Alou talks about Cooperstown and his son getting Mets job
This had been quite an eventful week for Felipe Alou. In the course of three days, Larry Walker — one of his favorite players from his managing days with the Montreal Expos — was elected to the Hall of Fame, and then his son, 38-year-old Luis Rojas, was officially named manager of the Mets.
The 84-year-old Alou was on his way out the door to go fishing near his home in Boynton Beach, Fla., when I reached him by phone Friday to talk about his two protégés. To say the least, Alou is bursting with pride, although in Walker’s case, election to the Hall in his last year of eligibility on the Baseball Writers ballot rekindled some hard memories of 1994 and the season that might have been for him.
At the time of the season-ending strike that cancelled the World Series, the Expos, at 7440, had the best record in baseball. Alou had the Expos rolling, conceivably toward what would have been the first and only World Series in Montreal Expos history. Walker was batting .322 with 86 RBI in 103 games and league-leading 44 doubles. Alou’s son, Moises, was hitting .339 with 22 homers, a .989 OPS and 78 RBI in 107 games. The Expo shortstop, Wil Cordero, was at .294 with 15 homers and an .853 OPS. Righthander Ken Hill, at 16-5, was leading the majors in wins, and Pedro Martinez, in his second season in the big leagues, was 11-5.
“That was the best ballclub I ever managed,” said Alou, who compiled a .503 winning percentage in 14 years as a big league manager with the Expos and Giants. “We were on the verge of a championship. I really believe that. And then, the next spring I was managing a bunch of replacement players.”
There is no dispute the Expos were the biggest victims of the 232-day ’94-’95 strike — which led to the cancellation of the
World Series and then the brief emergence of replacement players in the spring of ’95 before future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, then a New York State District Judge for the Southern District of New York, issued a preliminary injunction ordering a new collective bargaining agreement between the players and the owners. Had they fulfilled their destiny in 1994 and made it to the World Series, who knows if Alou himself would be in the Hall of Fame now?
By the time the players went back to work for the ’95 season, Walker had moved on from the Expos as a free agent, signing with the Rockies, Hill was traded to the Cardinals, their closer, John Wetteland, was traded to the Yankees and AllStar center fielder Marquis Grissom was traded to the Braves.
“We just didn’t have any money,” Alou lamented, “which was too bad because we had a lot of very good, young, talented players, none more so than Walker. I first had him in A ball in 1986 when I was managing in the Florida State League for the Expos in West Palm Beach. He was just a baby but you could see that raw talent. They talk about 5tool players in baseball. Well, Larry was a 6-tool player. He could do it all — hit for average and power, throw, field and run. But he also had these great base running instincts and he could play any position on the field. We finally decided on him in right field because of his speed and his throwing arm.”
No sooner had Alou finished privately celebrating Walker’s election to Cooperstown came word that his son, Luis Rojas, who’d been working in the Mets organization for 14 years, including last season as their quality control coach, was getting the job as their manager, replacing Carlos Beltran. In his autobiography, “Alou – My Baseball Journey,” with Peter Kerasotis, Alou explains how his real last name is actually Rojas but that it somehow got juxtaposed with his middle name, Alou, in the original paperwork he signed with the Giants as a free agent out of the Dominican Republic back in 1956.
Though Luis Rojas has received rave reviews from just about everyone in baseball he’s been associated with, both in and out of the Mets organization, the fact remains he’s never managed above Double-A ball and the expectations from ownership are that making the postseason is imperative. There’s very likely going to be a new owner coming in next year and Brodie Van Wagenen’s job is squarely on the line if the Mets again fall short of that goal. Never has there been more pressure on a first-year manager.
“I understand that,” said Alou. “Luis has worked all his life for this. What’s important is the Mets know him well from 13 years in the organization and the players know him well. There is already that respect. There are so many ingredients that go in to being a successful manager in the big leagues. First is the coaching staff. When I managed in Montreal I had seven or eight coaches on my staffs that went on to become big league managers. Luis has got an excellent coaching staff with the Mets, particularly (Hensley) Meulens, his bench coach, who worked under (Bruce) Bochy with the Giants. And, of course, there’s the players and he’s got good players.
“But believe me, Luis will hold his own.”