Ep. 6. Tal Smith; longtime baseball executive; Houston Astros HOF Class of 2022. Part 2; brought to you by HoustonCityBeat.com

Thank you for finding the Heroes and Icons podcast! Please rate, share and review the show on Apple or wherever you might be listening, and follow me on Twitter @HeroesIcons Pod. I'm your host Greg Randolph. Our show today is brought you by my friends at Houston City Beat – Houston City Beat is an online media company that keeps a read on the beat in the Greater Houston Area.; there's just something about that beat! My special guest today is once again longtime baseball executive and Houston Astros Hall of Famer, Class of 2022, Tal Smith. In Part 2 of a 2-part series, we dive in to discuss Tal's time with the New York Yankees; his move back to the Houston Astros as GM in 1975 and how he built the 1980 NL West Division Championship team; what goes into making a trade; and an inside look at the arbitration process among other behind the scenes looks from his illustrious baseball career. Please follow me on Twitter @ (20) Greg Randolph (@HeroesIconsPod) / Twitter Thank you!! Enjoy the show and thank you again for listening! Photo credit: Getty Images.

Welcome and thank you for joining us today on the Heroes and Icons podcast. I'm your host, Greg Randolph. Please find me on Instagram at Heroes and Icons Podcast and on Twitter at Heroes icons Pod. Please rate, share and review the show. And thank you for doing so.

Once more, we have a special guest with us today. I'm honored again to have longtime and revered baseball executive Houston Astros Hall of Famer, Class of 2022 Tal Smith on the Heroes and Icons podcast today. Our show is brought to you by my friends at Houston City Beat, and there's just something about that beat. They can be found on Facebook at Houston City Beat or on the web at houstoncitybeat.com.

GR
How are you, Tal? I hope traffic was a lot better for you today coming in?

TS
I'm fine, Greg. Nice to visit with you again.

GR
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Well, thank you very much for being on the show with me a second time. And this is part two of a two-part episode with Mr. Smith. So here we go. Well, let me start, let me -please allow me to jump back to the New York Yankees days from 1973 to 1974.

And so, so my question here is, were you able to see any of the construction on original Yankee Stadium in those two years when you were there?

TS
Not really, Greg, By the time I joined the Yankees, and as I recall, that was probably November of 1973, and by that time the renovation was well underway.
I did know the architect, that the Yankees had employed that was working on it, and I talked to him from time to time, on occasion. He'd shown me something on the plans of it and so on. But from an actual construction or renovation standpoint, that was well underway and really didn't have too many occasions to get to Yankee Stadium.

As a matter of fact, the only one I really remember is after we had made the decision to return to Houston, I packed up the family in our station wagon. And, we made one last trip up to Yankee Stadium to sort of say goodbye, you know, because if we had stayed, that would've been our future home.

We never got to enjoy that. I love the Yankee legacy and, and it was an honor to work for them, but I never really got to work in Yankee Stadium.

GR
Sure. Okay. I knew that you most certainly must have officed out of Shea during those years,

During the renovation of Yankee Stadium, as the Yankees had made arrangements, to play in Shea Stadium, to share that with the Mets. But we actually officed in the, what was called the Parks Administration Building, which was a short walk from Shea Stadium. And that was the offices that had been used during the World's Fair in New York, which I believe was in the mid-1960s, 1964, 65, something close to that.

And that had been sort of the headquarters building for them. And it was just a short walk from there to the ballpark. And we would actually park our cars at the Parks Administration Building, go to the game and then come back to the office and, and so on. So, from an office standpoint, we spent time in Shea, but just for the ball games.

GR
Gotcha. Okay. I figured it must have been something along those lines. It wouldn't necessarily make a whole lot of sense to maybe office out of a large construction site like that, unless it was just unavoidable.

TS
Sure.

GR
So, let me ask you about those teams that you were a part of in 73 and 74 with the Yankees and about some of those players.

What was your thought on the roster construction at that time with free agency on the horizon there?

TS
Well, George- George Steinbrenner, had bought the Yankees at the start of the 1973 season, and the Yankees were, from a playing standpoint, really in a state of distress. They were not very good, with the exception of Bobby Murcer, and Thurman Munson was coming along, but they didn't have a lot of marquee players and they weren't very good. And, so, since Steinbrenner brought in Gabe Paul, and they made a lot of changes during the 1973 season, I joined them at the end of that, as I said, I think it was November of 1973.

GR
Right.

TS
But by that time they had already made some changes. They had acquired Graig Nettles by that time, shortly after I joined them at the end of the 73 season. As a matter of fact, I can recall this distinctly. They made a deal with Kansas City to acquire Lou Piniella.

GR
Right.

TS
And that was a very key move. They got Piniella in exchange for Lindy McDaniel. And, I was coming home for the Christmas holidays to spend that time with my family. We were still located here in Houston. And I actually had to meet Lindy, someplace along I 45, and I forget where he was going, but I had to get him to sign the disposition paper.

So I actually got a chance to say goodbye to him. But those were key moves that had been made. And then early in 1974, one of the more dramatic, moves was the big trade with Cleveland, where the Yankees sent five pitchers, as I recall, to Cleveland for Chris Chambliss and Dick Tidrow. And the trade was not well received initially, certainly by players and even fans. How can you send off five pitchers? We need pitching and so on. Well, it, it was a good move. Chambliss was a key part of the Yankee success in future years.

Dick Tidrow played an important role and so on. So those, those were some of the big moves. Later on, I guess the most controversial move came at the end of the 1974 season. And I recall this because I was with Gabe when we went out to visit Horace Stoneham in San Francisco and discussed the possibility of acquiring Bobby Bonds at that time for Bobby Murcer.

Right.

You know, Murcer had followed in the footsteps of DiMaggio and Mantle and so on. I think it was unfair to Bobby. That had actually put too much pressure on him, just too hard to live up to those expectations and whatnot. But we thought Bobby Bonds was quite a talent. So that was another key move made at the end of the 1974 season. There was a lot of roster turnover.

Right.

I think it turned out to be pretty successful. The club came very close to winning in 1974. And in 1976, they did win.

They did. And they had Catfish Hunter who came over in 1975. if I have that right. Were you with the Astros at that time? Did were, did you try to get him to Houston?

No, I was with the Yankees. Catfish became a free agent at the end of 1974 season.

Right.

And I can recall we had the press conference, if I recall correctly, at our offices at the Park Administration Building, as I said, close to Shea Stadium, and I believe that was New Year's Eve of 1974. So, Catfish became a, became a key component of the 1975 and subsequent teams.

Sure, sure. Very good. So, I wanted to kind of follow up on that and ask about the philosophy of, of roster construction again. At that time, 1975, you had come over to the Astros.

So my question then, is it, would it have been a good move to have signed a large free agent like Catfish Hunter at the outset of a rebuild, or was it a better situation to not have a big free agent and not have maybe some of that pressure at the outset for expectations and then to build from that?

TS
Well, there really wasn't a choice because when I came back to the Astros in August of 1975, that was under the auspices of the two credit companies, GE Credit and Ford Motor Credit. And they had taken over direction of the club, one of the boards, so to speak, because of the indebtedness by the club to them.

