The Dance of Buddy Bell

2007 will mark the end for one of the least memorable managerial careers of all-time.  Buddy Bell's main claim to fame is that in 35 years of MLB as player and manager has never made the post-season.  That's tough to do in the era of multi-tiered playoffs. 

This year he's been engaged in a dance.  He began the season 181 games under .500.  Only a handful of men ever fell 200 games under - John McCloskey, Patsy Donovan (aside from the appropriate first name for a losing manager, he's the only one to recover and end up with less than 200 losses for his career), Jimmie Wilson, and Connie Mack.  The last to lose this dance was Mack, fifty-seven years ago. Do you realize how long a period of time that is?

• America only had 48 stars on its flag when it last happened.
• A handful of Civil War veterans were still kicking.  
• The US still occupied Japan back then.
• Charles Schulz was trying to find a distributor for a new comic strip he had called "Peanuts." 
• The Korean War was barely two weeks old when Mack fell that far under.
• Sister Mary Theresa hadn't yet begun charity work in Calcutta, let alone become known as Mother.
• William Randolph Hearst still breathed. 
• Humphrey Bogart was a big star.  Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift were nobodies. 

Given Bell's track record, you had every reason to think he'd figure out a way to join that exclusive club.  As a manager, he'd been a Hall of Shamer.   Realize he hasn't been given much talent, but even despite that his teams haven't played up to their capabilities. 

He lost 109 games in his first season as manager.  In 1998 Wayne Huzienga had a hissy fit when the big bad meanies of Florida wouldn't give him the stadium deal he wanted.  He intentionally made his team as bad as he possibly could.  They still didn't lose as many games as the 1996 Tigers. 

It was the losingest team baseball had scene since the expansion Blue Jays.  They at least had the excuse of being new.  Aside from them, no team had lost that many games in a season since the St. Louis Browns.  You might remember them.  Well, no, not literarlly.  The overwhelming majority of people weren't even born when they packed up and went to Baltimore to become the Browns.  In 1939 they lost 111 games.  So we're clear, there have been a lot of really horrible AL teams since then.  But none could quite lose like Bell's boys.

And that wasn't the only Bell team to be historically dreadful.  From 2004-6, the Royals lost 100 games or more every year.  Admittedly, a season and a third was before he got there, but he couldn't stop it.  The D-Rays never lost 100 three straight seasons.  The Littlefield Pirates avoided that fate.  Heck, no team has done it since those same expansion Jays from 1977-9, who.  The last non-brand new squad to do it?  The 1952-4 Pirates.  Christ, Fidel Castro closer to being a pitching prospect than dictator back then.  Again, there have been plenty of horrible teams in MLB since then. They managed to achieve to win more though.  Man, the Cubs haven't lost 100 three times in their entire history, let alone three in a row.

What was so striking about those Royals teams wasn't just that they lost, but how they lost.  Shortly after becoming manager in 2005, they lost 19 straight games.  And they looked bad doing it, too.  Bell would screw up and send out the wrong line up card. 

Or the all-time classic: two fielders camp out under a lazy fly ball.  They chat while they wait for it to come down, and then they head back to the dugout together - having completely forgotten about that thing where you first have to catch the ball when it lands.  Seriously, they forgot what they were doing out there. 

He's always gotten respect for being a real pro.  There's something to be said for that.  He's never done anything outwardly stupid or head-slappingly asinine.  He's never bunted too much or fallen absurdly in love with a pet strategy.  Heck, in their commentary on him in this year's annual, the Baseball Prospectus gang called him a managerial cipher, his instincts are so neutral.

But when the best you can say about a manager is that he's professional, that's not really a compliment.  Absence of mistakes is one thing, but it takes something else to succeed.  It takes positives.  And frankly, if the best anyone can say after 1200 games is that you're professional, I doubt if you have anything going for you other than absence of mishaps.

That's something I noticed in football.  When David Shula coached Cincinnati the ESPN-types all said what a pro he was and how he didn't do anything too wrong.  He broke John McKay's record for fewest games to lose 50.  And the Bengals immediately improved after they fired him in mid-season.  We heard the same thing here in Chicago when Dave Wannestadt ran the team.  Sure, he never threw gum at the fans and had his guys practice hard, but the longer he was here, the more obvious it was he was out of his depth.

