Perrotto: Tears Should Flow on Jim Leyland’s Big Day in Cooperstown

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Lemme tell you a story about Jim Leyland.

It was 1986 and Leyland was the first-year manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. I was a 22-year-old kid working at the Beaver County Times and covering high school sports.

One day, I was asked to fill in for our Pirates’ beat writer Mike Prisuta, who has since gone on to fame and fortune – I hope — on the ‘DVE Morning Show.

I poked my head into Leyland’s office at Three Rivers Stadium about three hours before the game and introduced myself. I figured it was the proper thing to do.

Leyland looked at me and sternly said “I don’t care who you are.”

I had no idea what to do. I wanted to die right on the spot.

After five of the most awkward seconds of my life, Leyland broke into a big smile and said, “Hi John, it’s nice to meet you.”

Thus, began a relationship that has spanned 38 years. I have met only a few people like Leyland, who will be one of four people inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame here on Sunday along with Adrian Beltre, Todd Helton and Joe Mauer.

Leyland can be funny and entertaining with the largest collection of silly jokes.

An example: “Why did the Siamese twins move to England? Because the other brother wanted to drive.”

He could get as angry as any manager, his head bouncing up and down like a bobblehead doll. He would go on tirades that would eventually reach a point where they became comical. More than once, I had to bow my head and bite my upper lip to keep from laughing.

Perhaps the most memorable tirade came one day during spring training in 1992 when then-Pirates general manager Ted Simmons traded John Smiley to the Minnesota Twins. Smiley had won 20 games the previous season and remains the last Pirates pitcher to have that distinction.

Simmons had to cut payroll, but did not want to blame ownership and club president Mark Sauer. So, Simmons spun the deal as opening a spot in the rotation to a nondescript – yet hilarious – pitcher from Mexico named Vicente Palacios.

A reporter asked Leyland if he thought it was Palacios’ time. Leyland became incensed. His head turned purple, and I feared it was going to explode.

At heart, though, Leyland is very sentimental. Nobody in baseball has ever cried more than him.

“I went from Jim Who when I came to Pittsburgh to Jim Boo Hoo,” he has often cracked.

Thus, it seems certain tears will flow on Sunday.

“I’m kind of an emotional guy. I hope I can keep that to a minimum, but a lot of those guys got emotional, so I’m not going be embarrassed about it,” Leyland said.

Lemme tell you another story about Jim Leyland.

Following the 2008 season, the Beaver County Times quit covering the Pirates. That left me as a free-agent baseball writer.

I spent a year working for Bob Nutting’s Odgen Newspapers but that was a disaster, and I was a free agent again.

I was fortunate to land enough freelance gigs to continue doing what I loved. Yet it felt different and uncomfortable in 2010 when I toured various spring training camps in Florida for national publications.

Being a Pirates’ beat writer was my identity for 22 years.

Leyland Detroit’s manager then and one of my stops was at the Tigers’ camp in Lakeland. I interviewed him in his office and then stayed to make small talk.

Leyland sensed there was something off with me. As I got up to leave, he stood up from behind his desk, firmly shook my hand and said, “You know you’re always welcome in the Tigers’ clubhouse and I think you’re welcome in anyone else’s clubhouse, too.”

It was the perfect thing to say, and it stuck with me ever since.

That is why Leyland might not be the only person shedding a tear on Sunday.