Idiots Write About Sports

USA Today’s Hal Bodley reports that Phillies manager Larry Bowa is feeling a might bit grumpy these days. You’d be grumpy too if you just got swept by the Brewers in the midst of a playoff race.

An obscure federal law regarding baseball reportage requires every writer to make a passing reference to Bowa’s fiery temper and distaste for losing ballgames — any ballgame, be it to the Milwaukee Brewers or a squad of cherubim and seraphim hand-picked by God Himself. This a polite way of saying Bowa is something of a hard-ass.

Most of the time, Bowa’s demeanor is treated as a positive; Bodley’s column is no exception:

“Bowa has a passion for baseball second to none. He knows how the game should be played and has no patience for losing. This background is necessary when you consider the predicament Bowa is in today.”

And that’s certainly one way of looking at it. Another way would be to contend that Bowa’s background — that is, his tendency to go to the whip hand early and often — is the very thing that has put the Phillies in the predicament they find themselves.

However you define the term “player’s manager,” Larry Bowa is not it. He’ll rip into players, whether in person or via the media. In perhaps his most famous outburst as Phillies manager, Bowa complained during the 2001 season that the middle of his lineup was “killing us” — an observation that then-Phillie Scott Rolen, the middle of the Philadelphia lineup, did not appreciate. A Bowa-Rolen feud broke out, pushing Rolen, who was already leaning toward testing the free-agent market when his contract expired after the 2002 season, further out the door. The Phillies wound up trading Rolen mid-season last year for Placido Polanco, Bud Smith and Mike Timlin. No offense to those latter three gentlemen, but that’s not exactly trading value for value.

So Larry Bowa essentially ran Soctt Rolen out of Philly. Ancient history, right? Well, not if we get back to that predicament Bodley refers to in his column. “The Phillies’ major problem,” Bodley writes, “is their lack of offense. They’re eight in the league with a .260 team average.”

David Bell, the free agent brought in to replace Rolen at third, has done nothing to boost that team average — he’s hitting .198 with 5 homers and 29 RBI. His on-base percentage and slugging percentage are both below .300, for a total OPS of .584.(Bell has been on the DL since mid-July with a back injury.) Just for comparison sake, Rolen is hitting .288 with 24 homers and 89 RBI. His OPS as of this writing is .931.

We’re getting into the world of conjecture now, since there’s no guarantee that even if the Phillies had been able to resign Rolen that he would have put up the same numbers in Philly as he is in St. Louis. But let’s pretend that Bowa holds his tongue, Rolen decides he likes it in Philadelphia after all, and the team signs him to another contract. Might it be safe to assume that having Scott Rolen instead of Bell at third might have solved some of the Phillies’ offensive woes? Bell’s a hell of a guy and was a solid contributor to the Giants’ pennant last year, but he’s not a perennial All-Star nor is he one of the two best third-basemen in the National League. Scott Rolen is, on both counts.

And, in part because of Larry Bowa (some might argue mostly because of Larry Bowa), he’s plying his trade for the St. Louis Cardinals. That doesn’t strike me as a positive side-effect of Bowa’s “passion for baseball” and “no patience for losing.”

(Just like we had to stipulate that Rolen’s actual numbers in St. Louis this season may not have materialized had he stayed in Philly, it’s only fair to acknowledge that Philadelphia’s off-season maneuvering may not have taken place, had Rolen resigned. It would have taken a big, multiyear contract to keep Rolen in Philadelphia, and maybe that eats up money the team wound up spending on Jim Thome or taking on with Kevin Millwood’s contract. Then again, maybe the Phillies — who open up a new ballpark in 2004 — decided after resigning Rolen that they want to make a big splash anyhow and sign Thome — or a Thome-like player — anyway.)

It’s not that hard-asses are precluded from winning ballgames. Jack McKeon is nobody’s idea of a pushover, and the Marlins have done phenomenally well since he took over earlier this year.

But the hardline approach can wear really thin really quickly. After an 86-76 season in 2001 (and a Manager of the Year award), Bowa led Philadelphia to a disappointing 80-81 finish last year. Right now, the Phillies are in the playoff mix — but so are a lot of teams, which appear to be gaining momentum instead of running out of gas.

Back when the Rolen-Bowa feud was at its peak, I was reminded of Joe McCarthy’s arrival in Boston in 1948. With the Phillie bats floundering, it seems just as apt now.

McCarthy, as you probably know, was a stickler for rules, one of which was that his players wear coats and ties when traveling with the team. Ted Williams, a batter of some accomplishment during his tenure with the Boston Red Sox, was just as adamant about not wearing a tie. A reporter asked McCarthy what he planned to say to his star player about their different sartorial attitudes. “You don’t say anything to a .400 hitter except ‘How do you do, sir?’” McCarthy replied.

Larry Bowa probably would have strangled Williams with the tie.