the clubhouse, and somehow fashioned a team that could compete with the best. Attendance began to pick up as the Erie Warriors found themselves hanging around in mid-August. After a crushing loss to the hated Yankees to drop the Indians to 60-61, eight games back of the Eastern division-leaders, Brown led the Tribe and the city of Cleveland on a comeback run for the ages. They finished they year 32-9, placing themselves in position for a one-game playoff with those same Yankees for the Eastern Division crown.

Or, as it's known in Cleveland, The Greatest Game Ever Managed.

Brown began his masterpiece by switching up the rotation, starting the rejuvenated Eddie Harris instead of young fireballer Ricky Vaughn based upon Harris' superior track record against the team from New York. Harris justified his move with 8 2/3 innings of 2-run ball, an excellent start by any standard. Then, rather than bringing in one of his regular relievers with 2 men on and two out in the ninth with the AL Triple Crown winner Clue Haywood at the plate, he went with Wild Thing Vaughn, the man who had given up four home runs to Haywood in only eight PAA's in the past year. The result: a strikeout. On three pitches.

I remember jumping out of my seat in right field as Ricky fist-pumped after the third pitch.

The Tribe still had to win the game, of course, and Brown was the manager for that time and place. After a two-out infield single for Willie Mays Hayes, Brown gave him the green light to steal during Jake Taylor's ensuing at-bat. Everyone in the stadium knew Willie was going, including Duke Temple, the Yankee closer. After a close play at first on his first pickoff attempt, Hayes got out to an even bigger lead. Inexplicably, Temple threw a pitch.

3.1 seconds later, Willie was on second base. The stadium was louder than anyplace I'd ever been, then and now.

And then, Taylor did something entirely unexpected. He pointed to the center field fence. He was calling his shot. Temple, unimpressed, threw at his head. Spinning out of the way and hitting the dirt, Taylor pulled himself from the ground and stepped back in.

And he pointed to the center field fences. Again.

The lunacy of the situation was entirely lost upon me, as I'm sure it was to everyone else watching in Cleveland that night. The season had been something unlike anything we'd ever seen already; this sequence of events was just par for the course. We were on this bandwagon, however disorienting the ride. We knew a base hit would win us the division. And we believed old Jake Taylor, the heart and soul of the team, bad knees and all, would find a way.

In years since, barroom pundits have debated whether the call for the bunt came from the dugout or whether Taylor acted on his own. No doubt, the pointing theatrics were all Taylor. In either case, Brown deserves credit for approving the tactic if not spawning the idea. It was unconventional in every sense of the word. With two outs, Taylor, the personification of slow-footed, would have to leg out the bunt for a hit if the play were to be successful. Even with the third baseman playing deep, this was an iffy proposition. However, Taylor's lack of footspeed also proved integral to the play's success, as the third baseman had to realistically believe he had a chance to nab Taylor at first in order for Hayes to score from second on the throw. And so, as we all know, Jake beat the throw before tumbling over first base, and Willie kept running, and Haywood's throw was in time but a bit up the line...

Safe. I could hear the umpire from my seat, the entire stadium was so breathless.

Delirium.

All things considered, it was the most logical magic I've seen in person. And the head magician was Lou effing Brown, a guy who had managed the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens for thirty years prior, who worked the phones at Tire World in the offseason, who took a team of nobodies in an underdog city and turned them all into winners.

The guy who tossed a kid a baseball on a lazy Sunday in May.

We'll miss you, Lou.*


*James Gammon, an actor whose notable roles include Lou Brown in the movie Major League, died July 16, 2010 at the age of 70.