Costing Michael Jordan two points

      One late-summer day in 1994, I "robbed" Michael Jordan; I took two points away from him. And when Terry Francona wanted to discuss it, I refused. We're talking baseball here, not basketball.
      As the official scorer for Jacksonville Suns' home games for much of the 1994 season, I had such power.
      Two points here:
      (1) I was the scorer for hundreds of baseball games over the years -- kids, high school, Legion, college, pros. Maybe more than a thousand games, and I loved doing it. Even got paid for it often enough. I received plenty of advice, or suggestions, or help, or -- let's call it like it was -- criticism (and that's a nice term for it). So I've got some stories, and this is one of the best ones.

Michael Jordan, Birmingham Barons,
1994 (sportsillustrated.cnn.com)

      (2) I'm always kidding my good friend O.K. "Buddy" Davis about his "namedropping" of people he's encountered in his sportswriting life. Can't top him, but I figure Michael Jordan is about as good as I can do. (Well, I could use my moments with Muhammad Ali, Joe Namath, Tom Landry and Roger Staubach.)
     Anyway, back to 1994 at old Wolfson Park in Jacksonville, Fla., and the Birmingham Barons' second visit there that season.
      It was the year that Michael Jordan -- who I've read and been told is the greatest basketball player ever -- decided he wanted to leave the NBA and play pro baseball, with the intention of making the major leagues. The Chicago White Sox gave him that chance.
      And why not? His presence at any ballpark -- anywhere, really -- was going to draw fans.
      Birmingham, in the Class AA Southern League (two levels from the majors), was the lucky recipient of his services. The White Sox, after seeing Jordan's skills in spring training (he had not played since he was a kid), decided to try him there.
      Lucky for Birmingham. Not so lucky for the young outfield prospect with major-league dreams whose place in Double-A was taken by a 31-year-old celebrity trying out a whim.        
      Great year for Birmingham, too ... at the gate. The Barons, with Jordan as the attraction and helped later in the season when the major-league season stopped (and never resumed) because of a players' strike, set a Southern League record for attendance.
       Plus, all the other Southern League cities benefited from Jordan's road appearances -- including two trips to Jacksonville. All the teams' owners and general managers loved the cash rolling in at the games involving Birmingham.
       I didn't attend the first Barons' series at Wolfson Park; I was not yet the official scorer for Suns' home games. (I do have a story about it.)
       But I was in place for the return trip in August. The crowds were much larger -- and more lively -- than for most games.
       By then, it was obvious that Michael Jordan's baseball career was going to be short-lived. If our old Shreveport super sports fan Dick "Ace" Towery had been judging his talent, he would've have written "WB" by Jordan's name. Wrong Business.
       In 127 games that season, Jordan hit 17 doubles, one triple and three home runs, stole 30 bases (in 48 tries), drew 51 walks ... but struck out 114 times and batted .202. (For you non-baseball types who have read this far, .202 is terrible.) 
       And it could've been .204 ... if only I'd given him that hit. I didn't.
---
       Being the official scorer in baseball isn't difficult. Mostly, it's being able to judge what is a hit and what is an error; that judgment call is 90 percent of the job. The rest is some rules semantics and recording what's happened.
       The hit/error decision is what people will question, mostly what players and managers/coaches will provide input -- sometimes gently, sometimes not. I've been yelled at enough.
       It helps these days to have television replays. But because it's been a while since I scored games and never got to the major-league level, I rarely had that benefit. I got one live look at a play, and that was it.
       But if I had questions, I didn't mind going to players or managers/coaches to ask their opinion, and I changed many a call. I never felt my judgment was infallible and I never felt I was a scoring-rules "expert," as many times as I read them. I misinterpreted several rules, and had to go back and correct my calls.
        What always mattered to me was getting the play right, as best as I could determine it. Some plays, though, are just 50-50 calls. It's just a judgment, and the scorer has to make it -- and take the criticism.
       But when Michael Jordan, in his first at-bat in the first Birmingham-at-Jacksonville game I scored, hit a dribbler that went maybe 45 feet to the first-base side of the field and the Suns' pitcher came in to field it, bobbled it and then threw a little wide to first base as Jordan arrived there. I had no doubt: error on the pitcher. It was a relatively easy play, and he flubbed it.
---
       The guy who was the official scorer in Jacksonville before me was very helpful in showing me what to do as I moved into the job and told me that on Birmingham's first visit, he had made a scoring call on a ball hit by Jordan and had been summoned to the team's clubhouse afterward to discuss the call with Francona, the Barons' manager. He also got to meet Jordan ... and got his autograph.
       After that visit, the scorer told me he changed his call and gave Jordan a hit.
       An admission: I've never been that enamored with Michael Jordan. Sure, I thought he was a fantastic basketball player, but I never particularly rooted for him or his teams. I thought his playing baseball was a stunt and, to this day, I think there's more to the story than has ever been made public.

