Gallagher: Remembering Bobby Winkles
Former Montreal Expos coach Bobby Winkles died on Friday at age 90.
*This article that Danny Gallager wrote about Bobby Winkles, who passed away on Friday at the age of 90, was published on the Canadian Baseball Network in 2016.
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Bobby Winkles fights the good fight against dementia
By Danny Gallagher
Canadian Baseball Network
You would never know Bobby Winkles has dementia but he does.
“I’ve had it for about two years,’’ he was saying on the phone from La Quinta, Calif. “I’m forgetful. I have to live with it. It’s not going to get any better. There’s no cure for it.’’
Before the interview, I had talked with him briefly during three different phone chats. The first exchange ended with us somehow disconnected. As a follow-up to that lost call, I wrote a 300-word typed letter to him by postal mail, an exercise that didn’t produce any communication for weeks.
Then during a conversation with Jack Smitheran, one of Winkles’ players at Arizona State University in the 1960s, I asked him if he would intervene and call Winkles’ daughter Kelly Trembley to see if she could facilitate an interview.
I also told Smitheran that I understood Winkles’ situation and that if nothing could be done, that I was quite understanding. I wasn’t going to force the issue.
Out of the blue one day, Winkles phoned and I barely missed the call as it headed to voicemail. So I returned the call, talked briefly with Winkles and then his daughter took the phone. She suggested I email her father questions and that way, he would be prepared when I would call.
“Today is not a good day for him to talk with you but believe me, he has more memory than all of us in the family put together,’’ she said.
So after a few days, Winkles called again. I was downstairs when the call came through and went to voice mail again.
When I returned the call several minutes later, Winkles was ready as he pondered the questions I had sent to his daughter’s email address.
Despite his memory loss, he has wonderful recall.
The affable Winkles talked about growing up in the cotton fields of Tuckerman, Ark. before moving down the road at nine years of age to Swifton.
“Population 438,’’ he said. “It was a funny, little town. We didn’t have a baseball team. Whenever we wanted to have a parade, we couldn’t have a parade because there was never enough people to see us. Whenever a baby was born, the man left town.’’
Laughter abound.
“You don’t sound French,’’ Winkles said to me jokingly after I had told him I was an Expos’ beat writer for a number of years, including a stretch when he was in Montreal.
Winkles may be remembered most for his time as Arizona State’s fabled baseball coach, whose Sun Devils won numerous College World Series. His stable of players included Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, Rick Monday, Duffy Dyer, Sal Bando, Larry Gura, Gary Gentry, Sterling Slaughter and Smitheran.
How good was he and the Sun Devils? From 1959-71, his coaching record was 574-173. His No. 1 jersey was retired years ago.
“We were so good we won during one stretch 24 games in the ninth inning,’’ he said. “I told my players that the teams that worked the hardest and ran the hardest will have success most of the time in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings most of the time.’’
Winkles went on to be a manager for both the California Angels and Oakland Athletics. But who out there remembers that Winkles was a coach for the Expos from 1986-88 and then went upstairs to the broadcast booth to be a radio announcer for five years alongside Elliott Price when fabled Dave Van Horne did television games?
Yes, Winkles was the Expos’ hitting coach under Buck Rodgers for two seasons and when he made it known he would stick around for 1988, he didn’t want to be the hitting instructor but agreed to be the first-base coach. He merely switched positions with Ron Hansen.
At one point, Winkles had agreed to take a job managing an Expos’ rookie-league team in 1988 before being persuaded to stay with the major-league squad.
“The third baseman and the first baseman,’’ Winkles said, when I asked him who his favourite players were during his tenure as hitting coach.
As he struggled to glean their names, I helped out by mentioning Tim Wallach and Andres Galarraga.
“I picked those two guys because they had their best years in Montreal,’’ Winkles said. “I was lucky. Both had great years.’’
They sure did. Wallach batted .298 with 26 homers and 123 RBI, while Big Cat hit .305 with 40 doubles, 13 homers and 90 RBI. Many others fared handsomely under Winkles, including switch-hitter Mitch Webster, who hit 15 homers and drove in 63 runs.
“Some of the Expos’ players said I was the best hitting coach they ever had,’’ Winkles said. “I’m not bragging about it because I don’t think I was. I didn’t mess around with what they did at the plate. Sometimes I’d tell them that with certain pitchers, that they should hit to right field. After the 1987 season, I told Buck I had enough as a hitting coach, that I couldn’t do much more.’’
During one stretch as an Expos’ coach, Winkles had been doing a seven-minute spiel every morning weekdays as a commentator on Montreal radio station CJAD. The Expos had offered him more money to stay on as a coach for the 1989 season but he said, “Sorry.’’ But a pitch to be a broadcaster appealed to him. Next thing, you know, he spent five years working with Price.
“One of the executives with the Expos asked me what I was going to do if I left the Expos,’’ Winkles recalled.
“I’m going to enjoy life and play golf,’’ he replied.
“People like that Arkansas twang so do you want to be a broadcaster?’’ the executive asked.
Winkles said yes. The money sure appealed to him. I had to ask him twice to confirm the princely amount of money he was given to be a colour commentator.
“They paid me $800 per game. It was enough money to feed a horse,’’ Winkles said, laughing. “We did about 40 games per year. My wife Elinor and I really loved to be there in Montreal. People treated us great there for eight years.
“Buck was a wonderful manager, just a wonderful guy. He dealt with the media so good. Whenever he was dealing with the press before a game, he’d turn the team over to me. We were there when the Canadiens won the Stanley Cup in 1993. People were running up and down the street and they turned over cars.’’
Following the 1993 season, Winkles decided that he wanted to get out of baseball but not because of the hockey fans’ behaviour.
“I had my time in for a full baseball pension,’’ he said. “I was close to 65 at the time. I wasn’t that old but I had enough of baseball. I was tired of the travelling, tired of baseball. ‘’
Winkles and his wife have lived in La Quinta for the last 35 years and despite his pitfalls with dementia and two wonky shoulders, he plays golf three times a week.
“I drag him out of the house to play golf,’’ Smitheran said, chuckling.
“I used to be a 5 and 7 golfer for 40 years,’’ Winkles noted. “But now I try to break 100. I’ve got trouble with both of my shoulders.
“I’m also taking care of Elie. She had polio when she was 13 and her legs and arms were paralyzed. She recovered but the polio has come back on her. I met her when I was playing A-ball. She asked me for my autograph and in return, I asked her where she lived.’’
Less than a year ago, Winkles came out with a 300-page memoir From the Cotton Fields to the Major Leagues: Perspectives on a Baseball Life. Dan Poppers helped him write the book and Reggie Jackson penned the Foreword. It’s available at bobbywinkles.com. It’s temporarily out of stock but more books are coming.
“It’s selling like crazy. We’re into our second printing,’’ he said. “Not long ago, we had a call from a guy, who had already bought 12 books and he said to send him 12 more.’’
Winkles has given more than 2,000 speeches and clinics on baseball since 1958 so it’s no wonder his eloquence comes through in interviews and in the book.
As for dementia, Winkles is realistic.
“I’m a little shaky,’’ he said, laughing. “It takes a lot out of you. I take medication. It keeps it from going wild. I’m a happy-go lucky guy. I play a little golf.
“I’m still talking. The difference from the real bad dementia is that those people can’t do anything. My kind is that I can remember more, still talk and have a good time.’’