The Pittsburgh Press from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 71

Sunday. April 17, 19S8 The Pittsburgh Press BASEBALL D3, 1 it i a A 1 disputes a call in game with NEW And gets explanation from umpire Jim Schaly Hebner back in minors as manager tv A Richie Hebner By Gerry Dulac The Pittsburgh Press UGUSTA, Ga There are little nuances that go with being in the minor leagues. The hotel rooms are small and they don't have ESPN, which is a problem if you are a hockey fan. "They don't, huh?" Richie Hebner said, spitting tobacco juice on the floor and flashing that devilish smile. "The woman behind the desk says to me, 'There's one room in the hotel that has ESPN I said, 'Do me a favor.

Look in your book. Is there anyone in "She said no, and I said, 'Well, there is now Change me from 102 to So I got ESPN. If we get rained out some games I get to see some hockey." It is raining this night, a distasteful and nasty occurrence for the nearly 3,000 people who have turned out at Heaton Stadium for the home opener of the Augusta Pirates, the Pirates' Class A affiliate in the South Atlantic League. Hebner is not only looking for a place that is dry. He is looking for a place to sit.

This is like finding a hotel with ESPN. It Is not easy. There is a spot in the locker room, on a large crate of boxes that serve jas a dressing stall. "Welcome to the minor leagues," Hebner said. 1 It has been 19 years since Richard Joseph Hebner, 40, was in the minor leagues, riding buses, carrying equipment and playing in stadiums where the public-address announcer also runs the scoreboard and runs for coffee during the seventh-inning stretch.

But here he is, doing it all over again, wearing the blue and white of the Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Blue Jays, Toronto's Class A affiliate, 'and wondering the most obvious question: Why? "A lot of people come up and say, 'What are you doing in this Hebner said. "Simply, to try it. The season ends August 31st. I'll be home September 1st. If I don't like it, I can look back and say, well, it was an experience." If you are surprised that Hebner, a former Pirates third baseman, is back in the minor leagues, you might be even more surprised to know it is not as a player.

Want to take a stab? Go ahead guess. You might be here a while. Richie Hebner is a manager. "A lot of these guys are in their first or second year away from home," Hebner said. "They got girlfriends at home, they're homesick; you get guys calling in the middle of the night saying they want to go home.

You have responsibilities. It's good for me. I'm kind of a father image." There are worse places to be stuck in than Myrtle Beach. The beach. The golf courses.

The weather. "I rented a place in North Myrtle Beach between two golf courses," Hebner said. "I sit on my patio, read the paper and watch them teeing off every morning." Doesn't sound so bad. But consider the negatives: His family will not join him until the end of May. "That's the tough part," Hebner said.

And the travel is not exactly first class. For this series, the Blue Jays traveled four hours by bus, their mode of transoortation for the entire season. "The only time I'm going to be flying is when I go home in August," Hebner said. Then he paused. "I might like buses so much by then I might take a Greyhound." Hebner is two years removed from playing baseball, having finished his career with the Chicago Cubs in 1986 after playing 15 professional seasons for five teams and 10 managers.

He has spent the past two years 1 at home in Norwood, running his dad's grave-digging business and helping the local American Legion team qualify for the 1987 Legion World Series in Stevens Point, Wis. He also enjoyed being home with his wife and two girls, Elizabeth, 5, and Katherine, 3. Then Bob Mattick, Toronto's executive vice president in charge of minor leagues, called with an offer: Manage the Blue Jays' farm team in Myrtle Beach for one year, see what you think, and get back to us. "I sat down and thought about it for two weeks, called them back and said I'm going to try it," Hebner said. "Five or six years down the road I would probably look back and say I wish I did give it a shot.

You interview me in September, I might say that's it 41 5 at Hebner at every blown opportunity -and Hebner seemingly heard every expletive. "It got bad. I just felt some people came 1 out just to be on my case. I'm not having anyone feel sorry for me. They paid their $5.

They could come in and get on me. (But)1 some of them got a little deep. "I played on those teams that I felt like 1 5 helped them get in the playoffs. I never got a Gold Glove, never won a home-run title, 1 never won a batting title, but I felt like all of us worked together to have the success we had the Olivers, the Sanguillens, the Bob Robertsons. I don't think I'll ever see Coop- erstown (site of the Hall of Fame) unless I visit it, but I felt like I contributed." Hebner's defense was called into question on several occasions by former Pirates Manager Bill Virdon, including the cele- brated incident in 1973 in which Virdon replaced Hebner with shortstop Gene Alley, who never had played third, during the ninth inning of a 5-2 victory against the Atlanta Braves.

The move led to a locker-room confrontation in which Hebner swore at his manager and Virdon challenged Hebner to a fight. "Stand up and call me that," Virdon, 42 at the time, said to Hebner, 25. Hebner did not move. "Get out of the chair and say that," Virdon said. Hebner sat.