Terry Francona, 1994 (comc.com)

       His gambling habits were no secret, and his father was murdered, and I'm a skeptic. That's as far as I'm going; draw your own conclusions.   
       But I wasn't particularly looking to meet him and, as the official scorer, I generally did not go to the clubhouses or dugouts and hang around. I wasn't into star gazing.
       I was familiar with Terry Francona through his college (Arizona) and pro baseball careers and because his father, Tito, had played on Atlanta Braves teams with my friends George Stone and Cecil Upshaw.
       So the "error" call on the ball Jordan tapped went on the scoreboard, and the Barons' turn at bat soon ended. As the Suns were batting in the bottom of the inning, I saw the visiting team clubhouse boy come into the press box.
       He asked for the official scorer, and I replied.
       "Mr. Francona would like to see you in the clubhouse after the game," he said. "He wants to ask you about that play on Michael Jordan."
       I laughed and said, "Tell Mr. Francona, I don't make house calls." He turned and left.
       And I never did visit with Mr. Francona. Didn't feel the need to get his input.
       Three years later he was managing in the big leagues (Philadelphia) and a decade later managed a team I don't like to think about to the first of two World Series championships under him.
       I didn't meet Mr. Jordan, either. Didn't need to.
       A few months after Birmingham's 1994 season ended, Michael was back in the NBA on the road to adding three more NBA championships to the three his team already had won.
       If I had given him that hit -- which he didn't deserve -- he would've hit .204 that season. So I cost him two points, and I suppose, I didn't help his cause to make the majors. Oh, well. (I'm sure Michael and Mr. Francona remember the play well, one of a million in their respective careers.)
       I wasn't in a charitable mood. The play was an error, no question.
       Tell you what else was an error: Jordan trying to play baseball. But it made for a good blog story.
                      
                
              
             
                             

