There was a problem. How do the Reds get him out of Cuba without putting him on a raft? Dictator Fidel Castro was closing Cuba’s borders and stopping Cubans from leaving the country, particularly to play baseball in America.
Fortunately, Castro was a huge baseball fan and after meeting with Perez he permitted him to leave for the United States, one of the last Cubans to legally depart the country.
It was May and the baseball season was under way when Perez reported to Macon, the Reds’ lowest minor league affiliate at the time.
The manager was Dave Bristol, who later was the manager during the embryonic stages of The Big Red Machine.
“On his first at bat, he reached first base,” said Bristol. “The next batter hit a line drive to right field and Perez took off, not looking when the ball was caught. And he was doubled off first.”
“I asked him after the game why he took off like that and Tony said, ‘I’m so happy to get out of Cuba I’d run anywhere.’”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
It was Bristol who hung the nickname ‘The Big Dog’ on Perez and throughout his career his teammates called him ‘Doggie.”
Said Bristol, “I don’t remember when I did it, but I did it because I knew if the game went long enough he would find a way to win it. He was the big man on that team, the big dog.”
Perez was like a junkyard dog when it came to clutch hits. He is ninth all-time with 479 RBI with two outs and runners in scoring position, just eight behind some guy named Babe Ruth.
Perez hit three home runs in the 1975 World Series against the Boston Red Sox, the biggest arriving in Game Seven with the Reds behind, 3-0.
Boston pitcher Bill “Spaceman” Lee had thrown Perez two blooper pitches and he swung and missed both, one that bounced on the plate.
After that one, Perez told manager Sparky Anderson, “If he throws that one again I’m going to murder it.”
Sure enough, The Spaceman threw it in the sixth inning with a man on base and Perez turned it into space junk, a mammoth home run that cleared the Green Monster and landed on Lansdowne Street.
That cut Boston’s lead to 3-2, then the Reds scored a run in the seventh and a run in the ninth to win, 4-3.
“Perez had missed that blooper pitch a couple of times, but that’s what makes Tony so great,” said Boston catcher Carlton Fisk. “You leave a pitch in the wrong area and it will be long gone.”
And leadership?
Bristol said there was a time Joe Morgan was sitting in the training room whirlpool and said he couldn’t play. Manager Sparky Anderson wanted him in the lineup and he knew what to do.
Send Perez in there.
And Perez walked up to Morgan and said, “Get your ass out of there and play.” Morgan played and Bristol said, “Nobody else could have done that to Joe Morgan and got away with it. He made that team, he was a big leader and was the most respected man in the clubhouse.”
Perez was the team’s stabilizer, a guy who kept things loose in the clubhouse, a guy able to poke fun at the super stars and their egos, bring them down to earth if their feet left the ground.
His given name is Atanasio and his middle name should have been RBI. He was relentless at driving in runs from the middle of the Big Red Machine order.
He began his career at third base but was switched to first base early in his career. No matter where he played defensively, he was a force at the plate, grinding the handle of his bats as if trying to turn it into sawdust.
After winning the World Series in 1975 and 1976, general manager Bob Howsam traded Perez to Montreal for pitchers Woodie Fryman and Dale Murray. It may be the worst trade ever made and for sure it was Howsam’s worst. It began the disintegration of The Big Red Machine.
Many years later, Howsam told me, “That was the worst trade, the worst decision of my career. I did not take into consideration how important Perez was on the team, especially in the clubhouse.”
Perez was named manager of the Reds for the 1993 season, a position that lasted only 44 games.
Unbeknownst to me, General Manager Jim Bowden used an incident involving me as one of his excuses to fire Perez, which he did by telephone.
The team was in San Francisco on a seven-game losing streak. Perez made out his lineup for a game against the Giants and regular catcher Joe Oliver was not in it.
Oliver called me aside and said, “Does Tony know that I really hit this San Francisco pitcher?” I told Perez what Oliver said and Perez inserted him into the lineup.
I wrote about it and when Bowden saw it he said, “Who’s running this team, Perez or Hal McCoy?” And when the team returned to Cincinnati he fired Perez.
I rue that story to this day, but even had I not written it I am certain Bowden wanted to fire him anyway.
Credit: David Jablonski/Staff
Credit: David Jablonski/Staff
For some reason, it took nine elections for Perez to gain enough votes for induction in the Hall of Fame. He went in the year 2000, the same year as Sparky Anderson.
Perez, always smiling, always upbeat, always positive, sat next to Anderson on the stage in the rolling meadows of Cooperstown during induction ceremonies.
At one point, he turned to Anderson and said, “I think God made me wait so long so we could be inducted together.”
That is Tony Perez in 14 words.
GREAT EIGHT AT 50
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