They were not in this for the long haul. They just wanted to recoup their loans and whatnot and wanted to see the club be able to continue, but not by putting a lot of money into it. And we had what really was a zero-based budget, so to speak. Every dollar that we spent you had to justify and had to come from some other source.

So from that standpoint, we didn't have the financial discretion to go after free agents. The 1975 Astros had finished 43 and a half games out of first place. It was 64 and 97, their record. And so obviously when you've got a club with that kind of a record, that probably signifies there's a lot of improvement that has to be made.

And we weren't going to do it by making a splash and going out and signing one free agent. We didn't have the funds to do that, and I didn't think that was the right direction. Instead, I felt that what we had to do was to rebuild. I know that's not a popular term sometimes, but that's just facing reality. We had to get younger and we had to get less expensive. If we could save money and player payroll by trading off older, more expensive players and rebuilding with younger and less expensive players. That meant there was more money perhaps to be spent on scouting and player development and other aspects of the operation. So that's the course that we chose. And over the years, or a number of fine players that I knew very well from my earlier days with the Astros, who had played for the club and rendered very, very good service for several years that we had to dispose of, or we did dispose of.

I mean like Doug Rader being one of them, Roger Metzger and so on. But we did this because we felt that was the course that we had to follow if we were going to be successful. And, you know, it sometimes takes a long time. I mean, we went from 43 and a half games out of first place in 1975 to contending for the pennant in 1979 and in 1980, winning the division.

So from that standpoint, that was the philosophy or the course and, we had to go out and acquire in a lot of cases, players that were really not well known to the public or to the media. I think if players like Art Howe, and Denny Walling and so on, and Denny Walling was actually on the disabled list at Oakland when we acquired him.

He had a fractured wrist at that time. And we had a veteran outfielder we had acquired from the Dodgers, that had just been with us a short time. And Charlie Finley had interest in him. Oh, it was Willie Crawford. And, Charlie Finley had interest in him, and Crawford wasn't somebody that really fit into our long-term scheme of things.

So, he mentioned several names that didn't we have any interest in. And I guess we asked about Walling and he said, well, you know, off our scouting reports from Pryor Service. And he said, well, he's on the disabled list, and I said, that's all right. Well, after we found out more about the injury, we went ahead and did that.

Art. Art Howe was buried at 3rd base at Pittsburgh. He had not been able to crack into the starting lineup. We got Art. And as a matter of fact, I think when we first acquired him, we even sent him out to AAA for a little bit of time before we brought him back and made some other changes. I think that was when we traded Rader and that opened up third base for Art or Enos Cabell.

Yep. Yep. So, in 1980 then Joe Morgan and Nolan Ryan were brought in at that time as the big splash free agents, and it was that time in the development of the team where that was the right time to bring those guys in.

TS

Right. And that was a different ownership by that time. The two credit companies had sold the club to John McMullen and his partners. So we were no longer under the same restraints that we had been from a budget standpoint. Ryan obviously was a key free agent, and we had a lot of interest in Nolan.

And, well now we sort of sensed that he would like to return to Texas, his home being in, in Alvin. And I had actually tried to acquire Nolan on several occasions when he was with the Angels. And I thought at one time we, I think at the end of the 1978 season, I thought we just might've had a deal done with their GM Buzzy Bavasi.

I left the winter meetings and I was waiting on Buzzy to get back and confirm the deal. And one of his aids came to me and said he's not going to do it. He changed his mind. So anyway, Nolan stayed with the Angels and became a free agent in 1979. John McMullen, the owner of the club, wanted to pursue him, and wanted to make the splash from a marketing standpoint, and I wanted to do it from a player standpoint, obviously Nolan was one of the greatest pitchers of all time. And what he could add to our rotation and so on.

On Joe Morgan, it was a somewhat different situation. Joe had had a great career at Cincinnati had become a free agent and he was still available fairly late in the free agent process. And I, I forget the exact chronology. I want to say this was after the Christmas holidays. We were into the first part of the year and spring training’s approaching and so on. Joe was represented by Tom Rich. Tom was an agent that I had known for a number of years. We had a great relationship. He represented a number of our players, including JR and Enos Cabell and others. Tom and I would talk frequently even if there wasn't a particular negotiation, just sort of exchanging industry information and in one of our conversations, the possibility of Joe Morgan returning here, because he hadn't gone on to another place, he was still out on the market.

And if, if there was going to be something that he was particularly interested in or somebody that wanted to really make him a big deal, that likely would've already transpired, right? It hadn't. So yeah, I thought there were some things that we would have to discuss to make sure Joe was comfortable coming back here in whatever his role might be, because he was not of the same caliber, the same stature player that he had been, say five or six years earlier. So, we arranged a meeting. Tom and Joe Morgan came down. I had Bill Virdon, our manager, fly down from Springfield, Missouri so the four of us could meet and discuss all the parameters- not necessarily the financial aspects, but Joe, how are you going to react if you're not in the starting lineup? How are you going to react if you’re pinch hit for or pinch run? I'm not saying these things are going to happen. Because I think that was an important aspect.

We had a fairly well-set club by this time. Cabell was at third, Craig Reynolds at short, Art Howe was playing first. Raphael Landestoy, who we had acquired from Los Angeles, had done a good job. And so, there was some question as to how Joe might fit in and what his role might be.

And we didn't want to sign somebody and have a dissatisfied player, particularly somebody that was of Hall of Fame caliber, right? It's important for the clubhouse chemistry and atmosphere that you not have disruptions. Not that Joe would create them, but you didn't want somebody else to be creating them.

Right.

So, the four of us talked and then we broke and Tom and I sat separately for dinner and Bill Virdon and Joe Morgan sat together and they talked about things. Obviously we worked it out and Joe became a key part of the 1980 club from the standpoint of its leadership and his on the field contributions.

GR

Was he brought in to, to possibly be a player manager at that time? There was no talk of that?

No. There was no talk of Bill stepping aside or any thought or suggestion to my knowledge- certainly nothing that Tom Rich and I discussed, and nothing that Joe and I ever discussed, that was not. As far as I know, Joe wanted to continue his playing role. I didn't know whether he had an interest in managing or not. As it turned out he went in other directions and had a very successful career as a broadcaster, but that was never a consideration. He was brought in as a player on a one-year basis to provide whatever he could to help the team and particularly for his experience and his leadership.

GR

Excellent. Excellent. Very good. And that was part of my understanding or maybe misunderstanding that I had heard that on some secondhand information, so I wasn't sure if that was true.

People may have speculated, but that was nothing I ever heard, discussed, or that I discussed or envisioned and why? As far as I was concerned, Bill Virdon was the manager and was going to be the manager for as long as possible. Unfortunately, I left after 1980, Bill continued on for 1981 and then the new management, Al Rosen, made a change during the 1982 season, but that, that was never anything that we had contemplated.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Very good. So, you brought in as we discussed, you brought in the Art Howes and the Denny Wallings and everyone else. But I wanted to ask you in regard to the 1980 NLCS with the roster construction of both the Astros and the Phillies- with the Phillies, unfortunately, ultimately prevailing in that series. What really made the difference for them in that series?

