August 16, 2005

An Interview With Bob Brenly

Thrust into the hot seat of the color analyst position for the Cubs, Bob Brenly has weathered the storm and tried to do his best in a difficult situation.  During our conversation, he expounds on why he doesn’t like the current selection process for the All Star game, deciphers the ‘let’s get some points’ anomaly, and answers the age old question of what it’s like to manage a couple of diva’s.

The Heckler: You stepped into a tough situation replacing someone considered an icon in this town in Steve Stone.  How difficult is it to come in and replace someone like that as the Cub’s color analyst?

Bob Brenly: For me personally, it doesn’t change anything I do.  I come to the ballpark, I do my homework, I talk to the players on both teams, I talk to the coaches on both teams and I watch a ball game and try to anticipate things that happen on the field.  That doesn’t change whether I was replacing Steve Stone or John Q. Public.  It doesn’t make any difference to how I do my job, but obviously there are a lot of fans out there that became very familiar with Stoney’s voice and his analysis, and I said right from the beginning that I was a big fan of Steve Stone and I still am to this day.  We’re still very close friends.  But it’s my job now and I come and do the best job that I can, and hopefully over time, the fans will grow to appreciate me as much as they appreciated him. 

TH: One of the things that Steve Stone was known for was first guessing.  Last season he had some problems with his criticism of Dusty Baker’s managing during games.  When you were hired for this position, was there anything said to you about not being too critical doing your analysis?

BB: No.  Nothing was said, I was given no direction whatsoever from the Cubs, from the Tribune Company, from WGN, from Comcast…they all just said to come in here and do my job and that’s what I’ve tried to do.  Naturally I’m not an overly critical person because I’ve been in the dugout as a manager and I know how hard this game is and I know a lot of times there are extenuating circumstances.  There are things that happen in the clubhouse or in the dugout during a game that we don’t know about up in the booth.  So unless it is a blatant mistake where somebody obviously is not in tune with the game and they’re not really paying attention to their job, I will offer possible reasons why guys screw up.  But there are times when they screw up and there is no reason and I will be critical in those situations. 

TH: Being in a new situation, does it take awhile to get to know the players and to develop a style with this team?

BB: It takes awhile to get to know the personalities of the players.  Certain guys and this happens with every team, not just the Cubs, you put them in a pressure situation and they blossom.  They’re at their best when the lights are shining bright and they have to do their job.  Other guys you put in that situation and they wilt.  As time goes on, you start learning which guys fall on which side of the fence, and that helps with your analysis a little bit as guys come in to those situations.  You can anticipate a little better.  It helps to get to know the guys personally and what makes them tick, and what their backgrounds have been.  A guy from Southern California that played in a major college program is going to react differently in situations than a kid that crawled out of the cornfields of Iowa.  You try to do as much homework as you can but it always helps to know a little about the players personally. 

TH: You and Len Kasper just started working together this year.  How long does it take to get a comfort zone with each other, knowing when to step in and speak, and just getting used to each other and feeling comfortable together?

BB: That’s been probably the easiest thing in this job.  Len is such a professional, he’s such a stickler for detail, he does his homework, and he does all the things you like to see a good play by play guy do.  In my eyes I think he has a great voice, he’s got a great grasp of the game, he has a great love for the game, and he’s made my job extremely easy.  We did three games together in spring training and it felt like we’d been working together all our lives.  He’s worked with a lot of different partners, I’ve worked with a lot of different partners, and certainly that helped for us making the adjustment. 

TH: Watching the game, you’re probably looking at things from the perspective of a manager of what would I do in this situation.  As a former manager, and having been criticized for moves you made when doing your job, does that perhaps make you a little more hesitant to criticize when viewing the game because you have been in that seat before?

BB: It doesn’t make me hesitant to say things, but like I said before it does make me aware that sometimes we don’t know everything that goes on.  Maybe Michael Wuertz woke up on the wrong side of the bed and has a stiff neck this morning and he should be the guy in there in the eighth inning but he’s unavailable.  Maybe he was available when he got to the ballpark but as the game progressed it got worse and worse and now the eighth inning comes around and instead of Michael Wuertz coming in the ballgame it’s someone else.  Well, you can’t jump on Dusty with both feet and say, oh my God, he’s making the wrong move here because we don’t know all of the facts.  What I would say is Michael Wuertz is usually the guy to pitch in this situation but for some reason he’s not in the game today.  Let the fans draw their own conclusion, but when all the facts are made public, then some of these things become much more clear in the light of day.