"You don't have a gut in your body," Virdon said. "That's what is wrong with you." Now the role is somewhat reversed. Hebner is the manager, not the player. like the incident with Virdon, it would be foolish for any of the Blue Jays to challenge' or accept any challenge from their manager, who still has those shoulders chis-' eled from digging graves. "After the incident I went the next day and apologized," Hebner said.

"It was over and done with in an hour. We both said 1 things that, if it wasn't hot, they wouldn't have been said. I had a style of my own. I wasn't trying to be a cocky kid. I don't know how to say it it happened." Hebner left the Pirates in 1976, placing his name in the free-agent pool and signing a three-year, $450,000 contract with the Philadelphia Phillies, who moved him to first base.

Hebner played three years in Philadelphia, which was more tolerant of his defense, then became expendable when the Phillies signed Pete Rose for $3 million to play first base. Hebner was traded to the Mets in March, 1979, and hit .268, 10 home runs and had 79 RBI in 136 games. But after the Mets lost 99 games that season, he was traded to the Detroit Tigers, where he played three years before being shipped back to the Pirates. This time, Hebner did not give the fans a chance to get on his back. He played three different positions first base, third base and outfield and in two seasons committed only three errors.

"The last couple of years in Pittsburgh (1975-1976) I was kind of miserable. It was like a reunion going back. I enjoyed it." Hebner enjoyed it so much he didn't want to leave. But in 1984, when then-General Manager Harding "Pete" Peterson was reluctant to offer him a contract, Hebner filed for free agency and accepted a two-year offer from Cubs General Manager Dallas Green. "I still think I'm the only free agent that left the same club twice," Hebner said.

"Has anybody else done it? "That was the time I didn't want to leave. I called Harding Peterson and he kept telling me to hold on. At the time it was the beginning of January. I told him I can't hold on much longer. I like him.

A lot of people might knock him in that town, but I always got along with Pete. He kept saying hold on, hold on, and I got a phone call from Dallas and I ended up my last two years in Chicago." And that's where the career, the tugging on the shirt, the swearing at the fans, the flipping of the bat, ended. And the new one began. "Next year at this time I don't know where I'll be sitting," Hebner said, trying to scrape some of the clay off his spikes from where they are landscaping. "Another clubhouse? Back in my hometown with my kids? My wife is expecting again in September.

We have two girls. Maybe we'll get a little baseball player. I get a call once in a while and the wife will say every time a truck comes down the driveway they think daddy is coming home. It ain't happening, Elizabeth." Not yet, anyway. A Augusta Pirates ,,1, "He keeps everyone pretty loose," first baseman Todd Provence said.

"Sometimes you get a manager who is not real open with his players and you are intimidated by them." "There's no clowning around, you have to be on time, and then there's no problem with him," pitcher Bob MacDonald said. "It's when guys get lazy and think of themselves, that's when he's going to get on your back." It does not seem that long ago that a raw-boned kid with wide shoulders and a heavy New England accent joined the Pirates as their third baseman of the future. It was in 1969 19 years ago that Hebner moved up from Columbus of the International League to a team with so much offense "you were embarrassed if you didn't hit .300." Still, most of the present Myrtle Beach players remember their manager as a player. "We always talk about how he used to pull his shirt up on the back of his neck," said Provence, 25. "Everyone knew him for A 4 1 1 Jeft Barnes for The Pittsburgh Press A SA A''' hah -( AVV 'At tSUl A if, Pitching coach Bill Monbouquette (far left) listens to possible pitching change by Hebner or I might come back." Hebner had a chance to manage the Cubs' Peoria (111.) affiliate in the Midwestern League two years ago, but he rejected the offer because it came right after he retired as a player.

"I just wasn't ready. I wanted to go home. I just did 20 years of airplanes, airports and hotels. "Then I got the call for this. If I didn't get a call, believe me, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

I signed that contract and I figured I would make the best of it. That's the only way I survived in the big leagues for 17 V2 years have fun and play the game. If you don't have fun and you don't play the game, you might as well go back to your hometown and look for a job. "That's what I tell these kids. You're here for 2V hours, play hard and run the bases.

They got a lot of scouts in the stands. Especially Myrtle Beach. More scouts go to Myrtle Beach than any other place. They play golf in the morning, go to the beach and go to the game at night." The players like Hebner's attitude. that." "He played for the Mets and I was always a Mets fan," said pitcher Al Silverstein, a native of Staten Island, N.Y.

"You would grow up and see the guy on television and next thing you know you're playing for him." "He was just a good hitter," said Mac-Donald, 22. "And he was good defensively, especially at the corners." Well, maybe they don't remember Hebner Wat well. Sometime after the 1972 season, when Hebner committed just nine errors in 124 games with the Pirates, it all started to unravel. Hebner used to field baseballs like he would dig graves with a shovel. At least, that's the way it appeared.

In 1973, he committed 23 errors and his fielding percentage went from .969 to .939. In 1974, he committed a league-high 28 errors and his fielding percentage slipped even further, to .937. The fans at Three Rivers Stadium, especially along the third-base line, were not sympathetic. They would curse and scream.