One run (laughter).

The eighth inning of game five, where they scored five runs and we came back and tied it up and then, then they pushed over a run in the 10th inning. It was a very close, close, series. As we've discussed, I think the last four games went extra innings. As far as differences between the clubs, hard to tell. I mean, as I said, by that time, we had more experience. We had Cruz and Cedeno who could be considered experienced players at that time. And Art Howe and Enos Cabell by that time had been regulars for some time.

And the Phillies had some veterans. They had some Hall of Famers in Mike Schmidt.. And, they had Bob Boone, a very, very good veteran catcher and Greg Luzinski and Garry Maddox. It was a very good team. As far as one being better than the other, I think if we played that series all over again, we might have prevailed.

I thought we were ready to clinch, up until the top of the eighth inning of the final game. I thought we were going to prevail. As I said, you know, anything can happen on any given day. I thought the two clubs were closely matched.

Well, and you know, what I want to be sure that my audience knows, is that in 1980 the NLCS was only a five-game series.

TS

Right. I think the Astros would've certainly prevailed if that was a seven-game series. But as I said, four games won by one run so that, in itself indicates that the teams were very closely matched. Both teams had a lot of key players; a lot of controversial calls.

You know, the ball hit back to Verne Rule in game four that held up the game, accounted for a long delay as to whether it was going to be a one out two outs or three outs on the play. Players getting called out for tagging up and leaving third base too soon. That was a critical run in as it stands against the Astros where Gary Woods was ruled out for leaving third base too early. And, you know, but those are very close calls. If we had that, had it to play over again, I like our chances, but the Phillies were a very good club and went on to win the World Series.

Absolutely. So, in that season, to win the division, you know, we, the, the Astros had lost those last three against the Dodgers to force a playoff in that one game playoff for the 163rd game of the season. The result of that was not having Niekro being able to start that game.

Yeah, if we'd been able to win without the playoff, Niekro undoubtedly would've been the opening day pitcher for the playoffs. He would've started game one, but obviously you have to get to the playoffs. So, when we had the playoff, again, you go to your best and most available at that time.

So, Joe started game 163 and won it. But obviously that was on a Monday, and the playoffs opened in Philadelphia on Tuesday. We flew all night to get there after celebrating the victory and whatnot. So that, that in itself was somewhat of a burden on the club.

I mean, one, you know, one that you welcome, but it's not the ideal arrangement from a standpoint of rest and preparation for your first post-season, so to speak. You know, but as it turned out, Ken Forsch started game one of the playoffs and pitched, and he pitched very well. I'm trying to recall. He pitched a complete game. He may have, I think that was a low, low scoring game. The Phillies, the Phillies won it. I think it was like three to one or something of that nature. So, you know, you can't say that that in itself caused us to lose.

You have to have, generally have to score more than one run to win. But that did affect the rotation. What the aftermath would've been, I don't know. As far as matchups Forsch started game one. Nolan Ryan started game two. We won that. Niekro started game three and we won that.

That was a one to nothing game. Game four Verne Ruhle started. And game five Nolan Ryan started. I guess what it did, Niekro only got one start in the five-game series.

Correct.

If he hadn't had to pitch on Monday in Game 163 to win the division, it probably would've meant that he would've had two starts and Ryan would've had two starts and that would've obviously helped.

Sure, sure. So let me ask you this. Do you feel as if the team had won game five for the NLCS, do you feel that that a change still would've been made at your position where you were concerned? Or is it hard to say?

I think, I frankly think John McMullen would've tried to find some way to do it. It might have been more difficult had we won. He seemed to be surprised there was a reaction when he decided to dismiss me anyway, I’m not sure whether winning the World Series would've deterred him or not.

TS

I don't know. I mean, here we’ve got an example of the Astros this past year. They won the World Series and the general manager ends up leaving. So, if an owner wants to make a change, I think he finds a way. And McMullen, it was just the two of us really just didn't get along.

It had nothing to do, I don't think, with what the team did on the field. I don't think that was his measuring stick at all. I think he just had a difficult time with the attention not being focused on him. I'll come out and say that. I think he was an egomaniac.

I thought it really distressed him to see either Bill Virdon, the manager or me as a general manager get credit and he did not. Then I think if he had had some way to do this even before the playoffs, he would've done it.. Yeah.

Gosh, I hate that it was that way for you, but I think,- do you feel like that it ultimately worked out for you, with having Tal Smith Enterprises and going on to do some other things?

TS

Yeah, I guess it, did. I mean, If I'd had my preference at that time, I would've preferred to stay with the Astros. But if it hadn't happened, then I don't think McMullen and I ever could have gotten along. I didn't like him and he didn't like me. I guess it just gets down, I think it gets down to that I had great difficulty with some of his views.

He's not here to defend himself, so I won't get into a lot of it, but. Sure. I'll simply point out when, I can recall, we were on a road trip, we were playing the Phillies or the Mets and had an off day and McMullen invited Bill Virdon, and his wife Shirley was with him and my wife Johnnie was with me on the trip, invited the four of us to dinner at their home in Montclair, New Jersey on an off day.

And I can recall being out in his garden in the back, in the afternoon preceding dinner and with Bill Virdon and McMullen. And I brought up the contract negotiations with JR. Richard,. You know, that was a long, protracted negotiation with Tom Rich. And frankly, at that time, McMullen said, what do you want to sign him for?

And, I‘ll let it go with that.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Absolutely. Well, thank you for, thank you for those.

Those are the kind of things that really, really distressed me. I frankly thought he was crude and rude.

Yes, sir. Very good. Well, let me move on to 1981. So, you started doing your own arbitration cases for Oakland and a few other teams. And in 1982, you founded, as we discussed, Tal Smith Enterprises. and you performed consulting services for most every major league team. But you even handled a couple cases as the sole arbitrator, where the commissioner had to recuse himself.

Can you speak about any of those situations or just generally?

Well, without going into a lot of detail., the first one was that the end of 1981, and there was a dispute between the major league umpires and Major League Baseball, or specifically the American League and the National League and when up.

But obviously the two leagues fall under the auspices of the commissioner since the commissioner's office was a party to this and the agreement, that the umpires and major league baseball had, that any disputes would be settled by arbitration and not the courts.

So they had this dispute that had to be settled by arbitration. Normally, the commissioner serves as the arbitrator, but if he's an interested party, he has to excuse or recuse himself. I had a call from the attorney, the representative for the major league umpires.

At that time I can recall it distinctly. I was out in Arizona watching a fall league game with the young prospects and got this call from Richie Phillips who was the umpire's representative and I didn't know this was coming. And he went on to explain that somebody had suggested me as a possible arbitrator for this and we talked about it.

And so anyway, my long story short, I was acceptable to the umpires. And I was acceptable to Major League Baseball. So, I served as the arbitrator in that there were a number of issues in this dispute. There were a handful of them, and I had to consider each one and, and rule on it.

