Lou by Lou Piniella

Author:Lou Piniella
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-04-11T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Nasty Doings and Doggie Poop

Only in the insensitive, oblivious, penurious world of Marge Schott could the joy of winning the world championship all but be extinguished in just a couple of hours. I’d like to say we partied into the San Francisco night—as we deserved to do—and woke up Sunday morning, with a beautiful hangover, basking as the champions we were. Unfortunately, the only person in the baseball universe on whom the supreme accomplishment of sweeping the winningest team in baseball in the World Series was lost was our owner. At our supposed victory party back at our hotel in San Francisco, Marge neglected to buy any food. It seemed she wasn’t happy that we won the World Series in Oakland and didn’t bring it back to Cincinnati where she could have gotten another gate. We were starving by the time we got back to the hotel and I remember winding up celebrating in a little hamburger joint around the corner with eight or nine players and wives at 3:00 a.m.

Meanwhile, Eric Davis was lying in a hospital room in serious condition as doctors worked to repair his kidney, and we had to leave him behind. I called him in the hospital as soon as we got back to Cincinnati, and he was distraught about having to miss the parade. He had to remain in the hospital for six days. Making matters worse was Marge’s refusal to pay for either his plane fare home or the approximate $6,000 hotel bill for his family while he was hospitalized. It left a sour taste in all our mouths and left me wondering just how long I was going to be able to put up with Marge’s mercurial and crude behavior.

After her husband, Charles, died of a heart attack in 1968 and left her his auto dealership and stakes in some other local industries, she lived by herself with her Saint Bernards in that big house in Indian Hill. She’d bring the dogs to the stadium every day, and before the games she’d come out on the field with a cigarette in her hand and one of the dogs would invariably get away from her and run out to right field and take a dump. Then he’d come running back to the infield, circle around second base and take a leak on the pitcher’s mound. That’s when two guys in tuxedoes would come running out with pooper-scoopers to clean up the messes and the grounds crew would have to repair the mound—all of this holding up the start of the game.

Of course, my Yankee teammates might say I’m a fine one to talk when it comes to on-field shenanigans delaying the start of games.

“Everybody knows Lou was obsessed with hitting, to the point where he couldn’t walk past a mirror without stopping to practice his batting swing,” related Ron Guidry. “Everywhere he went, he’d be practicing his swing—just walking down the street in visiting cities, getting up in the middle of restaurants. But I remember this one time in particular, early in 1977 at Yankee Stadium.

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