The time the Phillies took a tongue-lashing from the Pope

Editor s note In the late summer and early fall of the Phillies worked their way out of a desultory stretch of baseball and went on to win the National League East Division the National League Championship Series and then its first World Series Four dates in September and October were particularly key Over the next month Billy Penn will look back on a historic stretch for the Phillies and maybe we ll see another memorable run The Phillies had their own Pope He was Paul Owens who as scouting director and then general manager had worked miracles transforming the Phillies from perennial losers into one of baseball s best teams in the s Owens got his nickname from slugger Dick Allen who thought he resembled the Catholic Church s pontiff at that time Paul VI The Phillies had won three consecutive National League East division titles from to but had not reached the World Series in any of those years Owens signed an all-time great competitor Pete Rose in hoping he d be the missing piece but injuries held the band back There were rumors that Owens would break up his aging but still potent association after the season but he decided to keep them together for one more try at a championship Owens frequently travelled with the crew In late August of the season he watched the club lose two out of three in San Diego including a - thrashing What galled Owens was Gold Glove outfielder Garry Maddox lost two fly balls in the sun that fell in for hits Maddox wasn t wearing sunglasses they were in his pocket He later apologized to manager Dallas Green The next day Sept the Pope had a sermon he desired to deliver and reported Green he sought to address the players The players were used to Green yelling at them but Owens had kept away from the locker room letting Green chew the club out when it played badly Now it was his turn When Owens appeared it meant he had something on his mind And he did Dallas is there all year but Pope whenever he came down people kind of paid attention outfielder Del Unser explained Owens explained the unit that despite winning three NL East Division titles they hadn t gotten past the National League Championship Series and how people in the organization had explained him to break the club up as it was getting older He reported them he ignored current the group up because he presumed in them but things would change if they didn t start playing better He reportedly challenged two players to a fight When Owens was finished the players sat there in silence Then Green tore into the unit anew But it was the Owens tirade that was memorable I remember those discussions like it was on the previous day announced Dickie Noles a pitcher on that unit If you knew Pope you kinda knew it was coming Noles mentioned in recent months You knew that he was not happy We had not played that well We had specific things that happened in San Diego We went up to San Francisco and the first day there he fired at the unit Phillies Larry Bowa throws to first as Houston Astros Jose Cruz begins to slide to second during the fifth inning of the first meeting of the National League playoffs at Philadelphia Oct AP Photo He kind of didn t single out too several people other than the veterans disclosed Noles who now works for the Phillies as a substance use counselor It is an observation shared by Unser and pitcher Bob Walk We all knew we were playing like crap and I mean there s so multiple veterans on that club I mean specific really good rookies too but I mean it was largely old guys And you just know there s something missing Unser explained Walk who was called up to the association in May and wound up winning games that year explained he doesn t remember Owens ranting and raving The thing I do remember is that he was mainly talking I think to the veteran guys that had been on the organization for three or four years announced Walk now a broadcaster for the Pittsburgh Pirates I inferred in you guys and I ve kept you together for one more year This is your last shot at trying to win it all Of late Bowa revealed Owens had a lot of fire in him He didn t like when we didn t play well It s one thing getting beat but when you re making mental mistakes and stuff like that he didn t like that at all I think between Paul Owens and Dallas Green and of program Pete Rose coming over those are the kind of guys that sort of kick-started us Pope s origins Paul Owens was born in Salamanca N Y and was a sergeant in an engineering unit during World War II He met his wife in Belgium After he graduated from St Bonaventure College in he began his minor league career In his first season with the Olean Oilers of the PA-Ontario-NY League he hit to win the league batting title When he retired Owens had batted and won three batting titles but was possibly too old to be considered a prospect So he went into minor league coaching and scouting Paul Owens in the Phillies clubhouse In Phillies owner Robert Carpenter named him director of scouting Owens announced he would do it on one condition that he could make changes Carpenter agreed and Owens rebuilt the minor league system which produced players such as Mike Schmidt Greg Luzinski Larry Bowa and Bob Boone In Carpenter named him general manager and Owens traded for major players including Tug McGraw Bake McBride and Maddox and of subject there was the free-agent signing of Rose The Green deal In August the Phillies fired their manager of seven years the soft-spoken Danny Ozark and replaced