And you know, you never make everybody happy on something like that. But, I thought it turned out well and then I thought the parties felt they got a fair judgement. The other case came along several years later, probably, 1986 or 87. And this involved, an employee of the Major League Scouting Bureau, well, the major league scouting bureau, again, as operated by Major League Baseball, the commissioner, and so on and so forth. And, this was a wrongful termination issued And, I knew of the people at the Major League Scouting Bureau. I'd had a relationship with them.

And they asked if I would be willing and I said, well, if it's acceptable to Major League Baseball, yes. And, obviously I guess my standing at that time with Major League Baseball, you know, off my prior service and the earlier case I had heard, and my work and salary arbitration on behalf of the clubs and other things, that was acceptable.

So, again, I served in that. Again, there's, many, many different issues within any complaint like that. But those were the two cases.

Well, I mean, really, I guess all you can do in those cases is just hear the facts and be impartial and make the best decision.

TS
You have to have to view this just like a, just like a jury would, and make your own judgment.

There you go. You're listening to the Heroes and Icons podcast with Greg Randolph.

So, regarding salary arbitration, your firm tried upwards of a thousand cases. So my question is, when you represented the team, my understanding is that during that process, you would never do this on purpose, you wouldn't tear a player down but rather you took all the emotion out of the process and you just presented the team's case based on what the player had had done, and then relative to what his peers had done?

I certainly didn't, I certainly did not want to demean a player. With my years in the game. I have great appreciation for everybody, based upon their stats.

I viewed arbitration as a means of settling an issue. Much like an arbitrator, you know, much like the two cases where I had to arbitrate. From a salary arbitration standpoint to me it's a continuation of the arguments or the dialogue that goes on between a player or his representative and the club during the negotiation stage.

The club is going to express why they think this is the appropriate salary, and the player's going to say why he thinks this is it. And there's some gamesmanship involved when you get to the actual numbers in arbitration because the number the arbitrator has to pick is now one number or the other.

He can't split the baby, so to speak. He can’t do the midpoint or halfway. So, if the club offers 500,000 and the player wants 700,000, the arbitrator has to pick either five or seven. He can't say six. So, from that standpoint, we approached this as a continuation of the negotiation stage.

And I did not feel it was necessary to demean the player, I would just cite the same things that I would've if I had been the general manager of that club. I obviously had a staff during our heyday when we were representing 13 clubs in arbitration, and one year we had 96 cases that were filed.

That didn't mean we actually went to 96 hearings. I think of those ninety-six, we actually tried 25 of them that year. That was sort of the high-water mark. I did not think it was necessary to demean the player. I think the emphasis goes on, here are players that are of similar experience, similar position.

Here's what they have done and what they're making. Here's what you have done and what we're offering, and you try to account for the differences and so on. A lot of study, a lot of work, a lot of numbers, a lot of different ways to present the facts.

And, you know, it takes hours, hours and hours to work up a case. Over the years we actually, we had over a thousand cases that were filed that we had to deal with. Now, you know, most of them, 80 to 85% of them settle.

We went on and did, as I said, 25 cases one year, some years, a lot of them would settle, depends upon up how the parties look at it. Sometimes the players' association has a different view and a different agenda and whatnot. And a lot of times, and when we would've gotten a case all worked up, due to go at nine o'clock in the morning, and the case was settled at eight thirty that morning. It depends upon the personalities.

Some players would prefer to avoid the process altogether. A few are combative or want to see the process or they feel they may be playing with house money. I mean, it's a big, big salary. Even if they lose and if we win, it's sort of a bonus, sort of a jackpot.

So that, that sort of mentality goes into it. Clubs on the other hand, don't want to go because they don't want to put the player through the task in most cases.

Right.

Because they get concerned whether it's going to damage the relationship.

Right.

I don't think it does. At least in the cases we've done over the years.

We did many notable players like Bo Jackson, Wade Boggs and Don Mattingly and Barry Bonds, Brett Saberhagen and, Doug Drabek and so on. But I'd run into players years later and they would still speak to me and smile and kid about it.

And there's not the animosity that the media and fans sometime attach to it. Obviously these are closed hearings. The media doesn't get to cover it. There were undoubtedly other cases where perhaps that same viewpoint hasn't prevailed, where maybe the sides get a little more aggressive or assertive.

I would try to make our arguments based upon fact and not emotion. I can only recall two or three cases where I thought the dialogue got a little bit out of hand. And I would submit that in those cases one time it was an agent that just tried to attack the club for the way they had handled things and so on, and, I obviously had to address that.

Sure.

But for the most part, I thought we were able to, able to handle it. You like to win. But these are tough decisions, close calls .

No, absolutely. And so it was, it's just a very interesting process to me where in some cases the, the arbitrator wasn't familiar with the expression of a player having a cup of coffee, which means, of course, that a player didn't stay in the majors very long.

So my question is, how challenging was that for you and your firm to, to have to explain or be patient with someone not understanding baseball terminology?

That's always a challenge and you try to read the arbitrator. If the arbitrators, if they're able to continue from year to year, that's helpful because they become more familiar, more conversant, and over the years, I think the selection of arbitrators became better. They're all experienced arbitrators but not necessarily in baseball. And the terminology in baseball and the amount of time you have, you've got one hour to present a case.

And if somebody doesn't understand what an RBI is, you got a problem. But you can sort of sense this early on. I can recall one case involving Scott Sanderson, a very fine young pitcher at that time, I believe with Montreal. And the agent was doing a nice job trying to personalize the client for the arbitrator's benefit and, and explaining that Scott Sanderson, he's from his hometown and he signed such and such and he made his debut at West Palm Beach and so on.

And the arbitrator says, man, what was the score of that game? Now he’s talking about his debut in the minor leagues. I mean, they’re just trying to personalize the case. The arbitrator was sort of, as it stands as if this was going to have any bearing on the case. So, you know, those are the kind of things, or not knowing what a cup of coffee is or an RBI and so on, but on the other hand, sometimes you'd get some arbitrators that were great baseball fans.

Right.

And they’d have their own idea as to a player. I didn't much like that. I'd rather have the one that was less informed than the one that prided himself on being a scout or a general manager.

Because at that point they're influenced by their thoughts or their fandom.

TS
Or they went to a lot of ball games and they had their own opinion. One was a Ben McDonald case when Ben was with the Orioles, and the arbitrator was commenting about having seen him pitch last week. I forget the exact thing, but if the guy pitched the shutout last week, that's not going to help your case if that's the memory the arbitrator has. So, I think the one improvement that was made was when we were able to prevail upon the parties to increase from a sole arbitrator to a panel of three. I think that helps some, but again, you never know how their own reviews are going to go when the three of them get together.

If one party prevails, the decisions by a panel would always be three to nothing. They would never have a split vote by the time they turned it in. Much like a deadlocked jury they don't want a hung jury.

So somebody has to concede, and that's what would happen in arbitration sometimes. It’s a very fascinating process. It is not as antagonizing or aggravating as it's portrayed. It's meant- it's intended to bring about settlement. So, the parties don't have to go to court, but if it does go to court, it's not all that onerous, I don't think.

That's what it sounds like. It certainly is a fascinating process from the way you've explained it. So, I wanted to ask you, were there a couple of cases that you had where you had to fight a little bit, a little bit harder on, or that you had to present your case in a certain way or that you had had a stronger conviction about maybe than, than another one? Or are they all just what they are?