Three teams and about 8 seasons as manager and all they can say for Buddy Bell is that he was a pro.  That's an insult. 

I have to admit, though, I've always liked him.  One of my favorite books to this day is Ron Luciano's The Umpire Strikes Back, and Bell keeps appearing in the book as a really nice guy.  Whether it be comically switching jobs for a batter one day in Spring Training, or welcoming Luciano into the clubhouse when Ron made his ill-advised move to the broadcast booth, Buddy Bell stories were one of the joys of the book.  Really, he must be a nice guy.  Can you imagine any scenario where a scumbag with his W-L record keeps getting rehired?

But I must admit, I spent all 2007 looking forward to Bell losing his dance.  It's not too often something that hasn't happened since the Truman administration occurs.  Besides, it ain't like I'm a Royals fan.

At the beginning of the year, Bell looked like he wasn't going to disappoint.  After a torrid start - by his standards of 2-2, his club fell into its annual death spiral.  On May 12 they were 11-26, and Buddy Bell - with a career mark of 461-657 was just four losses shy of immortality.  Heck, he'd have to rally just to avoid yet another 100-loss season.

After a brief rally, another losing slump in late May but him closer.  On May 30, he set a new low: 197 games under .500.  After a brief flirt with winning, Buddy Bell went back to what he knows best.  On June 5, the Royals slid to 21-38.  They were on pace for 107 losses, almost a personal high for Bell.  Personally he stood at 471-669, a mere 48 hours from fulfilling his destiny.

And then, in what some Kansas City faithful can reasonably believe to be an act of God, something unexpected happened.  The Royals won.  Oh sure, they lost right after that.  But then they won again.  Continuing their win-loss hokey-pokey, they lost yet again, but then they won four out of five.  They played 13 games in 13 days, and never had back-to-back losses.  Heck, they weren't even on pace to lose 100 anymore.  What the heck kind of KC Royals are these? 

In late June they finally fell apart, losing four straight.  On June 23, the Royals were 17 games under again, putting Buddy Bell back to 198 games under.  It looked pretty bad for Bell, though.  The Royals still had 3 months to play, and they'd have to do the impossible - go .500 the rest of the way - for him to miss his chance at immortal futility.

Heck, forget the long-term picture.  The short-term outlook sucked.  The short-term forecast was horrible.  They had to finish off a series against the Brewers, who not only possessed the best record in the NL, but were also the hottest team in baseball having won 10 of their last 12.  Then he had to face the Angels.  They were maybe the best team in all baseball at the moment, having won 43 of their last 61.  And these games were all on the road.  People, it was time to start circling the calendars to figure when Bell would fall 200 under.

But that's the great thing about baseball.  You never know what's going to happen next.  In their finale against Milwaukee, they came back in the late, and won in extra innings.  Then they went to Anaheim or Los Angeles or wherever the Angels say they play nowadays, and pulled off the big sweep.  They went 15-12 in June, the club's best month in 2003, and Bell's best month since the Clinton Administration. 

Since then, the Royals have improbably not come that close again.  Several times they've fallen 14 games under .500 on the year, but Bell began the year 181 games under, which still gives him some breathing room.  He's not out of the woods yet, but if the Royals can just go 22-27 from here on out, he'll end his days only 199 games under .500.  For the record, in their last 27 losses, they've won 29 games. 

As moral victories go, it's a pretty cheap one.  But a moral victory is better than none.  And any kind of victory is unexpected when you're Buddy Bell. 

I began the year hoping he'd get it, just because I've never seen it before.  Now I'm hoping he wins this dance-off.  He's a nice guy, and he's won so little else.  Hell, even when he was a player his teams never made it to the post-season, and he was a helluva player.  Not a great player, like he'd win a spot in Cooperstown, but a Hall of Very Gooder for sure.  Besides, he has some serious health problems that he says are forcing him to leave the game he spent so much time in. 

Good luck with that one Buddy.  It would be nice if one dance went your way.