Brewers manager Gonzales lived the life of a big leaguer

Editor's note: Helena Brewers manager Rene Gonzales took advantage of the All-Star break to relax and let his short-A club team take the day off. He also recently took the opportunity to sit down with Independent Record reporter Jason Scott, the beat reporter covering the Brewers this season. This is Part 1 of an excerpt of the interview.

JS: You were a major league baseball player. You're the only one I've ever met.

RG: Really?

JS: Yeah. Easily. I don't think I ever even gotten an autograph directly from a major league baseball player. My parents always went off to spring training and left me at home.

RG: Wow.

JS: Yeah. Tough life.

RG: Yeah. Speaking of parents, my parents didn't get to see me play a whole lot growing up because they were always working. They both were working.

JS: What did your parents do?

RG: My dad was a heliarc welder and my mom, she was a clerk, a government secretarial official. They worked all the time growing up. I just remember getting on my bike and going everywhere on my own . It was just “Make sure you're home by dark.” Well, you're saying you've never met a big leaguer. I'm just telling you my story. I had a brother that was almost ten years older than me so I was way ahead of the curve than me and it still pays off today. With my peers, I was just way ahead. He told me the dos and don'ts and the rights and wrongs and how to play head games with the guys my age. My dad was a great baseball player, I always knew that growing up. He screwed up and married my mom and joined the real world.

JS: So was he a pro ballplayer?

RG: Yeah. My brother was really good, he played at UCLA, but he didn't pursue it. I remember taking ground balls for hours and hours. Just play all day; all sports, too. I had out of high school I had scholarship offers for basketball as well as baseball. I just liked baseball so much.

JS: Your brother decided not to go pro. What made you do it?

RG: People thought I was crazy. When I was little, I remember, when I was five years old, I walked around and told everyone I was going to play in the major leagues. And I was, I knew it. By the time I was in junior high and high school, I had put the blinders on. I just trained every day. It wasn't training to me, it was just going out and having fun. But I did something baseball-specific every day. There was one time when I was in high school, there was one time my brother said, “Hey, did you work out today,” and I said no. He said, “Well, someone out there is, some other kid out there is.” I never forgot that. My parents and my brother never had to tell me I had to go out and train. I was just whacked. There was some homes in a field behind out house that eventually got knocked down. A bank took it over and it had a huge parking lot. In the parking lot there was a street lamp that stayed on all night. In the back of the building there was a huge brick wall. I used to sneak out of my bedroom window in the middle of the night and jump the fence. I'd put tape on the wall and throw at it and field the ball. I'd come back in the house at three in the morning or four in the morning, get a few hours sleep and get up to go to school. I did that almost nightly.

JS: That's dedication, even if it doesn't feel like dedication.

RG: I went to college of course and eventually got drafted. When I was drafted by Montreal Expos, I thought, “Montreal, who are they?” The scouts eventually came to my house to sign me and I thought we were going to play hardball with them and tell them, “I want this much.” They said, “You're a pretty good player, we want to send you right to AAA. So I was like “Yeah, I'll sign.” And I did, I went right to AAA.

JS: Is that pretty rare?

RG: Yeah. You have a few guys, there is just a handful of guys that went straight to the big leagues. There was someone hurt in AAA, the shortstop, and when I got there he wasn't hurt as badly as they thought, so they sent me down to AA Memphis for a while. It was really cool. Playing every day and doing it for a living.

JS: What's the pay scale like?

RG: It was terrible.

JS: Is it still that way?

RG: Oh yeah.

JS: So you have to make the show before you're get paid well?

RG: Oh yeah. There's no doubt. There are some guys who are around for a while in triple-A, making a living. But in the minor leagues, ooh, we were three, four guys sharing an apartment, sharing a car. Very little money. Even this group here, they stay with host families and no cars. They can get one meal here, scrounge for another meal there. There's no money to be made in the minor leagues. That's some incentive as well.

When you're growing up, you always say, “I'd play it for free. As long as I could make a living.” And I did. I was in the big leagues going, “As long as I can make a decent living and playing baseball.” Then all of a sudden, you're sitting in the locker room next to someone making five, ten million and you're saying, “I'm better than you are, what the heck's growing on?”

