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| | | | | | | | |  | | | | | Jerry Coleman is a Hall of Fame broadcaster.
See More Photos. | | | | | Photo by: Courtesy | | | | | | | | | |
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| | Voice of the Padres pens autobiography
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During his 83 years, La Jollan Jerry Coleman has been a New York Yankee second baseman, a highly decorated World War II and Korean War fighter pilot, a Hall of Fame sports broadcaster, a San Diego Padres manager (for one year), a husband and a father.
His multifaceted life is the subject of a new book' "An American Journey: My Life on the Field, In the Air, and On the Air," published by Triumph Books in Chicago and written by Coleman with Richard Goldstein of the New York Times. Political pundit and baseball fan George Will contributed a foreword.
Coleman said the book is not a typical sports tome.
"Most people write about the people they've been with, the big names and so forth to sell the book. That wasn't my story at all," Coleman said. "The only reason I wrote this book is my wife said, 'Why don't you tell your daughters (ages 58 and 23) where you've been?' "
Coleman said his stint as a young man in the Marine Corps shaped his character. "Whatever I am today," he said, "that's where it came from." He learned the real meaning of "teamwork" from the Corps. "Teamwork is the key to the whole thing in baseball," he acknowledged. "You can have a great player or two, but you still need the other 23 to make it work. That's what the Marines are. There are no individuals. It's the group."
A Yankee his entire playing career, Coleman became a sports broadcaster in 1960, three years after retiring from major league baseball. He worked for the CBS Radio Network and in 1963 began a seven-year run calling New York Yankees' games on WCBS Radio and WPIX-TV.
After broadcasting for the California Angels for two years, in 1972 Coleman became lead radio announcer for the Padres, a position he has held every year except 1980, the year he managed the team.
A San Diego sports icon, Coleman is famous for his pet phrases "Oh Doctor!," "You can hang a star on that baby!," "And the beat goes on" and "The natives are getting restless."
Warm, engaging and witty, Coleman is, above all else, modest. He sat down with the Light recently to talk about his life.
Harking back to the highlights of his life, Coleman said one incident that stands out was almost a lowlight.
"The commander was going to turn me down for the flight program because of my grades," he said. "He asked me, 'How much does it cost to train a Naval aviator?' I had no clue. He said, '$300,000 - you're going to fail!' "
Though he proved his commander wrong, Coleman admitted: "Today they probably wouldn't even let me in the program: You need an engineering degree at college to become a Naval aviator."
Coleman's Yankee teammates were some of the greatest ballplayers and coaches who ever lived - Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Casey Stengel, etc. Here are a few takes by Coleman on who they really were:
- "I roomed with Mantle. He was a good kid. Mickey was a shy, delightful, caring human being. When he got drunk, which wasn't that often, he was a little bit abusive. Many of his problems came when the cheering was over, the crowds were gone. He went bankrupt and had some hustlers do some things for him and stole his money."
- "I got to know Joe (DiMaggio) pretty well. He was very quiet. He was a great team player."
- "Casey Stengel might have been the greatest manager that ever lived. He understood more about you in one week than you knew about yourself. He understood the press and he understood the public."
Coleman expressed disappointment that the number of African-American players has declined from a high of 22 percent to 8 percent today in major league baseball. But he likes how the game is becoming internationalized. "They have Chinese, Japanese, Australians - I think it's great," he said. "I don't care if you're an Afghan or an eskimo: If you can play, they'll find a place for you."
Coleman said players' salaries have always been an issue. It's just that the amount of money involved is exponentially greater now. There are also many more "temptations" professional athletes have to contend with today than 50 years ago. Said Coleman: "The biggest thing you could hurt yourself with in those days was booze. The steroid situation has created a problem, obviously. I would take 1995 to 2005 and put a big brown shading over all the records and say, 'It was the steroid era,' so people would know that most of those records don't count."
Coleman said he learned a great deal from his one-year tenure as Padres manager. "It brought me up-to-date on the way players think today," he said. "I had no clue that they didn't think winning was everything. With the Yankees, you either won or you lost. We came in second one year to Cleveland and won 103 games in 1954, but you know what: We lost."
Coleman wouldn't encourage anyone to follow in his broadcasting footsteps. "You should really earn your spurs in the minor leagues," he said. "I had no broadcasting background whatsoever. I didn't know how to keep score, (about) half the rules. To become a big league broadcaster you (need to) go to bed with the dictionary and study baseball every night, go to every game, and then maybe in 10 years, you might know what you're doing."
Talking about what he keys on in broadcasting, Coleman said: "I don't care what Jones did last time. I want to know what's going on on the field, the strategy of the managers, why they're doing things. I'm not a stats freak. Many of the new broadcasters are. But my approach is different than guys who never played. They can't do what I can do in many ways."
Coleman acknowledged the Padres are having a tough time coming out of the starting gate in 2008. But he's confident enough in the organization's management to believe that they'll get the ship righted. "I don't think anybody is any better than Kevin Towers at finding a pitching staff and a good one," he said. "We're stumbling right now. We might stumble for a year or two. But he (Towers) will find the good ones and they (Padres) will be back."
Baseball has meant a lot to the country, both recreationally and culturally. But Coleman noted the sport doesn't often get the credit it's due for making inroads into civil rights. "Jackie Robinson beat Martin Luther King to the front page by about 10 years," he pointed out. "He didn't have bands following him and groups of people marching with him. Jackie Robinson is the guy who really broke the barriers down. He was the first one."
Concerning the blind eye turned toward racism prior to Robinson's entry into the league, Coleman commented: "I'm a little embarrassed we didn't do more. We just accepted it."
What's "really" important in Jerry Coleman's life? Said Coleman: "The people you love and that love you, those are the most important things, that and your country."
"You can go from nothing to something and everybody has the same chance in this country," he said. "That's what makes it great."
To see a montage of Coleman photos, go to see more photos.
Dave Schwab
Dave Schwab is the Managing Editor of La Jolla Light. Contact Dave at (858) 875-5951 or daves@lajollalight.com.
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