It has been five years since I read and posted about Earl Weaver’s autobiography It’s What You Learn After You Know It All That Counts. Since then, a new Earl Weaver biography has been published by John W. Miller, The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball.
This book doesn’t just tell the story of Earl Weaver. It puts Earl Weaver in the context of what baseball has become and how we arrived at it before the rest of the league.
More important, or perhaps most important, Earl Weaver was adaptable. Many in, and around baseball remember him as the “pitching, defense, and three-run homer” guy, but in truth, he evolved into that. Early in his career, he would play small ball and use other strategies.
Miller shines a light on the how of Weaver, as well as the why, and he even takes the time to shine a light on Weaver’s evolution into the three-run homer sage that he became.
Now, I’ve read more than a fair share of baseball books, and not that many people may read more than one book on the same subject. This book is bigger than Weaver and ther Baltimore Orioles: it’s about the evolution of baseball.
Fun fact: Earl Weaver was the only major league manager to be employed by one team through the entire decade of the 1970s. This is even more miraculous when you consider 1976, when free-agency became a thing. Miller sums it up in one important paragraph:
“The empowerment of players would upend the baseball manager’s job. He could no longer threaten players with benching, banishment to the bushes, or punches. If a manager antagonized a player, an agent would be on the phone to complain, and call other clubs looking for a place where their client would play. Instead of acting like a dictator, the post-1976 manager would have to learn to flatter and cajole ballplayers like a realtor showing off a three-bedroom.”
No wonder, Weaver learned to adapt, baseball was changing all around him. But as a biography, as opposed to an autobiography, Miller includes some of the greatest quotes that journalists got from Weaver:
“Don’t worry, the fans don’t start booing until July.”
“We’ve crawled out of more coffins than Bela Lugosi.”
“This ain’t a football game. We do this every day.”
“A baseball manager has no chance. If 30,000 people are in the stands, 15,000 will always think you’re a moron.”
“We’re so bad right now that for us, back-to-back home runs means one today and another one tomorrow.”
If one modern manager would be willing to talk like this, a press conference might actually be worth televising and watching. Now, they’re just vanilla platitudes.
But really, aside from giving me a rich appreciation for Weaver’s ability to adapt and evolve, I may have a much more empathetic view of minor league baseball. While a lot has changed about baseball, minor league baseball is pretty much the same. As Miller writes and as is illustrated by Weaver’s playing career, “playing minor-league baseball can crush a person psychologically.”
This book is for baseball fans of all teams, but be warned… You may want a new manager for your favorite baseball team when you finish this book, and perhaps it would be someone a bit more like The Earl of Baltimore, Earl Weaver.