Astros respond to laid-back Larry

Sporting News, The, May 5, 1997 by Bob Nightengale

It was regarded as a bad joke. How in the world could the Astros hire as manager their radio and TV analyst Larry Dierker? There was little argument that Terry Collins needed to go, with the Astros quitting on him last September, but Dierker?

Great guy, funny guy, wonderful pitcher in his time, but Dierker?

His baseball experience the past 18 years was being employed as one of the team's broadcasters. He had not managed. He had not coached. He didn't even have the responsibility of organizing kids in the local little League. What did he know about managing?

There are a lot of skeptics out there,' Dierker says, "and they have that right. Ifs not like they're saying after the fact 'I knew he wouldn't be any good.' They're saying right now that I won't be any good.

"So that's OK. They're not second-guessing. They're first-guessing."

Yet, a funny thing has happened in Houston. The jokes have stopped. The criticism has waned. Slowly, there is acceptance.

Managing a team that headed into the week atop the N.L Central with a 5 1/2 game lead over the favored Cardinals has a way of shutting up a lot of folks.

"Believe me, there's no telling what would go on around here if we were in the same position as the Cubs,' Dierker says. Me fact that we started like we have has definitely eased the pressure."

Certainly, there were a lot of candidates more qualified than Dierker, and a lot more that earned the right to be considered, but how can you argue with success? The Astros have responded to him, winning 14 of their first 23 games, and the players are the happiest they've been in years.

"I think it's a lot more relaxed in here,, pitcher Darryl Kile says. "He's given us the freedom to do things and play our game. It's just a different clubhouse than it was before.'

Says first baseman Jeff Bagwell: "Larry doesn't want robots out there. He wants us to go play hard and aggressive, and I like that When it comes to making decisions, he can

It's amazing how well the players have responded to Dierker's laid-back approach. It is almost the complete opposite of Collins' intense style, when every game was as critical as the seventh game of the World Series. Dierker sits back, laughs, smiles and treats each game as if its a Sunday beer league game.

Says Bagwell: "During the games, Larry's been laid-back, smiling and having a good time. Believe me, that helps."

Dierker's strategy has been ingenuous. He already earned the players' respect as a pitcher, but he knew that any early blunders would ruin his respect as a manger. So he hired bench coach Bill Virdon, brought in third base coach Mike Cubbage and pitching coach Vern Ruhle, and complemented them with Jose Cruz, Alan Ashby and Tom McCraw. Voila! the perfect working mix.

When they offered me the job," Dierker says, "I thought, 'What's the worst possible thing that can happen?' The worst is that I won't be very good at it and I'll get fired. Then what? I'm back in the broadcast) booth somewhere or I take my pension. None of those alternatives seemed that bad.'

So what does Dierker have to lose? He watched plenty of others fail before him, so he tries not to make the same mistakes. The team now is looser, calmer and playing with more confidence then it has in years.

The pitching staff, particularly the starters, have been ecstatic with Dierker's style. He believes his starters should have a chance to win or lose games, and he refuses to panic and yank a starter at the first sign of trouble.

The Astros entered the week leading the league with 150 innings out of their rotation. The bullpen is on pace to work nearly 90 fewer W" than a year ago.

"Dierk is showing a lot of confidence in me," Kile says. He's giving me a chance to pitch out of situations that I didn't get an opportunity to pitch out of in the past My next step is to try not to get into so many jams.'

Says Dierker: I really believe that having been a pitcher, I understand how they feel. That's why I'm a little more involved in that area. I don't leave a guy in there if he doesn't have his stuff. But if you go and get them every time they throw 100 pitches, you're going to have a lot of six-inning pitchers."

It will be interesting to see how well the team plays the rest of the summer. There's no reason it can't stay in the race, and if it wins the division, the Astros' organization will look like geniuses.

This is a tough job," Dierker says. Doing this has been tougher than pitching in the major leagues when I was 18 years old. But when the team is playing well like we are now, it can be very satisfying."

There's something refreshing about a man who doesn't take life so seriously and can make others perform in a way they didn't know was possible. It's quite a nice change, isn't it?

It has been four years since anything has gone right for the Giants, winning 103 games in 1993, only to lose the division title to the Braves in the final game of the season.

The Giants since have re-signed Barry Bonds, lost Will Clark, traded Matt Williams and said good-bye to Robby Thompson.