The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball

by John W. Miller

He signed an underdog city’s love for its feisty baseball team and its manager, who represented Charm City as well as Mencken, blue crabs, and red-brick row houses.

Earl might terrorize umpires, fight his players, and cuss, drink, and smoke to excess, but he was also a curious, charming, and sensitive man who gardened, cooked, and played ukulele. He loved poodles and Elvis. And despite his abuse of the King’s English, he was full of wisdom. The tragicomic Shakespearean (and yes, he once quoted Shakespeare to an umpire) depth of Earl Weaver—Prospero (or maybe Falstaff) in cleats—touched everyone from Sparrows Point steelworkers to George Weigel, the biographer of Pope John Paul II, who likened Earl Weaver talking baseball to Homer reciting the Iliad.

In Richmond, Weaver got so irate at the organist playing during his hitters’ at-bats that he ordered the umpire to make him stop. On the Red Wings’ next trip to Richmond, on August 3, 1966, Richmond organized “Earl Weaver Music Appreciation Night,” booking a Dixieland jazz band and offering free admission to anybody who brought an instrument. Weaver thought it was hilarious. “The noisiest night I’ve ever been through in baseball,” he said. “Since then, I have been dear to the hearts of the people in Richmond.”

Inside, the clubhouses were cramped, and the stadium had city problems, like rats “big enough to stand flatfooted and screw a turkey,” according to Boog Powell.

One night, while a woman was singing the national anthem, Weaver asked umpire Dale Ford, “Dale, how many calls you gonna screw up tonight?” “Rooney, it don’t matter, cuz when this fat lady’s done, you are too.” “Are you serious?” “As a heart attack, get out of here.”

One afternoon before a game, Weaver walked in on Kelly reading the Bible. Kelly was a terrible baserunner. “Pat, can you find a chapter on baserunning in there?” Kelly closed the Bible. “Earl, when was the last time you had this book open?” Not since the start of the season, Weaver confessed. “When was the last time you got down on your knees and prayed?” “Last night—when I gave you the steal sign.” Kelly, not amused, told Weaver: “You’re going to hell! You’ll never get to heaven!” They went at it, until somebody yelled, “Give it a rest!” and they quieted down. Once, seeing Al Bumbry heading to chapel service, Weaver said: “Take your bat.” On the last day of 1983 spring training, manager Joe Altobelli called Bonner into the clubhouse. “You’re taking this Jesus thing too far,” he told Bonner. “Joe, He lives in my heart, so He goes where I go.” “Well, He ain’t going to Baltimore.”