Earlier this season I wrote a short news obit about former Twins player David McCarty who died at the much too young age of 54. For that obit, I tried to find some quotes about him from years ago, and I did, discovering some comments made by former Twins manager Tom Kelly.
Kelly had this to say after watching McCarty, a top draft pick of the Twins, play during spring training.
“I saw him hit one breaking ball in spring training,” Kelly told the Star Tribune. “All of the rest were fastballs. Like a lot of guys, he has trouble hitting the breaking ball. He has a lot of room for improvement. He needs to be working and to develop his skills. Whether he will come up next week, next month or next year, it’s hard to say. When we have a need, and if David fills the need, then we will bring him up.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about that quote and I’ve decided it was pretty dismissive of Kelly to say that about McCarty, particularly when the Twins drafted him with the third overall pick in the 1991 draft.
There was this side to Kelly that not all players warmed up to when playing for him, and I’m wondering how much of that played into his eventual exit as Twins manager after the 2001 season, or was it the mostly losing baseball he managed after the 1991 season?
I’m not aware of whether McCarty had a chance to respond to Kelly’s observation, but others did, including David Ortiz and perhaps most famously, Todd Walker, who appears to have spent five mostly unhappy seasons with the Twins after he was drafted eighth overall by the team in 1994.
Ortiz was released in 2002 by the Twins — one of the organization’s great blunders — and then Ortiz proceeded to hit 483 home runs for the Boston Red Sox. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2022.
“I don’t think he really liked me,” said Ortiz about Kelly to the Boston Globe. “I don’t know why. That was his style, not just with me. He was hard on young players. He was the kind of manager who liked veteran players. He never liked me.”
Walker tried to adjust to Kelly and then spoke his mind after being traded to the Colorado Rockies in 2000. He was sent down to the minors prior to the deal.
Playing for Phil Roof at Salt Lake, Walker said he reached a comfort level he couldn’t find while playing for Twins manager Tom Kelly.
“If a person doesn’t like you as a player, you can’t really say anything about it,” Walker told the Star Tribune. “You have to go with someone who does.”
Other players came to Kelly’s defense when the Star Tribune took a closer look at the Twins manager and his relationship with younger players.
“You’ve got to be mentally tough under him,” said former Twins infielder Denny Hocking. “If you’re not mentally tough, No. 1, you’re probably not going to stay here, and No. 2, you’re probably not going to enjoy playing for him.”
“I never thought he was tough to play for,” said former Twins pitcher Brad Radke, who made the team in 1995 despite never having pitched above the Class AA level. “I just kept quiet and didn’t get into his business. If I did something wrong, I would just listen to what he had to say and learn from it.”
Former Twins outfielder Torii Hunter acknowledged an adjustment period.
“When I first started coming to big-league camp, I thought he was tough, and I wasn’t close to him at all,” Hunter told the newspaper. “I didn’t know how to take him. Then last year, we had our difficulties.”
Hunter said that after one game in which he had missed a sign, Kelly took him down to the field for a tutorial. Hunter didn’t understand what Kelly was trying to tell him.
“We almost got into it,” Hunter said. “But once you get to know him a little, you like him, and you say, ‘He’s good to play for.’ Once you get to know him, he’s got a joke for you, he’s good to talk to. The bottom line is, he knows his stuff.”
Perhaps there were other concerns about Walker that Kelly had to adjust to. The Star Tribune hinted at a larger problem.
“Many Twins players say privately that Kelly had no choice but to demote Walker, in part because several pitchers didn’t want Walker in the lineup on days they were starting.
“Several pitchers complained to Kelly about Walker’s fielding mistakes, and the day before he was demoted, Walker almost singlehandedly lost a game in which Radke was pitching well.”
Source: Newspapers.com