By A.J. Hayes
Carbon dioxide, deforestation, and nitrous oxide all shoulder their share of the blame for Global Warming. But what about Lee Elia?
Now, you won't find Elia's name mentioned in any Al Gore lecture. He's not a greedy corporate bigwig, an eco terrorist, or a clueless oil tanker captain - just a curmudgeonly baseball lifer.
But 25 years ago this week, during a highly unsuccessful two-season stint managing the Chicago Cubs, Elia emitted the most extreme, paint-peeling meltdowns in the history of sports.
When he was done blasting away at Cubs fans with an obscenity-laced rant that included a jaw-dropping 36 F-bombs over the first three minutes, Elia surely had released enough green house gasses to liquidate massive mountain glaciers and multiply the thermal expansion of upper ocean layers from Pacifica to Antarctica. .
A quarter century later, Elia's diatribe still ranks as the No. 1 outburst in the history of sports - eclipsing Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy (I'm a man! I'm 40!"); Indianapolis Colts coach Jim Mora (Playoffs?! Are you kidding?! Playoffs?!) and any number of profanity laced diatribes by former Dodgers skipper Tommy Lasorda.
The Legend of Elia rant has grown so much over the years, that every April 29, sports radio broadcasters from coast- to- coast gather for a moment to celebrate "Lee Elia Day" - popping multi-generational copies of the tirade into their Monrantz tape decks and laughing hysterically.
After dealing with mounds of monotone sports clichés on a daily basis, Elia's rant allows beleaguered sound bite gathers a moment to smile. Obviously, because of Elia's unrestrained profanity, only carefully edited versions of Elia's adult content diatribe have ever made it to the public airwaves.
Now, thanks to the internet of course, Elia's diatribe can be heard in all its profane glory.
The hapless Cubs were off to a typical dreary start to their '83, settling into last place in the National League East place after a 4-3 loss to the Dodgers at Wrigley Field that afternoon.
As the Cubs exited the field and the 9,391 fans in attendance filed out of the grand stand, a couple of jerks pelted Chicago's Keith Moreland and Larry Bowa with stadium trash.
"About 85 percent of the (f-ing) world is working," Elia growled into the microphone of Chicago radio man Les Grobstein, one of a half dozen reporters to witness the rant first hand. "The other 15 come out here."
He was far from finished.
Moments later, Elia's season-long slow burn escalated into an inferno. He lit not only into the debris flinging morons, but each and every Cubs fan that had ever skipped school or work to take in a mid-week day game at the "Friendly Confines."
"We've got all these so-called (f-ing) fans that come out here and say they're (f-ing) Cubs fans that are supposed to be behind you ripping every (f-ing) thing you do," Elia railed. "I'll tell you one (f-ing) thing. I hope we get (f-ing) hotter than (s*#t) just to stuff it up them 3,000 (f-ing) people that show up every (f-ing) day. Because if they're the real Chicago (f-ing) fans, they can kiss my (f-ing) ass right downtown and- PRINT IT!"
Elia continued for several more profane moments spewing enough expletives to make George Carlin blush.
San Francisco Giants broadcaster and former Cubs pitcher Mike Krukow recalls that Chicago fans during the early-1980s were an extremely passionate and occasionally rowdy lot, and understands Elia's frustrations. But he said the former skipper broke the cardinal rule of baseball that day.
"After a fan buys a ticket it's their right to scream and yell and criticize - you learn that your first day in the minors. (Elia) said some things that were cruel and that he didn't mean," Krukow said. "He was just protecting his players, but he did it in a way that was insulting to the fan base and he said some things he shouldn't have said. Lee broke the code and he knows that and he's still trying to say he's sorry for it."
Besides being arguably the crudest monologue ever introduced to tape, Elia's rant offers a fantastic time-travel back to a time just prior to the vanilla-ization of major league baseball's managerial chair. Several salty characters (Earl Weaver, Billy Martin, and Frank Robinson) still occupied managerial positions. Today, more and more of those slots are filled with low-key personalities who wouldn't dare create a public stir.
"Managers are more PR conscious, and media conscious today. A big part of their job is satisfying the media and I don't think their going to take on the city that they work in," said Marty Lurie, the long-time host of the Oakland A's radio pre-game show, "Right off the Bat" (1550 AM). "In today's world, the manager wouldn't last 10 seconds if he talked like that. Today he would be on CNN International by nightfall."
That said, wasn't it still a bit shocking that Elia remained at the Cubs helm for another four months, despite telling his paying customers to essentially to go to hell?
"Back then you could do it and no one thought much of it in the organization because you weren't alienating the whole country against your club," Lurie said.
After leaving the Cubs, Elia went on to manage the Philadelphia Philles and served as a coach with five different organizations.
Now 70, and a senior adviser with the Seattle Mariners, Elia has recently tried to mend fences with Cubs fans.
Elia, a survivor of prostate cancer has been active with Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities. To help raise funds for the charity, Elia has begun to market an autographed baseball with "PRINT IT!" embossed on it. The ball also comes complete with an audio-chip featuring Elia's unmistakable raspy voice.
This time around, instead of telling Northsiders to attempt an unnatural act, he offers encouragement and the hope that the Cubs end their century-long World Series championship drought this season.
He's planning on attending Tuesday Cubs at Wrigley Field on the silver anniversary of the day he spewed a million expletives.
"How can you ever say anything (bad) about Chicago Cubs fans?" Elia recently told the Associated Press. "One of the few pure things left in this business is the Chicago Cubs' fans."
Now, if Elia can make good with Cubs fans, maybe he can do something about those melting ice caps.
digg •
del.icio.us •
sphere •
google
•
