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COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Jim Leyland’s family and friends, well aware of his emotional state, aren’t quite sure how Leyland will make it through his speech at the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday.
Just before the wedding in Cooperstown, his daughter sat him down and gave him a gift.
Kelly Leland gave her father a white handkerchief to put in his suit pocket. But if he opened it while he was giving his speech, it meant he would receive a little message.
“There is no crying in baseball.”
Leland, 79, almost cried as he told the story.
Leyland will join Adrian Beltre, Todd Helton and Joe Mauer on stage during Sunday’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony (1:30 p.m. ET, MLB Network), and could be the star of the show.
Home-hitting champion Barry Bonds, who never attended the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, will come to Cooperstown to honor Leland.
Gary Sheffield, who won the world championship with Leland in Florida, arrived in town Saturday to be with Leland, while also attending his first induction ceremony.
“When you weigh all the great managers of my generation, I think Jim is the best of all of us,” said Hall of Fame coach Tony La Russa. “You couldn’t have topped him in management.”
Go ahead, try to find any manager, any coach, any player, and they will all share their respect and admiration for this man.
It was Leland who criticized Bonds. On the field during spring training with the Pirates, he told Bonds that if he did not abide by Leyland’s rules, he could leave immediately.
Bonds remain.
And gained his respect forever.
“You know, the one thing I learned quickly about Jim is that he built the idea that, ‘I’m the leader here, and everything I say and do is a reflection of me,’” Sheffield said. “And all the coaches were a reflection of him.
“So whenever he had a team meeting, he would attack everybody, and he would leave the room after cursing everybody out. And then the coaches would say, ‘Stay here, he’s not done yet.’ And then at the right time, he would come back, finish his talk, and leave again. We would start to get up, and no, no, no, Jim would come back again. He wasn’t done yet. He would do that about three times.
“Then you see him 10 minutes later, and he’s talking to me like nothing happened. That’s what made him so special.
“I had a lot of respect for him. He would attack you when he needed to, but he also treated men the way you should be treated.”
Leyland, one of only four Hall of Fame managers who never played in the major leagues, led his teams to eight postseason appearances, three division titles and a World Series. He won 1,769 games over 22 seasons and 44 postseason appearances, ranking 10th all-time.
He was the winner of the Best Manager award three times.
Leland got his chance in 1982. La Russa, the new manager of the Chicago White Sox who had been managing games against Leland since 1979 in the minor leagues, offered Leland a job as his third-base coach. Leland remained on La Russa’s coaching staff for four seasons, interviewing for several managerial jobs, including with the Houston Astros, but never got a job. He got a call from the Pirates in 1985 from general manager Sid Thrift asking permission to interview him for a managerial position.
“I actually thought one of my brothers was playing a prank on me,” Leland said, “because they always blamed me for being a bridesmaid and never getting the job. So when he said, ‘This is Mr. Thrift,’ I said, ‘Yes, and I’m Casey Stengel.’”
Once Leyland was convinced that this was no joke and that the Pirates were serious about hiring him as manager, he took his first big-league job and never looked back. After 11 seasons in Pittsburgh, Leyland joined the Florida Marlins and led them to the 1997 World Series title. He left for Colorado in 1999, but abruptly resigned after the season, frustrated with trying to win at such a high altitude.
“It was very hard on him. It took a lot of his energy. I didn’t know if he would be able to do it again,” La Russa said.
La Russa convinced Leyland to join him with the St. Louis Cardinals as a scout, and that continued until 2006 when general manager Dave Dombrowski—who had been the Marlins’ general manager when Leyland was there—needed another manager, this time with the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers’ postseason drought ended in Leyland’s first season and the team won the American League pennant. Leyland led the Tigers to three more playoff appearances and another title in 2012. He retired after the 2013 season.
“Jim was everything you look for in a manager,” Dombrowski said. “He had knowledge of the game, an understanding of communication between players and management, and he was a very outgoing person. He understood every aspect of the game: development, winning, player growth, the manager. He was very honest and spoke from the heart. He had respect, and he loved his players. He had an extraordinary way of demanding that players play the game the right way.”
“He could be tough and rude to anyone, but at the same time, they knew he loved them.”
And they loved him too.
Leland was an old-school manager, but he also welcomed new analytics… but he didn’t brag about it.
“I think it gets a bit overblown sometimes, to be honest with you,” Leland said. “Most people call it analytics. I call it information. When I was in charge, we had all the information available. There’s more of it today.
“Some of it is very good. Some of it is probably just reading material, to be honest with you.
“You can plan a game, but you can’t write a game script.”
In fact, the toughest challenge Leland faced was playing against La Russa, his closest baseball friend.
They came from different backgrounds, with La Russa a special kid who played in the major leagues and became a lawyer, and Leland, who never went to college, never playing higher than Class AA.
“I think it actually helped me in my management career because I wasn’t a good player, because I realised how difficult it is to play this game,” Leyland said.
Leland and La Russa would talk two or three times a week, swapping ideas, asking each other to critique their managerial decisions, and sometimes talking baseball until 2 a.m., whether in the middle of the season or on Christmas Day.
“Tony has meant everything to me, even helping me with my Hall of Fame speech now,” Leland said.
Leland practiced his speech in front of La Russa, who gave him some advice, telling him what to omit, what to add, and even giving him notes on how to deliver it.
“Wait until you hear him,” La Russa said. “He’s great. You’ll love his speech.”
And you know what, Leland might get a few tears rolling down his cheeks, too. But Leland won’t apologize.
He’s been emotional all his life, and now with the entire baseball world celebrating his success, he’d be shocked if he didn’t shed a tear.
“I’ll tell you this,” Leland said. “I’ve seen most of the speeches that have been made here. And I’m not the only guy who will shed tears in Cooperstown, I can tell you that. I’ve seen some of the big guys get a little emotional.
“George Brett (Hall of Fame third baseman) gave me great advice. He said, ‘Well, if you’re not emotionally affected by something like this, you’re probably not human.’”
“I don’t want to embarrass myself, but I won’t feel ashamed.”
Follow Bob Nightingale on X: @BNightengale