When it comes to negotiating a contract, that's the only way, is being compared to someone else. Putting numbers up against another guy. That's how negotiations go. You hear about the ugly stuff that goes on during arbitratition, stuff like that and that's exactly how it goes.

JS: That's when you bring in an outside guy?

Yeah. Basically it's an attorney for you and the team's attorney, and he's telling you how horsecrap you are and your attorney is telling them how valuable you are. I've heard a lot of ugly things. It's funny. They build you up throughout your career and if you go through arbitratition. There they say, “You're batting .200 with runners in scoring position. That's not very good. Yeah, we'd like to have him, but…”

So couple years, year and a half in the minor leagues. Chris Spiers gets hurt in Montreal and I get called up.

JS: Do you get a new contract when you get sent up?

RG: Yeah.

JS: Because it's two different leagues, right?

RG: Right. You have a major league contract, you have a minor league contract. Guys who are in the big leagues, are always going to be in the big leagues. They can send them to the minor leagues, but they have to pay them under the major league contract.

JS: So they want them to play in the majors.

RG: A minor leaguer has signed his contract for the year, all of a sudden, he gets called up, because they have to put them on the 40 man roster. Because it's a different league and a different union, they're automatically getting paid the minimum.

JS: Is it $250,000?

RG: I think it's more than that, $300,000 or something. When I first got called up it was $82,000. But it's great. It's the big league life. It's funny, in the minor leagues, you're struggling for cash, trying to get by, you only have one pair of cleats. When you're in the big leagues, people are just handing you stuff. When you're in the big leagues and you're making money all the free stuff comes in when it should've come in the minors.

JS: I've always thought that.

RG: The very first time I got called up, my triple-A coach called who me into the office, was Buck Rogers, who eventually became my big league coach in Montreal and again in Anaheim. He's a great guy, a great coach. There's a lot of stuff I use managing that I learned from him. He called me up and he goes, “You're outta here, you're getting traded.” I said, “Traded? I'm the top prospect in the country. How am I getting traded?” He said, “You're going to the big club.” So I showed up in Philadelphia. The team was playing the Phillies. I remember getting to Veterans Stadium and the game was already playing. I had to ask security how to get to the locker room. I walked into an empty locker room … I walk down this tunnel and the game was already in the eighth inning. The minute I walked into the dugout, all my teammates were like, “Hey, how's it going,” and all that.

Bill Verdon was the manager, and as I was just getting settled in and talking to the guys, he goes, “Hey, are you ready?” And I go, “Yeah, of course,” thinking, am I ready to play in the next couple days.

He says, “Okay, you're in there playing short.” And I just ran out on the field. No warming up, no stretching, nothing. The first baseman throws the ball across the field and my first throw, I just aired it out. You know, with the adrenaline, I didn't have to warm up. I was ready.

Sure enough, first hitter is Greg Luzinski. I'm thinking okay, okay, big pull hitter. First ball is at you, that's the way it always is. Got it, threw him out. And there it went.

First I remembered calling my mom, that evening, telling her, “Mom, I'm in the big leagues”. She went nuts, of course. There it started.

First big league game start, I went 4-for-5 off Charlie Hudson. I remember it just seemed so much easier. The backdrop was so clear, you play on these minor league fields where the lights are terrible and the fields are bad. I remember getting in there and the ball looked so big and everything just seemed to slow down. Again, I went 4-for-5, I was on base all five times, and I was thinking, “Man, there must be a league higher than this.” So I thought that I had started my big league career, I'm never going to see the minors again. But they were just throwing me fastballs, challenging me to see what I could do. The next week, here comes the sliders, splits and I'm thinking, “Wow.” Chris Spier gets well and I'm back in the minors in two weeks. It was pretty humbling.

When I was first drafted, I was put in a high league and right away the next year when I came back, I was in big league camp. So one year after getting drafted there I was in big league camp with Andre Dawson and Tim Raines and Gary Carter and Al Oliver.

JS: This was still with Montreal?

RG: Yeah. I already gauged myself off of them. Immediately I knew I could play with these guys. There was no period doubt. Rookie Ball to the major leagues must just miles and miles away. Straight out of college I was playing with those guys so I felt I could easily do it.