The toughest/best coaches in Jacksonville

      A few weeks ago, I wrote about the most memorable high school coach of my time in the Jacksonville, Fla., area (Iate '80s/early '90s), and I promised to revisit some of the other top coaches there.
      Other than Corky Rogers, the football coach who most made an impression on me was Bob Withrow, perhaps the most rock-hard coach I've encountered.
      Withrow was an offensive lineman at East Carolina in the late 1960s; in fact, when we first began talking after I came to the Florida Times-Union during the 1988 football season, he remembered playing against Louisiana Tech a couple of times.
      We (I was the student sports information assistant/statistician) played East Carolina in 1968; in fact, it the first game at the new Joe Aillet Stadium, and the Tech quarterback in our 35-7 victory was Terry Bradshaw.
      Bradshaw also led the Bulldogs to a 24-6 win at East Carolina in 1969, the last year that Withrow was part of the run-heavy old single-wing offense used by Pirates coach Clarence Stankovich, who was regarded as one of the nation's top mid-major coaches in the 1960s.
      I remember Withrow well because (1) he was a good source, a knowledgable guy to talk to about football in the Jacksonville area and (2) his coaching philosophy.
      He believed in having his players go full speed, full contact ... every day, every drill of the season (and probably off-season). He pushed them to the limit to play physically.
      It's rare, it's not how I believe it should be, but it worked for Withrow and his kids. 
      He had three separate stints at Sandalwood. He took the Saints to the state semifinals before I came to Florida, then got out of coaching after a conflict with a new school principal; then came back after that principal left, took charge again of a program that had diminished greatly, and in only two years had his team back in the the state semifinals.
      I noted from Internet research that he came back to Sandalwood for a third stint in 2008, but he's since retired.       
      I think of Fred Pickard, a Florida State star running back of the late 1950s who was a college head coach (UT-Martin and then  head coach for 21 years at Terry Parker High, and Jerry Disch, the longtime coach at Forest and Englewood and when I was at the Times-Union, the very cooperative and helpful athletic director for Duval County schools.
        Freddie Stephens, whose Raines teams beat a lot of folks in my time there; Joe Montgomery, who had dominant teams at Lake City Columbia, then went to Gaffney, S.C., and Rock Hill, S.C., and had some big winners; and the late Bob Williams, a veteran who knew what he was doing at my son's high school, Orange Park, at the end of a long, successful career.
        There was Dan Disch, the young coach at Ed White High on Jacksonville's West side, son of Coach Jerry. Dan's Commanders teams were competitive and fun to watch, not big winners, but you knew the coach had something going for him. He went from Ed White to the University of Florida staff with Ron Zook, moved to Illinois with Zooker, then joined Larry Fedora's staff at Southern Mississippi as defensive coordinator/secondary coach, and now is in the same roles under Fedora at North Carolina. I'm not surprised.
       Baseball gave us Howard May at Terry Parker and Bob West at Bishop Kenny, Jack Spencer at Englewood -- all big winners.
      In track, it was James Day of Raines, who introduced Bob Hayes to the world, and Paul Nowicki of Wolfson. Swimming was future University of Florida and U.S. team coach Gregg Troy, then at Bolles School.
       In basketball, Buddy Ward was a classy state championship coach at Bolles, and Al Austin was the dominant girls coach/athletic director at Ribault, who had eight state-title teams.       

From a Ribault High Facebook page

     But the most memorable basketball coach was Bernard Wilkes, the barrel-chested, deep-voiced showman whose Ribault boys teams were almost always the best in the area in the 1980s/early 1990s.
        Although I wasn't covering games -- I was the prep sports editor in charge of young people who did cover and wrote about the events -- I met Bernard a few times and watched his teams play a couple of times. His kids played hard for him.
        He'd put on a show, as longtime Times-Union columnist Gene Frenette wrote -- inevitably whipping off his coat in dramatic fashion and urging on his kids in, let's say boisterous ways.
       Loved to talk to Bernard on the phone when he'd call in games, or just to chat, because it was always great to hear him laugh. He was a jovial character, a big, friendly teddy bear.
      And I loved to kid him that I was his good-luck charm. Here's why.
      When I arrived in Jacksonville before the 1988-89 basketball season, Bernard had taken his Ribault Trojans to the state tournament seven times, and he had no state championships.
       By the time I left in October 1995, Bernard and Ribault had four state championships. I reminded him of that whenever we talked.
       The Trojans won in 1989, '90, '94 and '95 -- but none before and none after I was there, although they made the state semifinals 16 times (they finished second four times).
        He was at Ribault for 30 seasons and 758 victories -- the most by any Florida high-school coach at the end of his career -- and 21 district championships. And it was against strong competition, but Wilkes taught pressure defense and up-tempo play as well as anyone.
        Sadly, he passed away suddenly March 5, 2006, at age 57, a victim of diabetes and heart disease. And the guy had a big heart. Gene Frenette wrote a beautiful piece on him the day after he died. It's worth re-reading.
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/030706/spf_21283563.shtml

Few have won as much, or as long, as "Corky"

      At every stop in my career, there have been outstanding coaches/people, most of them in Louisiana, where I spent 30 years.
      I've written about some in the past year, and I will again. But today's focus is on the Jacksonville, Fla., area, where I encountered some remarkable coaches in seven years there.
     That was in the late 1980s/early 1990s, and Charles "Corky" Rogers was already well on his way to being a legendary coach.
     There's no doubt now.
     After 41 seasons as a head football coach -- the first 17 (1972-88) at his alma mater, Lee High School, the last 24 at the prestigious Bolles School, Corky's teams have won 423 games, 73 of them in the playoffs, and 10 state titles. All are Florida state records. 