him with Green who had been director of the gang s minor league system I think Danny Ozark did a great job as a manager because we had a association that might have been tough to manage Then they decided to go in a different direction They brought Dallas in Obviously his personality is not like Danny Ozark and it caught a couple of people off-guard guys that I m not gonna say sensitive but they don t like being confronted like that and it affected them a little bit Bowa mentioned It didn t bother me because I came up through the minor system and I was around coaches and managers back then and if you didn t do things right they let you know in front of everybody and that s just the way it was Now you can t do that You ve gotta take people behind closed doors You gotta make sure you don t raise your voice and things like that so it was different Green also upset veteran players by giving their playing time to younger ones such as catcher Keith Moreland and outfielder Lonnie Smith The Pope made news After the tongue-lashing the Phillies had a match to play against the Giants with Steve Carlton on the mound who did not have his best stuff and they won - But that was not the story in the next day s press coverage The Phillies are in first place Hold the drum rolls and flourishes please until the tongue-whipping Paul Owens gave them the day before today stops echoing in their ears Hall of Fame baseball writer Bill Conlin wrote in the Philadelphia Daily News Sunday afternoon s - horror show in San Diego was still etched on their minds when The Pope mounted the clubhouse pulpit and blistered them with a graphic pregame sermon wrote Jayson Stark in the Philadelphia Inquirer Hal Bodley in the Wilmington News-Journal wrote Owens was loud and emotional and profane during his lecture He forgot about sensitive feelings and criticized Larry Bowa and Gary Maddox in front of their teammates for their performances of late Bodley quoted Bowa The Pope s the general manager and he has every right to come down here and say what he revealed He jumped on Maddox and me We have not been playing well Green reported reporters Owens isn t the kind of GM who storms into the clubhouse every day His players know he cares about them And so they listen when he fires up his speech-making engines I think we re closer together as a ballclub right now than we have been in a long time After the challenge Rose narrated reporters He declared we played the last five months for somebody else And now he wants us to play the last month for him and group president Ruly Carpenter They re the ones who put this company together They re the ones who stuck with this gang over the winter You know not all general managers will scold a squad But Pope s more like a member s general manager He s such a fan And he loves so various guys on this squad He signed them up He put them through the minors He s more like a father to the organization than a general manager I think he means more to this association than other general managers do to theirs Scolding had an impact What effect did that talk have on the gang The Phils went on to win of their last games culminating in the NL East division title I think it had a ton to do with it Unser stated Anytime you have a meeting and the gang goes off you gotta think it could go the other way too Bowa explained in recent weeks We could have gone the other way but yeah I could see specific players saying that it had a positive effect on us I could see that very easily Phillies catcher Bob Boone connects a pitch from Astros pitchers Nolan Ryan during second inning action in Match of the National League playoffs at Houston Oct AP Photo Bill Haber After winning the division the Phils faced the Houston Astros in one of the best playoff series ever Four of the five games went into extra innings In encounter five the Phillies trailed - with all-time strikeout king Nolan Ryan on the mound to start the eighth inning An improbable rally put the Phils ahead - Houston tied it up but the Phils won it in the th inning They went on to win the World Series against the Kansas City Royals in six games It was the squad s first-ever championship and made them the last of the original Major League Baseball franchises to win it all Those poor kids As an epilogue of sorts to the Pope s locker room appearance there s this The timing of Owens tirade meant that selected of the players on the receiving end of it had nothing to do with it at all On Sept major league rosters expand and teams can add up to players The Phillies called up four pitchers Marty Bystrom and Mark Davis catcher Don McCormack and infielder Jay Loviglio When Owens notified Green he yearned to address the association that day Green required him if he demanded to include the players who joined the organization that day Have they got a P on their uniform replied Owens and the new quartet were in the locker room when Owens began his speech If it damaged them they didn t show it Bystrom went - and was named NL Pitcher of the Month for September and Davis went on to win a Cy Young Award for the San Diego Padres Years later when Owens talked about that day he thought of those young players There they were he mentioned in the major leagues for their first day and the general manager yells at them and the manager yells at them He then bowed his head shook it and declared Those poor kids Next On Sept the Phillies played a battle that had fans thinking they just might do it 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