ULTIMATE SACRIFICE
AILING YANKEES GREAT REFUSES LIFESAVING TRANSPLANT FROM HIS KIDS
TAMPA — The voice on the other end of the phone sounded strong, if not resigned to the grim fate that awaits him. “I’ve lived a real good life,” said Bob Watson, the former Yankee general manager, who is battling kidney disease in Houston, “and I’m ready for whatever happens now.”
The man who was called “The Bull” because of his size (6-1, 210 in his playing days, much bigger when he was a GM and MLB exec) and his brute strength, spends 4½ hours three days a week on dialysis — a somber, drudging and now interminable chore that could have been rectified with a new kidney. But in the ultimate act of selfsacrifice, Bob Watson would not accept one.
“Both my kids offered to donate kidneys to me,” Watson said, “and I told them both the same thing: ‘I’ve had a good life and I don’t want to take a kidney from young people who really need them and still have their whole lives ahead of them.’ That would be very selfish on my part.”
No doubt, Watson’s kids didn’t see it that way, but anyone who ever met their dad knows why they called him “Bull,” as it was not just in the way he played the game but also, as he demonstrated in his post playing career, because he was downright bullheaded. In his years as MLB’s VP of On Field Operations after he resigned as Yankee GM in 1998, Watson made a number of controversial rulings from which he would not back down, most notably his edict that managers could no longer wear team-issued pullovers in lieu of their uniform tops, singling out thenRed Sox manager Terry Francona who complained, to no avail, he needed to wear the pullovers due to circulation problems.
Maybe it’s because Watson has had a number of health issues himself since retiring as a player in 1984, including circulatory problems and hypertension before the kidney failure, he’s declined to fight them any longer. He will be 72 on April 10 and the way he’s looking at it, that’s not bad.
“I look around and see where we just lost Oscar (Gamble) and he was only 68, and in 2009 (former Astros lefthander) Dave Roberts, my old roomie in Houston, died and he was just 64,” Watson said. “So I’ve had a good count and like I said, I’ve got no complaints. I’ve lived a real good life.”
It’s a life that included 19 productive years in the big leagues in which he batted .295 lifetime with an OPS of .811 and the distinction, on May 4, 1975, of scoring the one millionth run in baseball — a truly “Bull-like” effort in which he charged full throttle from second base on a home run by Milt May to beat the Reds’ Dave Concepcion, who had homered in Cincinnati, by four A seconds. nd even though he was often kept out of the loop while George Steinbrenner and Gene Michael were making other deals, Watson was still very instrumental in the Yankees’ 1996 world championship team, with his trades for lefty reliever Graham Lloyd, Joe Girardi and Cecil Fielder — not to mention the joint decision to hire Joe Torre as manager to replace Buck Showalter. He says what remains his proudest accomplishment was proving an African-American could help put together a world championship ballclub.
“My one regret is that, because of the dialysis, I haven’t been able to travel anymore and I had to miss a lot of baseball events, like the Yankees’ 20th anniversary of the ’96 championship,” he said. “Ten months ago, the doctors told me I could have two years or 12. Well now I’ve gotten to the point where every day I’m still here is a blessing.
“I had a reputation for never giving up an at-bat so I’m still fouling ’em off as long as I can.”
“The Bull” does not want your sympathy. He should know, however, all his many friends in baseball are keeping him in their prayers just the same.
I’ve had a good life and I don’t want to take a kidney from young people who really need them and still have their whole lives ahead of them. That would be very selfish on my part. BOB WATSON