PHILADELPHIA – The first time Larry Bowa took a baseball bat to a Veterans Stadium plumbing fixture, he figured it would cost him in his paycheck.
It didn’t.
The second time, he knew it would cost him in his paycheck.
It didn’t.
The third time?
“Ruly walks in,” Bowa was saying Tuesday, behind the batting cage at Citizens Bank Park. “Bull says, ‘Bo.’ Ruly says, ‘I know.’ He told me he took care of the first two. But I had to pay for that one.
“After that, I went upstairs and beat up on the bat rack.”
Bowa was the shortstop when Ruly Carpenter owned the Phillies. Greg Luzinski, the Bull, was the leftfielder. Mike Schmidt and Larry Christenson and Bob Boone and more came through the farm system together and won the World Series in 1980.
Carpenter died Monday at the age of 81, which is why the 1980 pennant at Citizens Bank Park was at half-staff Tuesday and why Bowa, for one, was remembering when the Phillies grew from within and eventually won it all. That was the Ruly Carpenter way. And it’s a path the Phillies will need to re-travel if the franchise ever expects to enjoy a third era of sustained success.
“He hired the right people,” Bowa said. “He hired the Pope (Paul Owens) and Dallas (Green) to run the minor leagues. He had a great feel for baseball. It killed us when he sold the team. No one wanted him to sell the team.”
Carpenter, the son of former owner Bob Carpenter, offloaded the Phillies after the strike-punctured 1981 season, convinced the baseball racket was no longer a solid investment, even though his family had enough DuPont wealth make it work for decades. But by then, average players were making a half-a-million a year, and, besides, replacing pulverized porcelain every time Bowa had a week of bad hitting luck wasn’t cheap.
So Carpenter sold to a group, organized by Bill Giles, that included John Middleton, who still runs the club 40 years later. As they did in around the turn of the ’70s, that basic management group made the farm system a priority just before winning the 2008 World Series with a farm-raised nucleus of Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels.
Since then, the developmental system has crumbled and, not coincidentally, an oh-since-2011 postseason slump rages on. A few weeks ago, Dave Dombrowski smashed much of the middle-management structure, admitting it was time to resume producing big-league-ready talent from within.
Just as important as developing skills, warns Bowa, is demanding minor-league team success.
“I’ve heard him say that it was important that we played together down there and that we learned how to win,” Bowa said. “I was with (Frank) Lucchesi in Double A and Triple A, and we won. And I was with Bob Wellman in A, and we won. I know development is important. But winning is just as important. We definitely need to get back to that: Teaching kids to play winning baseball. And I think if you do that, you will see your farm system grow. I really believe that.”
Bowa is not interested in taking on that task, not at 75. But he feels that the Phillies can make it work.
“I’ve been down there,” he said. “We have some athletes down there. Are they superstar players? No. But they have a chance to be good players. And it’s up to us as an organization to teach them to go level to level and improve. Hopefully we can get that started in the right direction.”
It will take time, and it will take patience. Ruly Carpenter had both.
“Such a sad day by losing Ruly,” said Bob Boone, in a statement. “I considered him a great friend. He was so influential in the Phillies winning the World Series in 1980. He became the owner when all of us young guys were coming up to the majors. That is when he and Pope started putting together the roster that became World Series champions. He was a special person. I will miss him so much. We all loved Ruly.”
The Phillies Tuesday offered a pregame moment of silence for Carpenter, who produced five playoff teams in 10 years in charge. It’s past time to add him to their Wall of Fame. It’s past time, too, for them to win at the same pace as when Carpenter was in charge.
“Forget being an owner, he was just a super human being,” Bowa said. “He cared about our farm system. It was important to him to get that together and watch the team grow. His door was always open, and it didn’t have to be about baseball, but whatever you were having a problem with. He was a great family guy. And he would tell you the truth, not what you wanted to hear.
“They threw that mold away.”
Contact Jack McCaffery at jmccaffery@21st-centurymedia.com
