Times Chronicle & Public Spirit
Longtime playercoach Bobby Wine sees similarities to 1980 World Series legends
Former Gold Glove player, coach watching games from West Norriton home
WEST NORRITON >> A lifelong Phillie will be watching the World Series this week from his home in West Norriton, and he says he sees plenty of similarities with the legendary teams on which he played and coached.
Bobby Wine, a Gold Glove shortstop and then longtime coach for the Phillies, says this year’s stunning run to baseball’s biggest stage has several parallels to the group that won it all in 1980.
“It brings back a lot of memories. We were in the playoffs that year, in Houston, and had to beat them. We were behind there, and we came back and won, so history might come back and repeat itself,” he said.
“Everybody’s pretty hopped up around here. They might have more Phillies fans in Houston than Houston fans.”
Wine made his bigleague debut for the Phillies in 1960, then played largely at shortstop for the team through 1968, before joining the Montreal Expos after that team’s expansion draft in 1969. Four seasons later, Wine returned to the Phillies in the summer of 1972, coaching for the club through three playoff runs in 1976-78, then that breakthrough season in 1980 — a group he reconnected with this summer as the Phillies celebrated 40-plus years since their first title.
“We went down for the reunion for the ‘80s team. They did a great job, they really did. The new ownership has done a great job with everything: I saw they’re paying for employees to go all the way out there to Houston, and putting them up there, which is great,” he said.
That was his only trip to the ballpark this season so far; Wine, now 84, watches every game from home “with the TV and fireplace going; there’s too much traffic,” and said Friday he was taking a break from doing some Halloween decorating to talk about his favorite team.
“They were the hottest team coming down the stretch of anybody. They’ve got those big lefthanded bats, and the ballpark is kind of made for those guys, and they didn’t waste it,” he said.
His biggest concern? The week off between the Phillies’ come-from-behind victory over San Diego on Sunday, and the first pitch of the World Series in Houston on Friday night.
“The only thing that scares me is those big layoffs. You’re used to being at the ballpark every day, you get one day off maybe somewhere along the line, and then go back and play again, and everything is a routine,” he said.
“Then, all of a sudden
you get five days off. You work out, and you do all the things you’ve got to do: you practice cutoffs, you practice relays, it’s not the same as a game but you practice all that stuff. And it’s both teams, so it’s fair,” Wine said.
He’s seen the dangers of a long layoff firsthand: in 1976, with Wine as bench coach, the Phillies led their division for much of the season, finishing with a ninegame lead over the secondplace Pittsburgh Pirates before falling in the league championship series to the Cincinnati Reds.
“We won the division easy, and then we had four or five days off. We’d go down to practice, but guys get bored, it’s just not the same, and we didn’t do too well in that playoffs,” he said.
During the alumni weekend, he was glad to catch up with members of the ‘80
team and chat with Phillies manager Rob Thomson.
“I just told him, ‘You’ve got them going in the right direction. Keep ‘em going,’ and he did. Now they’re in the World Series, so he did a good job along the way,” Wine said.
“When he got in, he just had a calming effect on the team. Unless you’re in the clubhouse you don’t know, but he must’ve had a good feeling for all of the guys, and they responded well for him,” he said.
He’s also familiar with Dusty Baker, the longtime player who has managed the Astros to their third pennant in four seasons: “He’s a quiet guy, he likes to eat a toothpick, but he does know how to handle players. He’s a real nice guy, he doesn’t try to promote himself, he’s steady, and he knows how to handle people.”
And what about the Astros’
sign-stealing scandal that many think tainted their 2017 title? “That’s history. That happened, and they paid for it. It affected them for a while, but this is a new group: they paid their dues, the guys got fired or got traded or got fined, and all that stuff. That’s all done, it’s a different team.”
A mini-swoon in late September by this year’s Phillies brought back memories of two of the team’s worst moments: the 1964 fall from a near-certain trip to the World Series, and the “Black Friday” playoff loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1977.
“We’ve been through a few of them: the ‘64 one, and then we got beat by the Dodgers and should’ve won that one, we thought, and then finally in 1980 everything clicked,” he said.
“We had to beat Montreal, we had to beat Houston, and then when we played Kansas
City it was like a relief, because the pressure was in getting there, and getting into the World Series. We had some ups and downs, but in ‘80 everything clicked,” Wine said.
Just a few hours before game one of the 2022 Series, Wine said he didn’t want to make an official prediction, but hoped for clean ballgames.
“You just hope that, whichever team wins or loses, that it’s not some freak play, or a bad call, or something like that that changes everything. You just want to settle it on the field, with base hits and strikeouts,” he said.
“If you win or lose that way, then you can go away OK. You don’t like losing, but if you play as well as you can at that time, and the other team’s a little bit better than you, then there’s nothing you can do about that.”