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Stacey King -> RE: Former Twins News (6/4/2014 11:03:49 AM)
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Former MLB manager helps Fort Myers Miracle
A baseball Hall of Famer made good on a 37-year-old promise this spring training at a Fort Myers restaurant.
In 1977, future Baltimore Orioles manager Sam Perlozzo was summoned from Triple-A Tacoma to the Minnesota Twins and was hitting in front of Rod Carew.
Carew, who had won six American League batting titles and would go on to win one more in his Hall of Fame career, had 99 RBI and never had finished with 100 in a season.
Twins manager Gene Mauch pulled Perlozzo aside and told him how to hit the opposing pitcher's fastball.
"He calls me over and tells me that after I went 0-for-3," Perlozzo said. "Then he says, 'Now go up there and hit a triple.'"
Sure enough, Perlozzo hit the ball off the left-field wall for a triple. Carew drove him home for his 100th RBI, the only time Carew would have that many in a season.
"Call me next year when you make the team, and we're going to get dinner," Carew told Perlozzo. "You're going to get champagne, the whole thing."
Instead, almost four decades passed. So did a lifetime of professional baseball memories for Perlozzo, who this past offseason rejoined the Twins — the franchise that signed him out of George Washington University — as a roving minor league baserunning and infield instructor.
"I have really enjoyed it so far," said Perlozzo, whose baseball resume has meandered across teams in 17 cities and two countries – he played in Japan in 1980 – plus even more if you count his travels this season throughout the Twins minor league system.
Perlozzo, who will be on hand for the 7:05 p.m. Fort Myers Miracle game tonight at Hammond Stadium, will leave town Thursday. He has planned stops in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; New Britain, Conn.; and Rochester, N.Y., before returning to Fort Myers at the end of the month for five more Miracle games.
"He's managed in the big leagues," Miracle manager Doug Mientkiewicz said. "He's been around a long time, and he has a lot of knowledge. The players had a really good spring training with him, not only infield-wise but baserunning-wise. For me, I'm able to bounce a lot of things off him. We're lucky to have him."
Perlozzo managed in the minor leagues for the New York Mets for most of the 1980s. In 1986, the Mets summoned Perlozzo to the big-league club in time for the National League pennant chase.
"I was there for the clinching," Perlozzo said. "You remember when they charged that field? It was bedlam.
"I remember (pitching coach) Mel Stottlemyre telling me to take off your hat, and then we've got to go and get Doc (Dwight Gooden). Sure enough, that last out was made, and I took but two steps out of the dugout, and someone hit me on the top of the head coming out of the dugout.
"By the time I looked up, the only person I could see was (future Hall of Fame catcher) Gary Carter. I just buried my face into his chest and grabbed him and said, 'Come on, Gary, let's get out of here.'"
Perlozzo received a World Series ring. He received one in 1990 as well, having served on manager Lou Piniella's staff with the Cincinnati Reds.
Prior to the 1996 season, Perlozzo asked Piniella for permission to leave that staff for Davey Johnson's Baltimore Orioles. Perlozzo's father, Nick, was dying of lung cancer, and the son wanted to spend time with his father, who died in September of that year in Maryland.
That move led Perlozzo on a path to becoming the 39th man to manage the Baltimore Orioles. He had a 122-164 record (.427 winning percentage) from 2005-07.
"We didn't have enough pitching," Perlozzo said. "We had Melvin Mora at third, Miguel Tejada at short, Brian Roberts at second, Kevin Millar at first.
"We just didn't have enough pitching. When you're in the American League East, and you're playing the Yankees 18 times and the Red Sox 18 times, and that's when the Yankees were the real Yankees and the Red Sox were the real Red Sox. That made for a real tough task. I wish the situation would have been a little different in Baltimore, where I could have stuck around a little longer and got things right. I wish I had a little bit more time. It was just a tough situation."
Since then, Perlozzo has coached with the Mariners and Phillies. He spent last summer without a job for the first time in a long time.
"I enjoyed it," said Perlozzo, 63 and a Tampa resident during the offseason. "I had gone 40-some years with the grind out there. At the end of the year, I said, 'You know what. I probably should try something one more time.'"
PERLOZZO AT A GLANCE
• Who: Sam Perlozzo
• What: Former Baltimore Orioles manager, in town today with the Fort Myers Miracle as a roving minor league coach for the Minnesota Twins
• Age: 63
• Minor league playing career: Played for affiliates in Fort Lauderdale, Dubuque, Iowa, Reno, Nev., Orlando, Tacoma, Wash., Toledo, Ohio and Hawaii
• Big-league playing career: Minnesota Twins (1977) and San Diego Padres (1979)
• Japanese League: Played for Yakult in 1980. Made $60,000, more than the MLB minimum salary of $21,000
• Minor league coaching career: New York Penn League (1982), Lynchberg, Tenn. Mets (1983), Jackson Mets (1984-85), Tidewater (1986)
• Big-league coaching career: New York Mets (1987), Cincinnati Reds (1990), Seattle Mariners (1993-95), Baltimore Orioles (1996-2005)
• Big-league managing career: Orioles (2005-07)
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