Marty Lurie Talks San Francisco Giants Baseball
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TALKIN' BASEBALL

DAVE STEWART MUST NOW STARE DOWN DAVE STEWART

BY ALAN GOLDFARB


This is how the telephone conversation must have gone between Bud Selig — the father of baseball — and Brewers’ president Wendy Selig-Prieb — the daughter of the father of baseball — last Wednesday night:

“Wendy? Dad here.”“Who?”

“Your father. The father of baseball.”

“Oh, that father. Whatdaya want?”

“Wendy, it’s time Davey went.”

“Oh dad, do I have to?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so, kid a mine. But listen, this is how we’ll play it. They’ll say that Dave Stewart should get the manager’s job. But we’ve got Jerry waitin’ in the wings, too. And he’s black, too. So, let’s let him take over. That way, they can’t accuse you of not hiring an African American.”

“Jerry Who, dad?”

Dave Stewart’s got to be asking the same thing. Jerry Royster, like Stewart, was one of Lopes’ coaches. But does anyone know who Jerry Royster really is? And does it matter?

What matters is that once again, Dave Stewart didn’t get the job.

And they can’t say it was because of race.

Never you mind that Stewart never really expressed much interest in becoming a major league manager. In Dave Stewart’s mind, he’s always had bigger fish to fry — namely as a big league general manager.

No, one can’t conclude now that Dave Stewart didn’t get the Milwaukee Brewers’ managerial job because he’s black.

No, Dave Stewart didn’t succeed Davey Lopes, because of … Dave Stewart.

That’s one conclusion that one can make.

The conventional wisdom now: Who can accuse ole Bud of lip service? Bud has been saying all along that baseball has got to be a better job of hiring minorities. Just because baseball hasn’t picked up the cudgel, you can’t put this one on Bud Selig.

He/Wendy didn’t hire Dave Stewart because Dave Stewart — they must perceive — is too much for the auslanders of Milwaukee to handle.

Never mind that Stewart paid his dues and then some by taking the advice of Major League Baseball itself, when he acquired the front office experience they said it would take to move up the ranks.

That’s all Dave Stewart has been doing since he retired in 1995 after finishing a pitching career that was nothing less than brilliant after a dubious beginning.

He’s been a pitching coach — for three different clubs, and he’s been an assistant general manager — for three different clubs.

What will it take for him to either get a job as a GM, or a manager?

It seems clear now, that unless someone in baseball with the guts of a MacArthur, the chutzpah of a Patton, or the cajones of the Jolly Green Giant steps up, Dave Stewart might go to his grave a very disillusioned man.

He can’t pass for white and he can’t shed past deeds both real or embellished. Some will never forget the time Dave Stewart, as a kid just up from the minors, was busted for soliciting a prostitute. Some even still remember the Sunday, in February of ’94 when he and fellow Blue Jays pitcher Todd Stottlemyre were arrested in a bar for battery on a police officer and resisting arrest. And some won’t forget the Saturday night in August two years ago when, as pitching coach for Toronto, Stewart and his charge, reliever John Frascatore, got into a fierce argument in the dugout.

Worse still, is the fact that after Stewart was overlooked for the GM job in Toronto, even though one would presume he was being groomed for said position, he had no compunctions about speaking his mind. And who could blame him. Expressing himself is something Dave Stewart has little trouble doing.

“They think the only people capable of doing these jobs are white people, not minorities,” Stewart was quoted as saying.

Some opined that statement sealed Stewart’s fate as far as reaching the top rung of baseball’s executive elite.

But even before Stewart was passed over in Toronto, he was already hurt and frustrated.

“I look at some of the other GMs. I know what they’ve done. There’s no doubt in my mind I can do it,” he said then. “I’ve spent 16 years as a player and seven years in the front office learning how to run a baseball organization. This is where I want to be. I’ve never swayed from that.

“But I’m tired of knocking on the door, and I can’t force people to open that door and hire me.”

The fact that he signed on with friend Davey Lopes, who asked him to be his pitching coach before the start of this season, might mean that Stewart has abandoned all hope of ever reaching the mostly white and mostly unsullied world of baseball’s inner sanctum.

He seems resigned to the fact that he may never reach his zenith.

“I think maybe clubs perceive me as being something I’m not, hurts me more than being black,” he was quoted before last season. “It’s like people perceive me as some type of tough guy that won’t be easy to work with. That’s so far from the truth.”

But you can’t help but remember the infamous Stewart Stare as he faced an opposing batter. And you conjure up in your mind some of the other ignominious incidents. And you wonder if Dave Stewart will ever live his dream.

2 comments

1 marty { 04.18.02 at 9:29 pm }

Nice article, Alan. I wonder if Stew really wants to be a manager?

2 marty { 04.19.02 at 4:30 pm }

He has been working towards being a pitching coach and GM. Manager came out of the blue.

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