Former Phillies manager and Philly native Lee Elia has died at 87
Elia, who was a third-base coach for the 1980 World Series team, is most remembered for his legendary rant in 1983 while managing the Cubs.
Lee Elia, the Philadelphia native who managed the Phillies after coaching third base for the 1980 World Series champions and once famously ranted against the fans who sat in the bleachers of Wrigley Field, died Wednesday, July 9. He was 87.
Mr. Elia’s baseball career spanned more than 50 seasons. He managed his hometown Phillies in 1987 and 1988 after managing the Chicago Cubs in 1982 and 1983.
Mr. Elia was a three-sport star at Olney High School before playing football and baseball at the University of Delaware. The Phillies signed him in 1958, and he spent five years in the team’s farm system while substitute-teaching each offseason in Bucks County. The shortstop reached the major leagues in 1966 with the Chicago White Sox; a knee injury forced him to retire in 1969.
He sold insurance in Center City and played in a men’s league before the Phillies brought him back in 1973 as a 35-year-old player-coach in the minors.
Mr. Elia joined Dallas Green’s staff before the 1980 season and was coaching third base when Manny Trillo delivered a crucial triple in the clinching game of the National League Championship Series. Mr. Elia was so excited that he bit Trillo’s arm after he slid.
“When you left him, you were a better baseball player,” said Larry Bowa, the Phillies’ shortstop that season who later played for Mr. Elia when he managed the Cubs and then coached under him when Mr. Elia managed the Phillies.
Lee Constantine Elia was born July 16, 1937, and grew up near 11th and Duncannon in Logan, playing street games like wireball and stepball. He was an all-city quarterback at Olney High, played summer-league basketball with Wilt Chamberlain, and drew comparisons on the baseball field to Del Ennis, who played at Olney before starring for the Phils.
He went to Delaware on a football scholarship and led the freshman team in rushing before breaking his hip just before the next season. Mr. Elia healed in time for baseball season and soon had a contract offer from the Phillies. They offered him a $10,000 signing bonus plus $200 a month. Mr. Elia asked for more.
“My dad whispered to me in Albanian,” Mr. Elia told the Daily News in 1987. “‘What are you crazy?’ That’s a whole year’s pay.’”
But Mr. Elia’s negotiations worked. He received more money from the Phillies and was sent to the minors in Elmira, N.Y. The Phillies traded him to the White Sox in 1964, and he later played for the Cubs. The Phillies hired Mr. Elia in 1973 to be a player-coach for Jim Bunning, who was managing the team’s triple-A club in Eugene, Ore.
Mr. Elia played in 16 games that season for the Eugene Emeralds and helped Bunning check the rooms each night at curfew. On a trip to Hawaii to play San Diego’s triple-A team, 19-year-old Larry Christenson decided to check out the beach after midnight.
“My roommate Mike Martin said, ‘Don’t you go. Bunning will get you,’” Christenson said Thursday. “The elevator door opens and there’s Jim Bunning standing there with a clipboard, and Lee Elia is right behind him. Lee’s head just went right down into his chest like ‘How could you do that?’ Jim Bunning said, ‘I caught you red-handed.’ I said, ‘I’m just going to get my dry cleaning.’”
Green hired Mr. Elia to be his third base coach in 1980. He said he wanted his staff to be full of “baseball men.” Mr. Elia, who managed the previous five seasons in the Phils’ farm system, fit the bill.
“A lot of coaches coach, and if you win that night, great. If you lose, OK,” Bowa said Thursday. “But that staff, they didn’t like losing. And they didn’t even play. The players played, but the coaches took those losses to heart. You almost felt as a player that you let the coaching staff down if you didn’t play good.”
“And I’m not talking about hitting .300. I’m talking about playing the game the right way. If you play the game the right way and lose, Lee was the first guy to say ‘Hey, good game. Let’s win this tomorrow.’ But if you throw the ball around the infield and make four errors on routine plays, you’re going to hear from him.”
John Vukovich once said Mr. Elia was easy to play for as long as players followed his rules. Bowa said Mr. Elia wanted you to play hard and be on time. He understood when his players came up short physically on the field but did not let them slide if they made a mental miscue.
“That’s how you’re supposed to coach,” Bowa said. “Mental mistakes should not happen. That means your concentration is somewhere else. His favorite line was: You have to play nine innings, 27 outs every day. If things go bad, the next day you come in and turn the page and start all over again.”
Bowa said Mr. Elia told his coaches not to tell players what they want to hear. Instead, tell them what you see. The truth may hurt, Mr. Elia told Bowa, but the player will eventually understand. If you lie to them, the player will never forget that. Honesty was key.
“I called him ‘Favorite Coach,’” said Christenson who won 14 games for the 1980 Phils. “I would say, ‘Hey, Favorite Coach.’ He’d say, ‘I’m not your favorite.’ But I really liked him. I appreciated him because he was such a nice guy. He celebrated in those celebrations and always had a smile on his face.”
Green left Philadelphia after the 1981 season to be the general manager of the Cubs. He named Mr. Elia his manager and acquired Bowa in the trade that sent second baseman Ryne Sandberg to Chicago. Mr. Elia managed the Cubs for two seasons, but he perhaps is most remembered for a three-minute tirade against Cubs fans after they booed his team.
“It was the greatest rant I ever heard in my life and they use it every year,” Bowa said. “That’s the passion he had. He loved the players. When he managed, don’t rip the players to him. He can rip them but he didn’t want anyone else ripping them. He would get you back real quick. He would stick up for his players.”
In one game against the Phillies, while Mr. Elia was managing the Cubs, one of his pitchers plunked a Phillies batter. Phils manager Pat Corrales glanced in the dugout at Christenson, who knew what that look meant.
Christenson zipped a fastball at Sandberg, hitting him in the ribs and sending Mr. Elia charging from the dugout. The guy who covered for his players when the fans booed was not going to let his old pitcher hit them.
“He would’ve ripped my head off,” Christenson said. “I looked over at him and said, ‘Favorite Coach.’ He was going through the roof. I don’t think ‘Favorite Coach’ went over too well.”
Information on survivors or services was not yet available.