“Pepperpots” and White Elephants
That announcer Howard Cosell could bring bile to a mammal’s mouth was proved during the 1977 World Series. Cosell became semi-famous for coining the phrase “the bronx is burning” when, during the second game of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers, a blimp-mounted camera looked down on an elementary school set accidentally ablaze and burning out of control. Cosell made the most of the moment, linking the fire at the school (which he conveniently misidentified as an abandoned tenement) with New York’s crime-ridden “Son of Sam” summer.
The term became the title of a so-so ESPN special on the machinations between the Evil Empire’s Senator Palpatine (George Steinbrenner) and Billy “Luke Skywalker” Martin. That Cosell could lower America’s gag reflex is not in doubt (he remains, in death, a controversial — and largely loathed — figure), but what I remember most is his constant reference to Billy Martin as a “pepperpot.” He sprinkled his every reference to Martin with the term, using the term reverently as a description of the “embattled” but “feisty” Yankee skipper. “Here he comes again, that little pepperpot.” It was enough to make you vomit.
While Keith Jackson nearly literally rolled his eyes every time Cosell used the term (which was ridiculously often), I thought he might be on to something, and over the years I’ve been unofficially tracking baseball’s post-season “pepperpots” — a distinctive class of players who rise to the challenge of the World Series and provide surprising leadership. They are not great players (Martin was not), but are all, without exception, fascinating characters: they are invariably undersized and obnoxious with good gloves and outsized egos, which they hide with a liberal dose of false modesty.
Take Martin: he probably saved the 1952 World Series for the Yankees when he made a lunging catch on a Jackie Robinson infield pop-up during the seventh inning of the seventh game. The bases were loaded. It was a single, simple play, but it made the difference in the world championship. In 1953, Martin was the Series MVP, playing unbelievable defense — even for him. But Martin couldn’t stick with the Empire because he was always in trouble, mouthing off and getting in fistfights. Nor was his the stuff of the Hall of Fame. He was a fairly average hitter: his personal high for homers was fifteen — in 1956. It wasn’t enough to keep Stengel from approving his trade to the Yanks’ farm team, the Kansas City A’s, in 1957. But Martin knew baseball, perhaps the most unique quality of “pepperpots.”
Pepperpots have always been a part of the game, ever since Miller Huggins seemed to define the term. Like Martin, “Mighty Mite” was scrawny, tough, vain and a good on-base man. He finished his career with more than 300 stolen bases and a much better player than Martin (unlike most “pepperpots” he’s in the Hall of Fame, a tenuous honor, if you ask me). Mighty Mite’s real genius was in managing, which he proved after he took over the reins of the Empire in 1918. Huggins built the then-laughing stock of the junior circuit into a powerhouse, leading them to six pennants and three World Series titles.
I can think of four recent “pepperpots” in the mold of Huggins — most of them veterans of the Oakland A’s. Dick Green is the first: the brawling A’s of the 1970s were symbolized by Green, whose good glove, feisy attitude and post-season heroics during the ‘74 Series won him a Babe Ruth MVP trophy, this despite the fact that he barely grazed the ball with his bat during the series. Instead, his claim to fame in the Series was his Game 5 relay throw to Sal Bando to squelch a Los Angeles rally — the same kind of play that saw Billy Martin save the Empire in their showdown with the Dodger’s two decades before. The other notorious White Elephant Pepperpot is Walt Weiss, whose 1988 and 1989 World Series glovework (he only hit .133 in the ‘89 series) helped the A’s become a temporary dynasty.
More recent “pepperpots” are more legion. The World Series seems to follow Craig Counsell around. The light-hitting (.255 batting average in thirteen seasons) second baseman (there’s a pattern here somewhere), held down the second-sack for the World Champ Marlins in 1997. The Marlins regular second baseman that year was Luis Castillo, but only after Counsell arrived in a mid-season trade did the fish seem to start playing (he hit .299 in 51 games). While Counsell did not hit well in the post-season he, like his predecessors, continued to turn stellar plays up the middle. Counsell ended up in Arizona in 2001, where he homered in game one. Counsell, fast and tough and of only medium height and build for his era (six feet, 180 pounds) is now with the Brewers — the only evidence available that they have a chance at the Series. Counsell, an otherwise average player, wears two rings. At 38, Counsell is on his way out of baseball. If they were smart, the Brewers would hire him as his manager — but then, they’re the Brewers …
The other two nominees in this category are Mark Lemke and Phil Garner. Lemke might well be the quintessential “pepperpot.” An anemic looking second baseman with stick hands, Lemke played like Dimaggio in the post-season. In the 1991 Series, he hit three triples and batted .417. His extra-inning walk-off single in Game 3 is still memorable for me because Braves fans were, at the time, engaging in that incessantly insulting tomahawk chop. A never-amounted-to-much second baseman who flirted with the bench throughout his career, Lemke was the talk of baseball.
Like Martin, Phil Garner is remembered more for his managerial prowess than his on-the-field heroics. But Garner, like the “pepperpots” before him (he was nicknamed “scrap iron”), was known for his nearly unconscious post-season glove and (like Lemke) for his post-season bat. He hit .500 for “the family” in the ‘79 Series, where his teammates began to call him “Yosemite Sam.” Currently unemployed (he once managed the Crew, before they brought in the now dearly departed curse) the Brewers should bring him back: Garner’s teams are always built on speed and defense.
My tentative conclusion from all of this is that any successful post-season team needs a Martin, Huggins, Green, Weiss, Counsell, Lemke, or Garner — almost more than they need a “Mr. October.” Exhibit A was last year’s Bosox wunderkind Dustin (our lord and savior) Pedroia (Peter Gammons, fan club president, presiding). Pedroia remains the firmest evidence that defense and speed are at a premium in the post-season, where the nod goes to tough-guys who can win in an abbreviated series. It should be no different this year — where fast, defensive-minded infielders could make a difference. I’m not talking about a brilliant big-bat player (which Padroia has become) or Chase (say hello to my little friend) Utley, but rather a guy like the Angels’ Erick Aybar, the Pale Hose’s Alexei Ramirez, the Cubs Mike Fontenot or the Dodgers’ Angel Berroa.
By this barometer, where defense and speed are emphasized (as they are in the playoffs), it will be the Angels vs. White Sox in the AL, and the Cubs and Dodgers in the NL. And the MVP in both of those playoffs (and the World Series to follow) will not come down to a walk-off Mazeroski, but to a lazy infield pop-up that needs to be caught, or a relay throw that guns down a runner at third, or a deftly turned double-play.
