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Coach Pike

Johnny Bench told me if you hit my F’n glove you little dago I’m gonna kick your ass, then you old man’s
Too funny! Zap, I think I speak for most on this board in saying we will never get tired of your stories. Son of a legend who played the game with many of our childhood heroes. Keep 'em coming.
 
“Forget about it, don’t worry about it”
With a flippant hand motion that every player knew meant he didn’t care.

I always bring up my experiences and I know it irks some.
But with my manager in Pittsburgh, after making an error with 2 outs and a man on third and allowing a run to score, I remember running back to the dugout with my head down, and Chuck Tanner would say, what the hell are you worried about, pick your head up kid, you’re gonna win this game for us.
Really made a difference
I like hearing about your experiences Zap, especially on the diamond.
 
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Ha! So you had a reputation for that? As others have said.. this stuff is great!

As for reputations, I recall a baseball card with Johnny Bench "trivia" calling him one of the most eligible bachelors in the majors... which was a very odd tidbit for a card.. when i got older I thought of it as a dig at teh "gay" rumors...

Bench was briefly married when he was a player. She said something nasty about him --I remember what it was and don't want to say what it was. As part of the divorce, she promised to keep her opinions of him to herself.
 
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Bench was briefly married when he was a player. She said something nasty about him --I remember what it was and don't want to say what it was. As part of the divorce, she promised to keep her opinions of him to herself.
As a player you can include Fisk in this conversation as well, Don Baylor was relentless on Carly, and he couldn’t respond because everyone in the league was afraid of Don Baylor.
FYI, Fisk = guaranteed Roid head, we knew it.
Piazza also with gay rumors.
What is it about these big catchers?...lol
 
I can’t even imagine what was going through coach’s head when we were down 15.
But even if we hadn’t turned it around and we got blown out, the man would have remained positive about every player on this team and blamed himself.
That’s a man who’s very secure and comfortable in his skin
Great post/thread. I've always been a huge proponent of providing honest performance feedback to everyone on my team (have led groups as large as 50), but trying to do so in a positive way where even constructive feedback was provided with the clear intention of helping that person to do better in the future, with special emphasis usually on figuring out a way to have the person help themselves, rather than yelling and screaming and holding their nose in the doo-doo, like a dog, which is what way too many people think is "leadership."

Even when things went wrong, I would never get angry or publicly redress anyone and would always say, ok, we'll be fine, let's see what we can do to fix things and get back on track. And I would often ask what I could be doing better as a leader, either with regard to feedback or providing the right tools and opportunities and/or removing obstacles for people. Having some fun along the way was also important. People seemed to appreciate that style.
At a fire or a big incident someone has to remain calm during the chaos, especially at the beginning, to set the tone.

I never yell which seems to help my men try and stay on task when everything is going crazy. Very hard to communicate thru a SCBA mask close by and then even harder over the radio when you’re yelling. Makes everything go to 11 fast. Nobody needs that.

My men have told me how much my style helps them get the job done. Was really nice when they told my Dad this who was in the same field as me but more on Yogi’s level of accomplishments, just a smaller market (Jersey City vs. FDNY).

I see it too from Pike, which is a compliment to him.
 
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As a player you can include Fisk in this conversation as well, Don Baylor was relentless on Carly, and he couldn’t respond because everyone in the league was afraid of Don Baylor.
FYI, Fisk = guaranteed Roid head, we knew it.
Piazza also with gay rumors.
What is it about these big catchers?...lol

I have heard that Don Baylor was a gentleman, especially in dealing with female reporters.
 
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