___________________________________________________________________________________________
I’ve been doing this radio thing for more than 27 years. By my estimate, I’ve hosted 6,000 shows, been on the air for close to 25,000 hours and offered hundreds of thousands of opinions.
One or two of them, I got wrong.
Seriously, I say stuff every day that’s either boneheaded at the time or proves to be 180 degrees off course down the road. It’s the nature of the business – sports talk show hosts can’t make a living by saying, “Well, let’s see how that plays out in a season or two.” We have to jump in immediately, going with our gut and our brain.
In my case, the gut sometimes proves too full of something, and the brain sometimes doesn’t show up. So, I’ve earned a spot on “Hot Takes Exposed” a few times. I can live with that. I won’t deny or hide my errors in judgment.
Over all these years, two misjudgments really stand out to me. Two coaches I badly misread.
I was among the horde who initially regarded Charlie Manuel as a buffoon and a bumpkin. Charlie wasn’t my first choice for the job – Jim Leyland was, and I brought Leyland on my show hoping to pump up his chances.
If you recall, Manuel experienced early difficulties here. As an AL refugee, he had a tough time navigating the double switch. In his first season, he mishandled the bullpen. Mostly, Charlie was not great at explaining things to the media – his postgame news conferences were meandering and uncomfortable.
I made the mistake of reading far too much into those sessions. And, I’ll admit it, I took Charlie’s Southern style and halting speaking as a sign of lack of intelligence. I didn’t come up with the “Elmer Befuddled” nickname, but I’ll admit to using it a few times.
And then I learned. Country hick doesn’t always mean dumb, and Uncle Charlie was a genius in knowing how to run a clubhouse and push players’ buttons. I also wound up doing a weekly WIP show with Manuel, and came to see how eloquent he could be when he wasn’t standing before 15 barking reporters after a game.
Manuel won a franchise-record 780 games, plus 27 more in the playoffs, plus two pennants and that magnificent 2008 World Series. Also turned out to be one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met.
On the other hand, I recall once predicting that Chip Kelly was going to be the next Bill Walsh. I trumpeted that when the Eagles lured him from Oregon. I shouted it when his offense put up 33 points to beat Washington in his first NFL game. And I was still hanging onto that well into Chip’s second season here.
Call me a chump, but I bought into the smoothies and the sleep monitoring and all that other nonsense. I was intrigued by the assistants holding up posters of Rocky on the sidelines. I thought his rapid-pace offense was unstoppable, when the only thing it threatened to stop in the long run was the respiratory systems of his 300-pound offensive linemen.
Kelly was different, all right, and when he came into the NFL he caught opposing coaches off guard. But as they adapted to his system, Chip showed that he never had a Plan B. The truism in sports is that opponents will always figure you out, so you need to stay one step ahead. Chip had no second step.
Plus, he was a mean SOB, who alienated everyone from the owner to the equipment guys. People working at NovaCare were specifically told not to make eye contact as they passed him in the hall. Divas don’t last in this town.
I didn’t even get to his personnel decisions. DeMarco Murray, anyone?