TH: Are the Cubs where you expected them to be at this time; are you at all disappointed with how they have played, and where do you see them going the rest of the season?

BB: Given the injuries and given the tremendous amount of roster movement they’ve had up to this point, and also looking at the schedule they’ve had, I think it’s a small miracle that they’re a game above .500.  You take away any teams’ number one and two starters, you take away their closer for the first month and a half of the season, take away their number two and number three hitter and their middle infielders for the majority of the first half and I don’t think they’d be at .500.  Somehow, this club has managed to tread water through all the adversity and the tough schedule.  With the return of Prior and Kerry Wood, with Ryan Dempster emerging as a legitimate closer, and with Derrek Lee having an MVP season, I think the second half of the season looks pretty good.  Obviously they’re going to have to stay healthy, they’re going to have to keep those guys on the field and they’re going to have to continue to produce at a high level, but all things considered, I think they’ve exceeded everybody’s expectations.

TH: Putting yourself in the position of a manager, what do you think this team is missing right now as the trade deadline approaches?

BB: I think every team with very rare exceptions you’re always looking to add pitching.  It’s pretty clear to me and I think to all of the fans out there that the bullpen has been a real sticking point this year and part of that is because of the injuries.  Guys were forced into the rotation that were supposed to fill a role in the bullpen and there were roles in the bullpen that were given to kids that probably should have been pitching in Triple A all year this year.  When you bring kids up before their time, you’re going to get inconsistent performance and that’s what we’ve seen from some kids in the bullpen.  If I were sitting in the general manager’s seat or the manager’s seat, I think pitching is the area to address.

TH: Are there any other areas that you think they need to upgrade, possibly the leadoff position or left field to have a really good chance to make the playoffs this year?

BB: Once again because I’ve been in that seat I understand that you can’t have an All-Star at every position.  You have a budget that you’re working within, and everybody can’t be the Yankees.  You can’t just go out and buy the best player at every position and throw them out there on the field.  You have to sometimes cut corners on one end in order to pay guys on the other end.  The left field position hasn’t been overly productive this year but Hollandsworth has shown flashes, Dubois has struggled like rookies struggle in the major leagues but he’s shown flashes. (Dubois has since been traded for Jody Gerut).  The lead off spot has been troublesome.  Corey Patterson, (he has been sent down to the minors since this conversation) is he a lead-off hitter, is he a two hitter, is he a seven hitter, I don’t think anybody really knows.  I don’t know if Corey knows right now.  With Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, and Jeromy Burnitz in the middle of the lineup, I don’t think the leadoff spot is as much of a concern as far as having a guy who can steal bases or who can bunt for a base hit.   You just need somebody who can get on base.  That may be a situation that remedies itself as we move forward into the second half.  Dusty may decide to make a change at the top and go with a guy that gets on base a little more frequently.

TH: Speaking of Corey, there have been a couple of plays this season where he made some base running miscues, not scoring on a high chopper from third with one out, another time running back to first on a long fly ball with two outs.  Are there some players that just don’t have the natural instincts or a real high baseball I.Q. as far as knowing how to play the game?

BB: Some players come to the major leagues with the instincts in place.  They’ve been taught at a young age, or they’ve had instructors in the minor leagues or in college or somewhere who really taught them how to play the game the right way and its ingrained.  They don’t think about it, they just react to what they see, and 99% of the time they do the right thing.  For other guys, it comes a little bit harder.   You’d like to believe with more experience, and granted he’s been in the big leagues for five years, but at times he’s tried to do a little bit too much because of the expectations that have been placed on him.  I’m hoping that with more playing time and more experience, some of those instinctive things that come naturally for some players will start to work for him. 