No, well they're all tailored individually. I mean, because it depends upon whether it's, if a player is going to arbitration for the first time or if he's somebody that's going to be going to arbitration, you know, a third year eligible. You know, it depends upon how experienced the player is, how good a player he is. Then It becomes more difficult. I guess the better the player, the more challenging it is. But by the same token, there was one year for some reason or the other, we had to do four or five backup catchers, players that were not high up in the salary range.

And I, I don't know why it happened that way. You know, since sometimes agents try to, or agents or the players' association will try to, will try to make a breakthrough. If backup catchers haven't been paid enough, they will continue to go to arbitration until they get an award in their favor.

And then that becomes the benchmark then for everybody beyond that. And that's always the danger, or I shouldn't say the danger, but that's always the fallout as it stands in arbitration. If somebody gets what you consider an upset decision in either way
for the club or for the player, it influences future negotiations and future arbitration cases and so on, because you use that as a precedent. Well, so and so went to arbitration and he had comparable numbers and he only got this and that. And so on and so forth. So, but again, you have to tailor each case differently.

GR

Sure. Absolutely. So, where scouting and development are concerned, can you talk about some aspects that you created that are still part of the game today? There's the computerized scouting reports. There's the two to eight scale, and then there's the human element of what a player brings to their side.

I guess when I was in charge of scouting and player development, I probably enjoyed that role as much as any in baseball because, one you're dealing with young players and that, you know, and you like to see them advance as there's a great deal of satisfaction in seeing a 17 or 18 or 20 year old player that you sign and watch him work his way through the minor leagues and go on, go on to succeed.

And so, there's a great deal of, great deal of satisfaction that way. And it's fun dealing with young players who have this dream. They're not yet spoiled by success. So that's good. But I also like the process because I thought the way, I thought there were a lot of things that could be improved in scouting in particular, and the way we approached things.

And so from that, that standpoint, I tried to be creative. We were the first club to go to any kind of computerization. This is in the late 1960s. And you know, it's hard for people to understand today, but our technology in those days was very limited. One, if you're going to computerize anything, you had to key punch operators would have to have to punch out these cards and then you'd put the cards through the sorters and so on and so forth. But that was a way for us to at least be able to utilize the reports we had to a much greater degree. Before you just had file cabinets or boxes full of reports and it was hard to ever go back and pick out what you wanted.

I wanted to be able to have a system where you could take all the scouting information you had, and if you're looking for a left-handed hitting outfielder, you could go to that right away. Or, if you're looking for a relief pitcher you know how to pick that out.

And to do that you have to have some sort of system. So that's why we computerized initially. I also thought it was helpful from an amateur standpoint. We would catalog or do computerized all the signings throughout baseball. And where the player was from, whether it was high school or college and the area and his physical dimensions and age and so on.

And try to get that as sort of a reference point from a standpoint of not telling you what makes a player, because everybody's individually there. Billy Wagner didn't fit the profile of being a six foot two righthander. He was a diminutive lefthander. But it would enable us where to concentrate our coverage.

In other words, you got a better chance concentrating your coverage here and so on and so forth. And so, I thought that was helpful. I also found early on when I was starting at Cincinnati, I was just sort of befuddled by the fact that the scouting reports on high school kids would come in and they'd be graded very simply on five or six categories in a very simple grade as average or above average and so on.

Well, it is that high school kids, you don't expect them to be average hitters at that point. And, and so that's why then we developed grading on a present and a future basis. Well, look, the guy right now, his velocity is maybe only average, but he's young and he's strong, and he's going to improve and his future potential is greater.

So, I think we instituted a system of evaluating on now and what you expect him to be. And of course, that's universal today. From a professional standpoint, I thought it was difficult when we were looking to make a trade with another organization and you're looking at their prospects and well, here's a report from somebody.

It's now last year when this kid was an A ball and here's a report from somebody else. This year he is in AA and they don't quite match you know, so on. And to me it made more sense to try to develop a specialist for each organization. So, we instead of basing our pro coverage of all these minor league players, instead of basing that upon geography about what's going to involve the least travel from an expense standpoint, we would assign somebody to scout the Detroit Tigers system.

And, we would look to them to be a specialist. So, when we had a possible deal with the Tigers, we could call one person. Look, you've seen these kids. You saw him at A ball two years ago. You saw him last year at AA. You’ve seen him at AAA or whatnot. How’s he progressed? You know more about their habits, their makeup, and so on.

I just thought that made a whole lot more sense. So, we went to that. There were several other things. I thought there was a lot of wasted time and coverage in the initial coverage after the amateur draft came into effect in 1965. You know, you had to, instead of concentrating on just signing this one player, you had to evaluate everybody.

And you had to establish a draft order, right? Well, to do that, you need common denominators. You have to have somebody that sees them all. That changes the coverage and the way you do it. And I thought from that standpoint, if you have to do it that way, you're not going to be able to sign a kid and if you like him, go sign him.

You have to wait for the draft process and hope you get the rights to them and so on. So, it doesn't make sense for us all to be going out and seeing players at the grassroots level where you've got scouts from 30 organizations and whatnot. And there should be a way to simplify that and at least get these initial reports and then you use your own people to go follow up.

So as a result of that, and this is the concept of the Major League scouting bureau, but before that came into being, we established scouting combines with other clubs, particularly the Texas Rangers. The farm director there was Hal Keller, I, somebody I had known well.

And Hal and I sort of thought alike on things and so we would combine and share the initial coverage. That enabled us to do twice as much as we might have been able to do by ourselves.

Very good. That's fantastic. So let me get into trades a little bit. Where trades are concerned, to you what is the mark of success for a good trade and what factors have to be present there?

Basically, the whole idea of making trades should be, what do you need to complete your puzzle, so to speak. And, you're not necessarily, or at least in my judgment, you're not trying to trade to get a dollar for .90 cents.

You're trying to trade to fill a need that you have. And if that costs you more than a dollar, you have to consider that. And because that's what's going to put your puzzle together. And I think too many times trades are viewed or analyzed or graded on simply, well, this player's better than that player.

Why? Why'd they do that? Well, you did it because you had a particular need. Just to put it on a more personal basis at the end of the 1978 season, we felt we had made some progress with the Astros and we had two holes that needed to be filled. One was a catcher; another one was a shortstop.

And so that's what you concentrate on. And it's not like you've got an extensive market. You've got limited choices. And if you're going to succeed, you better be able to find a way to make that happen. In the case of, particularly Craig Reynolds, who was a young shortstop in the Seattle organization, that cost us Floyd Bannister. We liked Bannister very much.

He was the number one draft choice in the country. But if that was what it was going to take to get a shortstop, we weren't going to win without getting Craig Reynolds or somebody of his caliber. We could win with the pitching we had, even if Bannister was not part of it. That's not to diminish him.

And I suppose if somebody is evaluating, you know, who was better, who got the most value over a period of time, I don't know. That might be a tossup. You know, I frankly think we did because it gave us what we needed, but Bannister did very well and I think that's where you have to look at trades.