     

Corky Rogers (Bolles photo)

He might hold another -- more dubious -- record. Last January, Corky thought he was going to have shoulder surgery. Instead, tests showed heart problems. The result: Blockage in seven arteries, and immediate septuple heart bypass surgery. Septuple -- look that one up.
      He was 68 then. He wasn't just worried about his future as a football coach; he was worried about his future, period.
      But he made it back, with hard work -- the kind he's always demanded from his players and coaches, and himself. The kind it took when, in 1988, his left leg was badly damaged in a hit-and-run accident with a drunk driver. He coached that season on crutches and endured a dozen surgeries for the injuries. 
      It's obvious from photos I've seen in doing Internet research that he's a lot slimmer than in recent years, and it's obvious from what Bolles did this past season that he hasn't lost his touch as a coach.
      Because the Bulldogs made it back, too -- to a state championship game. For the 13th time since Corky became their coach.
      They didn't win the Florida Class 4A title last month, losing to Miami Washington 35-7 in a rematch of the 2011 state final when Bolles rallied for a 33-25 victory. It was only the third time a Rogers-coached Bolles team had lost in the championship game.
      Will Corky, who turned 69 on Dec. 19, be back for another try? I'm a long way away, and I haven't been in Jacksonville in 18 years, so I don't have that answer. But I would bet he hasn't lost his competitive urge.
---

A younger Corky Rogers
(St. Augustine Record photo)

      I first met Corky Rogers in the fall of 1988, not long after I became prep sports editor of the Florida Times-Union. It was clear that he was an outgoing, personable, media-savvy coach totally invested in his school -- really his school -- his program, his staff and his kids.     
      In the early 1960s, he had been a star football and baseball player for Lee -- one of Jacksonville's three old-line public high schools for whites (with Jackson and Landon). He was a key player when Lee won a 1960 Florida state football championship and a 1961 state baseball title.
      From 1963 to '66, he played wide receiver and cornerback for Georgia Tech under famed coach Bobby Dodd, winding up his college career in the Gator Bowl at home in Jacksonville. He was good enough to get a shot at making the Baltimore Colts.
      He had come back to Lee to coach, taking over as head coach in 1972 at age 28. He had taken the Rebels to 10 consecutive state playoff appearances, with his best teams in the mid-1980s featuring future Florida State/Green Bay Packers stars LeRoy Butler and Edgar Bennett.
       And then, after my first football season in Jacksonville, Corky shook up the prep world there. 
       He made a move from the public school system to the private-school world -- to Bolles, the best-known and arguably most celebrated of some classy private schools in town.
       Plus, he took an assistant coach (Wayne Belger, who had been his first QB at Lee ) with him.
       Perhaps you could term it a controversial move. There was concern that Bolles would "recruit" kids; perhaps it always had. Certainly, private schools search the area for potential students who can enroll as early as kindergarten or grade school.
       Bolles, founded in 1933 as a boys all-military school, had evolved as a coeducational school, with boarding students and top-notch facilities -- certainly the best football facility among Jacksonville high schools. Its nice main campus, on San Jose Boulevard near the St. Johns River heading into downtown, and most everything about the school had the auru of "upper class."
       In athletics, it was known mostly for state-championship level teams in basketball and baseball (Chipper Jones was MLB's No. 1 draft choice out of there in 1990) and especially swimming (a dozen Olympic stars). But football had been only so-so ... until Corky arrived.
       Didn't take him long to build a great program. He brought in a staff that has been stable for most of his 24 years there and athletes from all over, many going on to play college ball and several in the NFL.
        In all his time at Bolles, Rogers' teams have missed the state playoffs once (1992).
        He's always used the simple but tricky Wing-T offense, teaching it with precision and unyielding repitition. He's been a hard-driving, intense perfectionist, but also an approachable, affable guy away from the field. Seeing the available interviews and videos on the Internet, and remembering my talks with him some 20 years ago, he's always believed nothing substitutes for hard work -- like his idol, his father, taught him.
        Back to his record, the 423 victories. It's tied for fifth-most among high school football coaches all-time. Interestingly, the four guys ahead of him -- one of them is John T. Curtis Jr. of Louisiana's John Curtis School (in the New Orleans suburbs) -- and one guy tied with Corky are active coaches. 
        I didn't have anything to do with the other guys. But I do know this about Corky Rogers. He's remarkable.