TH: Corey’s also mentioned before that he approaches every at-bat the same way regardless of the situation or his position in the batting order.  He has that long stroke and has difficulty making contact with the ball.  Do you think he would benefit from shortening up on his swing and trying to hit the ball on the ground more to utilize his speed and how hard is it to change when you’ve been doing something another way for such a long time?

BB: It’s going to be hard because in his minor league career and I’m sure before that as a youngster he was always a middle of the lineup guy.  He obviously has great power when he makes contact and it’s going to be hard for him to change.  But I think in order to be successful and to be a productive member of this ball club, he’s going to have to make some changes.  Whether they’re physical changes in the batters box or mental changes in his approach at the plate, it’s going to have to happen for him to be his most productive. 

TH: What’s your opinion of the All-Star game giving home field advantage to the winning league in the World Series and do you think the players today care as much about who wins the game as they did years ago when players stayed on one team or in one league for most of their career?  Should an exhibition game have that much importance?

BB: Well, if you’re going to give it that importance and you’re going to put the onus on the manager to win the All-Star game to give his league home field advantage, then you should let the manager pick the damn team.  You’re letting fans vote on the team and they’re putting guys in there just because they saw them on a beer commercial or they saw them on a milk commercial or I ran into him at the mall two years ago and he’s a heck of a nice guy and I’ll vote for him.  Every year you see two or three or more players on each team that have no business being in an All-Star game.  Once again, if you’re going to make it the manager’s job to win the All-Star game, let the managers, coaches and players pick the All-Star team based on what they see that particular year.  And I’ve said this repeatedly since 2002 when I got my ass toasted for the tie ballgame in Milwaukee.  A manager might pick a completely different team if you send a manager out there and say you need to win this ballgame.   Here’s every player in our league and you pick the team you want.  It’s not going to be the same team that the fans vote for.  You may take a left handed specialist out of the bullpen, you may take a guy who can burn on the bases just to come in and steal a base late in the ballgame and get himself into scoring position.  You may take a defensive specialist behind the plate with a lead late.  You put him in there to shut down the other teams’ running game.  It would be a completely different looking All-Star team if you let the coaches, players, and managers pick the team, but I like the fans involvement, so my solution has always been to play the game as we know it in the middle of the summer.  Let it be picked by the coaches, managers and players.  If you want to put the emphasis on it to get home field for the World Series, that’s fine as long as the team is picked that way.  Then, let the fans vote in the second half of the season and have an All-Star game after the year much like the Pro Bowl in football. Play it at revolving sites around the major leagues and donate the money to major league baseball charities or local charities in that particular city. 

TH: You’re wearing a World Series championship ring right now from your days managing the Arizona Diamondbacks.   Did it make your job easier having a couple of pitchers to throw out there every couple of days like Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling?

BB: Oh yeah, in the respect that they were going to go out there and you knew they were going to keep you in a ballgame and give you a chance to win every time they took the mound.  Yeah, it made it considerably easier that way.  But anybody that thinks just because you’ve got good players your job is easy as a manager never sat in that seat.  I mean managing a couple of divas like that presents its own challenges.  Not necessarily on the days they pitched, but the four days in between, Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson gave me plenty of challenges in the time I was there in Arizona.  As a manager, there are certain times you just have to look the other way because you appreciate and understand what they bring to the team on those days that they go out there and compete, and the most important thing is winning ballgames.  

TH: Are there any examples that you can elaborate on that one of them might have done?

BB: It wasn’t so much one or the other.  There are two of them.  They both had families, and just like every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the world, the kids have to go to the dentist, juniors got an ear infection, and one day one guy would come and say I have to take my son to the dentist and I would give him the day off in spring training so he could take care of some family matters.  The other one would want to know, where is he, why is he not here?  So then inevitably, within a week or two the other one would have a reason that he would have to be away from the team and the original absentee would come back and say, where is he today?  It was a constant making sure that each one was getting equal star treatment.  A minor thing to deal with, but something that you have to deal with nonetheless.

TH: So there was a little bit of jealousy between the two of them?

BB: I think maybe a little professional jealousy but like I said, I don’t think there’s a manager in baseball that wouldn’t have conceded and granted certain preferential treatment to your superstars.  Superstar players deserve superstar treatment as long as they went out there and did what we expected them to and at the level that they did it while I was there.  Hey, you want to miss a day of spring training once in a while, I can live with that. 