GR

So how, how important was it to have a good working relationship with, with other general managers? Where there's trust built up there, they're being forthright with you. You've got access to all the information you need. How important is that?

Well, I think that's like any other group of people that you're dealing with. You have to deal with them. There's going to be some relationships that are stronger than others. There's going to be some GMs that you're very friendly with that are close friends. Maybe you’ve worked with them before. In the case of acquiring Alan Ashby, we did that from Toronto, and Pat Gillick was the GM there.

And Pat and I were very close friends. We had worked together in Houston, and then when I was with the Yankees I was able to persuade Pat to join us there. I recommended him to Toronto for the GM job. But when we had to trade for Ashby, you have to do what you have to do. And I think you put those other things aside.

There may be some other general managers, you're not particularly as friendly with, or may not even like, particularly for one reason or the other. But you still have to do your job and I don't think you succeed necessarily because of your personal relationships with somebody else.

I think if they're doing their job right they have to be independent and unbiased also.

Sure. Absolutely. So, the other thing I want to ask you regarding trades is, how important is it to, to maintain confidentiality in certain situations where you're working on something, you don't want it getting out and getting to the media and then possibly sabotaging anything that you've worked on.

TS
Yeah, I don't think it's ever helpful when there's a lot of media speculation. Sometimes that changes the dynamics. Obviously other clubs are, are reading the papers. I mean, that's a given that existed from the day I first got in baseball. Clubs monitor what's going on in other cities with other teams and if you see a great deal of speculation someplace about the needs of a certain club or what they hope to do, that sort of raises the price.

So, from that, that standpoint, you'd prefer that didn't exist, but sometimes the speculation doesn't occur as a result of a leak. It's just the media and their own analysis and their own views of things, or even fans.- what we should trade for so-and-so. Well, I, I think all that noise so to speak, you have to put aside and whatnot.

If a trade’s in the works, and it leaks sometimes that can blow up a deal. Although that's rare. And from a confidentiality standpoint, you know, I guess I always refer back to the big trade we made with San Diego, involving Caminiti and Finley and Derek Bell and, you know, the 13 player deal at the end of the, what, 1994 season and, the dynamics of that San Diego was undergoing a ownership change and management change at certain levels. And so, the trade took longer to consummate than what we thought it would be. This was over, it started prior to the Christmas holidays and wasn't concluded until afterwards.

And I think we sat on that for about two weeks. And there were many people in our organization and in the Padres organization that knew about it and it never leaked. And that's a testimony to the people involved. Essentially, if you leak things out prematurely, it's normally harmful.

Understood, understood. Well, you guys did a great job at maintaining confidentiality.

You're listening to the Heroes and Icons podcast with Greg Randolph.

In the, in the mid-1990s you rejoined the Astros after Drayton McClain had purchased the team and you worked for the team from 1994 to 2011. You suggested to Drayton that he hire Larry Dierker as the team's manager for the 1997 season. What qualities of Dierker stood out to you to warrant that recommendation?

Well, I, I had known Larry, well, obviously as a player and then as a broadcaster.

And when Drayton, and I shouldn't say just Drayton, but when it became apparent that the Astros were going to make a managerial change, Drayton discussed it with me, and the idea, and there's always the candidates at that time who might be available, former managers or coaches or so on and so forth. And I said, well, I've got one idea that's out of the box, and. And he always seemed to like that. I didn't present it for that reason, but I said, Larry Dierker- I said, there isn't anybody that knows our club better.

You bring somebody in from outside, there's a learning period there. They have to become familiar with the talent. They have to become familiar with the personalities. There has to be an acceptance thing. And, and that in itself is sometimes difficult. Is that players; are not always is it acceptable from a standpoint of somebody coming in. To some degree, I think Terry Collins was faced with that.

I thought Terry was a good manager. The problem was he was not readily accepted by the players. Because he had not been a prominent player himself. He wasn't well known, so on and so forth. I thought his baseball acumen was very good. But anyway, as it stands in Dierker's case, he had the background as a player.

He was obviously conversant with the talent, knew the personalities, wouldn't be any learning curve, and he had a number of other attributes. He was a pitcher; understood pitching well, which is a major part of the game. He had been a media rep and understood that aspect of it.

I just thought he was well suited. The only thing he didn't have was major league experience as a manager. Anybody that you bring in, you know, everybody has to start sometime.

That's true.

And I just thought in our situation that he was ideally suited, and I think it worked out very well.

GR

Very good, very good. So, at the end of the 1999 season the Astros leave the Astrodome and move into the new ballpark in downtown Houston, obviously now known as Minute Maid Park. So how did the transition into a new stadium affect the team and did you have any thoughts about having to leave the Astrodome?

TS

I personally had thoughts about leaving the Astrodome because that was because of my involvement that was home to me. And, at the same time I was chagrined about the state of the Astrodome by that time. We opened in 1965, closed it in 1999.

So that's a considerable period of time. Maintenance and upkeep had suffered to some degree. It did not have the glamorous appearance that it did initially, obviously, but it was probably time to move on, particularly with a new stadium.

Moving into the new ballpark downtown obviously had a tremendous effect on our team from a performance standpoint.

GR

Sure.

And they were just shocked after playing in the spacious Astrodome and one of the pitchers looked at the Crawford Boxes and even right field and it obviously affected them. It took us a year to get over that. 2000 was a disaster with all the home runs that were hit and so on. By 2001, I think we were back on even keel. You have to adjust to the dimensions and to the environment. But it really had an effect from a playing standpoint. It was just a far different ballpark than what the Astrodome had been.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you were asked for some of your own input on ideas about the new ballpark downtown and you suggested an incline. It made the final cut. And that was your idea, that obviously became known as Tal’s Hill- and that was in play from 2000 to 2016.

TS

That just came about by chance. We obviously had several meetings. Drayton McLane would get his senior management staff together and the architects and the designers and talk about concept after the initial seating configuration was decided upon.

And when Drayton turned to me and he said, what can we do to make the interior of the ballpark exciting? And, you know, I've been a student of the game and I love the history of the game. So I, I simply started reciting some of the things through ballparks over the years; the monuments at Yankee Stadium, the vines at Wrigley Field, the Green Monster at Fenway Park the ivy in Forbes field, so on and so forth.

And, as I mentioned, the inclines at Crosley Field and going back into the early days of Fenway Park and when Duffy's Cliff right. And that was, that was something that interested Drayton and the designers. And in some of the early sketches or configuration they sort of put that in there and for the lack of some other term just labeled Tal’s Hill. I mean, I was the one that suggested, so the hill Tal‘s talking about. I frankly was surprised that it survived. I thought somebody would find reason to criticize it because I had included the strip between the pitchers’ mound and home plate, which used to be common in every ballpark back when I was a kid growing up. And that was put in there because of the foot traffic by the catcher and the pitcher to ease the wear and tear on the grass. In later years with the improvements by groundskeepers and to take care of ballparks, that disappeared and they took it out. Well, I thought it was sort of a novel thing. I said, this is something you could consider.