My first day in the big leagues, in Philladelphia. The next morning, there was a knock on my door and it was Tim Raines and Andre Dawson, saying, “Let's go, young buck.” They took me out and bought me three or four suits, shoes, everything. They go, “Hey, you've got to look like a big leaguer and act like it.”

Now you hear about all the pranks they pull on the rookies, putting them in dresses and all that stuff, I never went through that. All those guys, they just made me feel welcome. They would just sit next to me on the bench, coaching me, teaching me. They just put their arm around you. It's not like that now.

Later on, when I would be a veteran on the team, guys would tell me to go tell the rookies to double up on the bus or go sit in the front of the plane, I couldn't do it because it didn't happen to me.

JS: So you played how many years?

RG: Thirteen seasons, seven teams.

JS: Any favorite at bats? Anything that sticks out?

RG: Not really. You remember the first major league at bat.

JS: Did you get a hit?

RG: Yeah. Jerry Koosman. I'm thinking here's this guy, sinkerballer, a lefty, he's going to throw it outside half of the plate, I'm thinking I'm going to try to hit a line drive to right field.

Bill Mazeroski and Duke Snyder were my coaches. I told my dad that and he was impressed. A favorite at bat, well hmm. I do. I think I remember all my hits.

Your first hits you remember. Game-winning home runs, you remember those. I had a couple of those. I hit one the second day of the season in Baltimore. We were playing Seattle. It was just near opening day. We had the meet and greet with the boosters and the sponsors of the Orioles. It was a banquet they annually had in the evening after the game on a Sunday. Mike Jackson was the pitcher and I think in the tenth inning, I hit a game-winning home run. So we went to the banquet and they got me up in front of everybody and they said, “Well, you hit the game-winning home run tonight.” And I said “Yeah, but more importantly, I'm on pace to hit 82 home runs this year.” I was joking. Yeah, I was not a home run hitter.

I was a fan of facing Clemens and Ryan and all those guys. Most guys would duck them. I welcomed it because I wanted to say I faced the best and beat them. I used to get up for those at bats. I thought it was just a blast to face them. I think I had better success against the better pitchers because of that. I remember 3-4-5 starters used to get me out all the time.

I was eventually traded to Baltimore from Montreal. Played there for five years.

JS: Would you say it was your favorite team to play for, did you have a favorite?

RG: I would say I never felt more like a big leaguer than I did with Baltimore.

The way the city treated me, the way the players on that team treated me. Baltimore is just an unbelievable, huge baseball town. And also, having lockers next to Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken. Having Brooks Robinson come throughthe clubhouse. Jim Palmer, Boog Powell. When we would go to visit another city, even in spring training, when we would walk into the park with all those guys. PeopleThat was fun.

It wasn't fun playing behind Cal Ripken. I had never played any other position but shortstop. They got me, thinking I was going to play shortstop; they traded me for three guys: Dennis Martinez, a catcher and another minor leaguer. I was hoping they were going to move Cal to third but Cal didn't want any part of that. So they asked me if I could play other positions. Never having played other positions, I said, “Yeah, sure, of course.” And then I was a utility man. I was labeled. I wish I had never done that, I wish I had demanded a trade. It changed my whole career. And you know, saying you played in the big leagues, people say that's awesome, but I still have second guessed my career. I could've been better. I should've had a much better career. With the talent I had, I should've had a better career. It's weird and people can't grasp that. It's like playing golf, you shoot a 63, but when you get done, you say, “Yeah, but if I had made that one putt.” But that's how it is.

I was much better than I ended up being.

I went to Toronto in 1991, another great city. We lost to Minnessota in the playoffs. That sucked. I thought we had the class of the big leagues that year. We had beat up on the Twins all season long so we were looking beyond them. They kicked out butts.

Next year, free agent again and I went to Anaheim, I went home. Everybody said, “Man, it's too bad you weren't in Toronto.” And I said, “No, Playing every single day, living at home, on the beach, parents in the stands every night, it was almost like little league. It was so relaxing.

As a visiting guy, coming into L.A and Anaheim, coming in as a visiting guy, everybody's calling you and wanting tickets.

Now that you're home, nobody bothers you. That was a blast, I loved playing in California. It was 78 degrees every night, short sleeves, you know you're going to play. No rain delays, it was awesome.

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