TH: You signed a nice contract with the Cubs to be their color analyst.  Let’s say a team comes to you and says they think you would be a nice fit for their team and they would like you to manage again.  Do you still have that itch?

BB: I think I pretty well scratched that itch.  My standard answer to that question is it would have to be an absolutely perfect situation.  I mean I make no bones about it.  The Arizona team was built to win, they were ready to win; they just needed somebody to kind of push them in the right direction and I was very fortunate to be that guy.  I loved my time in the dugout as a manager.  I really enjoyed the time from seven to ten every night while the game was going on.  I loved the competition and the challenge, the match of wits with the other manager, and using your tools as best you could against him.  I do miss that, but the stuff that happened before game time and after game time and the personal assaults that you have to go through, the attacks on your family who are the most innocent of bystanders – I can do without all that.  So it would have to be the absolute perfect situation and the reality of this game is there are no perfect situations so I’m content to be where I’m at. 

TH: Every broadcaster has their own special catch phrase.  I’ve heard you several times on the broadcast use the term points instead of runs.  When did you start using it and how did it come about?

BB: That just kind of came about in my managing days.  My bench coach Bob Melvin, who is now managing the Diamondbacks; we would talk all of the time about scoring runs and scoring runs and scoring runs and one night instead of saying runs we said points and we busted loose for eight runs in an inning so it just kind of got to be a thing that we did for good luck and then over time, it just kind of stuck.  There are probably some other things I do that I don’t even realize that I do.  I don’t consciously have a call or anything like that.  That’s more Len’s jurisdiction.  I tend to use some clubhouse lingo from time to time, some dugout lingo, and occasionally I have to back up and remind myself I’m not talking to the guys in the clubhouse, I’m talking to the fans at home, so there will be times I have to stop and explain exactly what I just said. 

TH: You originally started out broadcasting with the Cubs in 1990.  You were partnered at the time with Ron Santo who was also just starting out.  What was it like working with Ron and if I’m not mistaken, weren’t you both getting a tryout in the booth?

BB: We were both starting in radio.  Ronny had obviously never done anything and I was just off of the field as player.  ’89 was my last season as an active player.  It was so funny the way it came about.  We went to Florida to the now defunct Seniors Baseball League and they sent Ron Santo, myself, and Thom Brennemann down there to do some audition tapes with the idea that one of us was going to get the job.  We went to Florida and sat around for four days drinking beer and telling baseball stories and Jack Rosenberg came back to WGN radio and said God, hire them both.  These guys work great together.  So that’s how the three man booth came about.  I’m sure it was maddening for Thom Brennemann, a radio professional to have two rookies that he was breaking in, but I think the product was good.  I was recently off the field, I was very familiar with the guys who were playing the game, and of course, Ron had his love for the Cubs and wasn’t afraid to wear it on his sleeve and say it and I think the fans liked that.  I think they liked what I brought to the telecast as well and it was a wonderful situation.  I had a great time and working with Harry (Caray) for the middle three innings every day was just great.  I’ve been very fortunate to fall into some great jobs, but that might have been one of the best. 

TH: Now that you’re back, do you hang out with the radio team at all, including Ron Santo?  Steve Stone used to kid Ron on the air a lot.   Is there much of that going on with you guys?

BB: I think perhaps we’re a little more light-hearted and not quite as cut to the bone as the guys used to be.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for Ron.  We like to have fun and we like to joke around, but I have way too much respect for what he’s done in his career and in his life to ever do anything mean-spirited just for the sake of getting an easy laugh.  We ride the team buses together, we have a beer in the bar occasionally, we still get out and whack the golf ball around from time to time so I think I have a real good relationship with Ron, and I have a lot of respect for Pat Hughes for what he does and putting up with Ron up there in the radio booth, so I think it’s been a real comfortable relationship for all of us upstairs. 

TH: As a former player and manager, I’m sure you have a lot of great baseball stories that have happened to you throughout the years.  Is there anything that you can share with me that stands out to you that I can print in the paper?