This used to be a trademark of all ballparks. So, they had that in initially. And then I can recall Buck Showalter was going to manage the Diamondbacks. And I can recall Buck being in Houston the day the Houston Chronicle had a colored print of the schematics of the new ballpark that the Astros were going to have downtown.

And that had the dirt strip and that Buck saw that and that, you know, and he remembered as a kid that, and so he took that back to Arizona and they opened before they finished their ballpark, before we did. And then he put it in there so that it was no longer going to be a novelty or, or a first.

So the architects and designers took it out There were a lot of things you can do to make a ballpark Interesting. It still gets down, I think to the fan comfort and the performance, the performance of the team.

I agree. And I really, I personally enjoyed having Tal’s Hill in there as long as it was there. I thought it made it a ballpark. I thought something like that gave it a lot of dimension and its own character and made it, it took it kind of away from you know, the typical..

The cookie cutter ballparks that we had?

Yes.

No, I, I think it's absolutely true. I think that's one of the appeals of baseball. Every basketball court pretty much looks the same, right? You know what makes baseball interesting? I think other dimensions, I mean, of going from a spacious Astrodome into Wrigley Field, depending on whether the wind's blowing in or out, how that's going to affect the outcome of the game.

I think all those things add to the overall appeal of the game. And I think in the older ballparks, you used to have different configurations. And one of the angles in the outfield at Ebbets Field that fans would talk about, of course you talk about that today. And a lot of people aren't familiar with that, right? That goes back a long ways. But I think the individual characteristics of ballparks are very interesting.

Absolutely. I mean, I, I always enjoyed watching games when I was a kid, at Fenway Park and all the foul territory at Oakland Coliseum. Interesting. Very good. Let me, let's move on to 2005 here. So, what was it like for you to be a part of the Astros World Series in 2005?

That was great joy to see the Astros finally in the World Series, and it excited the town. And one of my regrets, it didn't last long enough, was four games, you know, over and out. That's a shame. We had games three and four here. In the entire series, I think there was a difference of what, six runs in the entire series. It was certainly satisfying to get there and to see the way the town reacted or the city reacted and one not. That was a real privilege to be involved.

Absolutely. That was a great year- even though it didn't work out in our favor. That was still a lot of fun to be a part of. So, you've seen baseball from a professional standpoint for over eight decades now. What changes have been made to the game; are rules or equipment, the baseball? What are some changes that were to your liking and then conversely, what are some things that you haven't really cared for?

Oh, there have been so many changes. The game has grown so much since I started in 1958. When I started a team had a major league team had a manager and two coaches of first base coach and a third base coach. Today I think San Francisco's got what, 10 or 12 coaches, something like that? Our office staff when I was at Cincinnati, so, initially, the entire office- in those days you had switchboard operators, the switchboard operators, and the ticket office personnel that were year-round we had a total of like 13 or 14 people. And the accounting department was two people. Today, accounting departments and major league clubs are 20, 25 people.

The scope and the size has really grown. The one thing that has diminished are the number of scouts. And that really distresses me because I always thought scouting was sort of the backbone of baseball and you want to find and evaluate and bring talent into the game.

And I've always had great, great fondness for the scouts and it distresses me today to see that fall by the wayside and replaced by computers and analytics. I'm all for computers from a standpoint of processing information but not making the decision for you. Having them giving you the information upon which to make your decision, fine.

That distresses me. I'm happy to see now some of the changes that Major League Baseball has initiated. I thought the game really slowed down over the last five or six years- a lack of action. The games are too long. I don't mind the length of the game if there's something going on, but that wasn't the case. I mean, when I broke in, you could play fairly high scoring games and still be- still be under two and a half hours. And you'd have games sometimes under two hours. Today we were, you know, going over three hours and sometimes without much action.

And I, I'm sorry that it's necessary to impose a pitch clock, but I think the results will be beneficial. You didn't need it in the past because the players would respond automatically. Pitchers didn't take that much time between pitches, and batters didn't have batting gloves, right?

So they weren't stepping out of the box and readjusting their gloves and these tendencies that developed over the years really slowed the game down and took the action out of it. There's got to be action. There has to, the ball has to be in play. There's got to be people running the bases or people making defensive plays.

I think there's way too much, too much emphasis on home runs and walks and strikeouts, and those things aren't particularly interesting because nothing is really happening. Even a home run can be dramatic. But it doesn't bring any other action than once, once the ball's in the seats, the batter trots around the bases and so on, fine. But I think I think we need more singles, doubles, triples and stolen bases.

I agree. I agree. What effect do you think that the pitching clocks and everything else would have on a player with, in regard to, I don't want to say the natural flow of the game, but just with a pitcher having his own rhythm or with a batter having a process in the box?

I think they're just going to have to adjust. That used to be the natural rhythm of the game.

GR It just slowed down too much?

TS It just slowed down. There's too much walking around, stepping out of the box, so on and so forth. I don't think that's necessary. It is going to create a problem adjusting because of habits that have been developed. But as I said, we used to play the game without that. And I just think it's necessary to make the game more entertaining and better.

I think outlawing the shift in a sense will help too. I think it's going to create more action, more balls in play and so on. I think it's unfortunate that the players haven't adjusted automatically to that. It could have been avoided if left-handed hitters would've gone the other way and hit the ball to left field, and that would've had a tendency to cure the shift in itself, but that wasn't happening.

So, again, it was slowing down the game. I think for the game to be successful it needs to more closely resemble what it was 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago.

Absolutely. And I can recall some of the games in old highlights that I would watch from games in the early 1980s, players would just, guys would just stand in the box. They would not even, they would hardly step out if at all. And so that's obviously changed. You know, that’s been going just downhill over the last 40 years. And that's really changed with different mannerisms.

TS And it's not necessary. You don't have to do that to play the game effectively. I think there has to be a certain pace to the game. The players used to take care of that themselves, right? Once they started to deviate then unfortunately you have to make some rule changes to bring it back into effect.

I agree. You didn't see a whole lot of those, those other things. The players, the pitcher was ready to pitch, the battler was ready to hit, and that was it. And that was it.

Absolutely.

This has been another great conversation. I always enjoy talking baseball with you and it's really a treasure to have you speak with me again.

Let me ask you just a couple more things and we'll land the plane here, so to speak. So, who are some other players that you scouted or saw play that you were just, that you just thought were phenomenal talents?

Oh, boy. That, I mean, that covers, that's a loaded question, and that covers so many.

I have to separate those that got my attention as a fan, And some of them I got to see play their careers, you know, continued after I got into baseball, but I, I have to, if somebody's asking me my favorite players, I have to mention Ted Williams and I’ve got to mention Stan Musial. Those were players that as a fan that I really, really enjoyed. And, as it stands in Musial’s case, he continued playing after I got in the game. And, Williams continued on as a manager and, and so on. So those are two of my all-time favorites.

I have to mention others that I've met along the way, and that I have great respect for, not only as players, but as gentlemen and the kind of people that they were. There are three that come to mind quickly; they are Brooks Robinson, who I've come to know very well and had great admiration for him as a player and as a person.

Al Kaline falls in the same category. Bobby Doerr, who I watched as a young kid in Boston. All great players, all Hall of Famers and, all of them just, wonderful people. Wonderful gentlemen. I don't mean to omit others, but those are ones that quickly come to mind.