BB: People ask me a lot about the ninth inning of game seven of the World Series in 2001.  First of all, it happened so quickly, I think the entire bottom half of the ninth inning took nine minutes.  It was a first pitch here and a first pitch there and things were moving so quickly.  Mark Grace led off with a base hit.  Then we pinch ran for him and then we bunted and Rivera (Mariano) threw the ball away at second.  Then we sent another guy to bunt and he got thrown out and we sent up another pinch hitter and all of a sudden I turned to Bob Melvin, my bench coach and I said, if this game stays tied, do we have enough players to field a team, cause we had depleted our bench.  We had gone thru everybody because it’s the ninth inning of game seven of the World Series.  You do what you have to do to win a ballgame.  Luis Gonzalez was up at the plate and I had just turned to Bob Melvin to ask him, do we have enough guys to field a team here defensively if this game stays tied and just as I started to turn my head back to the field, Gonzo hit the little blooper out there in shallow center field and I said never mind and we started jumping around like a bunch of little kids.  But that inning and the entire World Series, I don’t remember eating, I don’t remember sleeping, I don’t remember anything but what happened at the field every night.  It was the most surreal experience I’ve ever had in my life.  I’d love to do it again some day and I think every manager should have the opportunity to do that.  It was just like everything was a blur leading up to the game and after the game, I don’t remember any of it, but during the game it was as intense and as peak an experience as I’ve ever had in my life. 

TH: Have you ever had an experience with a fan that you can relate to me?

BB: In 1989, I left the San Francisco Giants and went to the Toronto Blue Jays to sign as a free agent and I was given number nine which was worn by Rick Leach the year before and apparently Rick Leach didn’t enamor himself to fans around the American League so every city we would go into I’d walk out of the dugout with number nine on the back of my practice jersey and fans were just ripping me a new ass----.  Everywhere I went, every city.  I don’t know what Rick Leach did to these people but they hated me and they didn’t even know who I was.  Because of my similarities to a teammate of mine in San Francisco Champ Summers, I was coming in from the bullpen one day at Shea Stadium and they called me in to pinch hit and I came thru the door and I was walking down the warning track and a fan looked up and said, “Hey Summers, you suck.”  And as I continued to walk past the guy he then saw my name on the back of my uniform and he said, “Yea Brenly, you suck too.”   Everyday there was something, but I have no complaints with the fans throughout the course of my career.  For a very mediocre major league player, they were wonderful to me. 

TH: You’ve been taking a lot of criticism so far this year as the Cub’s color analyst from the media and sports radio shows.  Does that bother you in anyway and how do you deal with it?

BB: First of all, I do not listen to talk radio.  I am theoretically opposed to the idea of guys that are allowed air time just to go spout their opinions, most times uneducated opinions.  We all know the purpose of talk radio is to rile up the fans and get them to pick up the phone and call the station.  I personally never listen to talk radio.  I rarely read the newspaper.  I just try to do my job as best I can and as long as my bosses are happy, as long as my partner is happy, as long as I go home at the end of the day and feel like I did a good job, I’m content with it.  Steve Stone was here for twenty-two years.  There were people who were born, grown up and graduated college listening to Steve Stone do Cubs games.  For some people, he’s never going to be replaced.  That’s just the way baseball is.  You grow up, you become familiar with a voice, you become familiar with a guy, and that’s as good as its ever going to get.  But I tell people there’s another generation of baseball fans who just started watching the Cubs this year that Len Kasper and I are the only voice they know for Cubs baseball.  So hopefully, twenty-two years from now you’ll be interviewing somebody else here and it’ll be their problem.  But as far as I’m concerned, I love my job, I love the city of Chicago, I love going to Wrigley Field every day to work and I’m going to do the best I can and whatever happens happens.  

SportzNutz Columnist Darrell Horwitz isn’t shy when it comes to “A Fan Speaking Out”… he holds nothing back and tells it like it is, from a fan’s perspective.  A Chicago native, Darrell is a lifelong Cubs and Bulls fan. Along with his “A Fan Speaks Out” column, Darrell is the fan writer for the Chicago Cubs, here on SportzNutz.  If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email Darrell at darrell.horwitz@nutzworld.net