GR

Sure.

From a standpoint of Astro talent. I hate to even name names, but again, I'm asked this question frequently and I would still say that the greatest Astro talent that I ever saw was Cesar Cedeno. I'm not saying that he was the best player. Others have accomplished more than Cesar did, for one reason or the other.

Cesar suffered some injuries and it depends upon opportunities and so on. You certainly have to have to recognize Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio and Lance Berkman and many others. I still answer the question that Cedeno was the best talent. I really thought he was going to be Willie Mays and that was something others said before that.

Leo Durocher, I think, was the first one that said that. I also have great appreciation for Jose Cruz, again, for his long contributions. Just a, just a wonderful person to have on a ball club. Great talent. The best pitcher in Astros history I've always maintained was JR Richard. if I was asked to select one pitcher to, to win a certain game, my choice would be either Bob Gibson or JR Richard.

GR

Wow.

There's so many others that made great, great contributions. I don't mean to omit them.

Sure. Let me ask you about Cesar. I mean, he had five tool talent. How unfair do you feel like Durocher's comment might have been to him, to put the lofty praise of Willie Mays on him, so to speak?

I don't think that pressure affected Cesar. I don't think that did him a disservice. He broke in with great success. Sometimes it depends upon your surroundings and he struggled with some Astros teams that weren't very competitive for a while. That may have had some effect on things.

And then he had some injuries to deal with. And you always have personal concerns and personal issues. There's a number of things that can affect a player's performance. And sometimes we don't always reach a hundred percent of our potential. I don't know how Cesar feels but I think he fell short of realizing a hundred percent, but if he had realized a hundred percent. he would've been Willie Mays .

I would've really liked to have seen him play with that team if that Joe Morgan trade had not been made. And you have a completely different makeup of the team and lineup and dynamic.

That would've been fun to see, right?

Yep, absolutely.

Let me see. I'm think I'm going to skip that one in the interest of time, I was just going to make my own submission if we were doing a lineup for, for the 1970s, I would submit-

Great. I’d be interested in hearing it.

I would submit, just for starters, Johnny Bench at catcher; and we lost Clemente in 72, but you can certainly count those first three years of being in right field and justify his talent, right?

No, two good choices. No doubt about it. Go ahead and fill it in. From that standpoint, they're so doggone many choices. I don't want to go through it position by position as far as, that's another conversation since I certainly wouldn't have anybody I would take over Bench.

There may be some others close to him but I certainly, certainly agree with your choice there. So, I mentioned earlier Williams and Musial, I didn't mention Mantle and Mays. They belong in the same category. But again, you can go on and on. And I think that's what makes baseball so interesting that the comparisons, so if you're doing an arbitration case with Mays, you'd have to introduce Mantle as a comparable and compare them back and forth.

It's almost impossible. Just so much great talent. Well, who were some individuals in that great confluence of baseball people that you were particularly fond of working with? I mean, Astros or otherwise. Some Astros names that come to mind; Donald Davidson, Ed Wade, Bob Watson, Gerry Hunsicker.

TS

Oh, a lot of memories there. I've worked with Bob Watson and Gerry Hunsicker and Tim Purpura and Ed Wade as GMs after I came back to the Astros in 1994. Enjoyed working with each of them. Still hear from Ed Wade regularly. Ed had started here as a young PR guy in the 1970s and he's gone on to have a very successful career. I actually hired Gerry I think on three different occasions. I hired him once for his entry into baseball, in a role in the seventies where he served a number of different things, you know, primarily as a key assistant to me and a number of different things.

And then after I left it in 80, Gerry left too. And I hired him for my consulting practice. Then he got an opportunity to go on to the New York Mets and I brought him back again or helped recommend him to Drayton as a general manager after Bob Watson left, so I've had three different reigns and three different associations with Gerry.

Ed the same way. I mean, he was a PR director here, and then he left and went to Pittsburgh. Then I hired him for Tal Smith Enterprises, and then he went on to the Phillies and then he came back here. You know, sort of like Gerry did. So, I enjoyed those relationships.

Really enjoyed working with Larry Dierker. I've got great respect for Larry. He's an interesting guy. He's a fun guy and a very, very intelligent, articulate, keen mind. He’s a joy to be around.

He is. And you know, I was going to mention before that, with all of the retired numbers and the great people who have worked in the Astros organization, players and otherwise, it's very difficult to say, almost impossible really to me, to say Houston Astros without saying Larry Dierker in that first minute.

Absolutely correct. And I'd be remiss if I didn't say my most endearing relationship with anybody I worked with the Astros had to be Bill Virdon. Bill and I became very close friends and stayed in touch long after he left the Astros.

He was a very special person. We had a great working relationship between a manager and a general manager. Just ideal. And we had a very close personal bond. I have to mention Pat Gillick. Pat and I became close friends and, and still stay in touch, so there've been a number of very, very meaningful associations.

GR

Absolutely. I was going to ask you about the time Ed Wade was house sitting for you, and he had to fish your dog out of the swimming pool. Is that right?

My wife and I had gone, and I think this, was over the Christmas holidays and I think we were in Hawaii.

I'm not mistaken Ed in those days, when he was a PR director, also had to run the other events that were at the Astrodome. And after baseball season, there was always something going on. Ed at that point was not married yet. And he was staying in Houston over the holidays because he had all these events, football games and tractor pulls and what have you, that he had to handle from a scoreboard standpoint. And we asked or he volunteered or combination thereof, to housesit for us and, and take care of our dog. And we had a pool in the backyard and the dog had aged some by this time and slipped and fell into the pool and he had to go rescue her .

Oh, wow. Well, that's a good thing he was there. So let me ask you this. How would you want baseball fans to remember you and your career and what do you feel like your legacy is for baseball?

TS

Oh, that, that’s for somebody else to answer, Greg. I don't know that I can give that a real answer. I've had a great deal of fun, a great deal of enjoyment, a lot of satisfaction from my years in baseball with Cincinnati to start with, and the two years with the Yankees were meaningful and my 35 years with the Astros and whatnot.

I think in our conversation here, we've touched on a number of the things that were meaningful to me as we went on. As to what other people think of that, that's for them to judge .

Very good. Well, that will do it for this edition of The Heroes and Icons podcast.

And thank you to our sponsor, my friends over at Houston City Beat. There's just something about that beat. And again, please find them on Facebook at Houston City Beat and on the web at houstoncitybeat.com. Many, many thank yous to my special guest today, Tal Smith. It's always a pleasure to spend time with you and talk baseball.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, Greg. Thanks ever so much.

Thank you. I hold you in the highest personal regard and I'm very honored by our time together. So, thank you.

Where was I? Sorry about that. Thank you Tal. And thank you again everyone once again for listening. Please remember to rate, share, and review the Heroes and Icons podcast with Greg Randolph, wherever you might be listening. Have a great night. God bless. We will see you next time. Thank you.

Heroes and Icons podcast

Ep. 6. Tal Smith; longtime baseball executive; Houston Astros HOF Class of 2022. Part 2; brought to you by HoustonCityBeat.com

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