Tuesday,
September 26, 2006
Ned Colletti: LA
Dodgers GM, His Childhood, Working Class and Ethnic Roots Run Deep
The
ANNOTICO Report
Ned
Colletti, the Los Angeles Dodgers General Manager
since only last winter, immediately embarked on a whirlwind tearing down
and rebuilding the Dodgers from the manager's office to the clubhouse. Colletti brought in productive free agents such as Rafael Furcal, Kenny Lofton and Nomar Garciaparra. He shipped out perceived bad apples such as
Milton Bradley and Odalis Perez.
He acquired young talent such as Andre Ethier and
Wilson Betemit while holding onto homegrown prospects
such as Russell Martin, Chad
"He thinks through things methodically, he weighs the plusses and the
minuses," "He relies on people more than other GMs might. He listens
and seeks advice."Colletti's management style is
alternately expansive and taut, outgoing and obsessive, flexible and dogmatic.
But t! he consistent thread is action. Decisions are
reached. Trades are consummated. Nothing stays on the drawing board for long.
The
Dodgers have already have won 11 more games than last season, 84 v 73
(with 6 games to go) but are as exasperating as they are exhilarating,and
are currently tied for the "wild card" spot to be in the World Series
Playoffs, and only 2 games behind the NL-West Division leading San Diego
Padres.
Colletti's goals are ... " to win
a World Series and I want to
go to
Whenever
in
His rise through the ranks is improbable. After getting layed
off as a reporter, he took a job in public relations for the Cubs in
1982, and then made the unconventional transition to baseball operations. In
1994 he was hired by the Giants and then moved to Assistant General Manager
where he was when hired away by the Dodgers.
BEYOND THE LUNCH
PAIL
As
Dodgers GM, Ned Colletti is a long way from his
working-class upbringing, but his blue-collar roots still run deep
By
Steve Henson
Times Staff Writer
September 26, 2006
FRANKLIN PARK,
The roar of jets flying into O'Hare airport directly over his
family's tiny brick house.
The screech of train brakes at the Bensenville Freight Yard a block away.
The low rumble of trucks pulling out of the machine shop
across the street.
Growing up, the clatter built inside Colletti in
times of stress. And here he was, decades later, nearing the end of his first
season as Dodgers general manager, his reshaping of the roster lauded
throughout baseball, reflecting on how he made it from there to here, and why !
he is pulled back again every chance he gets.
Colletti steered the car into the parking lot of East
Leyden High and recalled a moment when the noise became so deafening he thought
his head would burst.
It was 1972 and he stood in his counselor's office, asking about college. The
counselor took a look at his transcripts and pointed through the window to the
rusting Thompson Steel sign obscuring the horizon.
"He told me get over there and apply," Colletti
said. "I'll never forget it. He said, 'You aren't college material.'
"
Maybe it was the subliminal swirl of planes, trains and trucks. Maybe it was
his mother's subtle prodding for him to achieve what she'd longed for and lost.
Colletti wasn't going to work in any steel mill.
The respect and loyalty he'd learned in this blue-collar
Those planes were coming from somewhere, and those trains and trucks were bound
for somewhere too. There was something out there for him, he was sure of that,
and it was time to get going.
Now that he's moving, he can't stop. He has made it, but won't allow himself to
believe it.
Maybe that comes from a life spent behind the scenes, raised among people
content to scrape by, then serving long
apprenticeships with the Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants.
Colletti is restless and anxious, even after tearing
down and rebuilding the Dodgers from the manager's office to the clubhouse in a
whirlwind that began last winter. He wants to please everyone on his side, from
owner Frank McCourt to Dodgers fans, and he wants to show everyone who isn't,
from those in baseball who doubted him to that counselor, wherever he might be.
"I just don't want to let anyone down," Colletti
said.
So the wheels never stop turning. The
He acquired young talent such as Andre Ethier and
Wilson Betemit while holding onto homegrown prospects
such as Russell Martin, Chad
The deals gained approval back home, where Colletti
maintains regular contact with numerous relatives and friends.
"He thinks through things methodically, he weighs the plusses and the
minuses," said Colletti's brother, Doug, a
commercial portfolio manager in
Colletti, 52, appreciated the value
! of a dollar at a young age. He said his
father, Ned Sr., worked from dawn to dusk six days a week, but often sent his
son to the neighborhood delicatessen to ask for groceries on credit because
payday was Friday and by Wednesday his wallet was empty.
That experience alone would make missing the playoffs after spending $100
million on payroll difficult for Colletti to stomach.
The Dodgers already have won 11 more games than last season, but are as
exasperating as they are exhilarating.
Although the prospect of missing the playoffs terrifies Colletti,
he has come to terms with baseball's capriciousness.
"You depend on so many people to live up to expectations," he said.
"It's proven to you every day that while you try to predict performance
and be as prepared as possible, the only thing you know for sure is that you'll
never know for sure."
Colletti's management style is alternately expansive
and taut, outgoing and obsessive, flexible and dogmatic. Bu! t
the consistent thread is action. Decisions are reached. Trades are consummated.
Nothing stays on the drawing board for long.
It's an approach that reflects where he came from and where he didn't.
He wasn't a professional player. He isn't the relative of a powerful baseball
man. He isn't an Ivy League whiz kid.
Instead he climbed rung by rung, from a community college a few miles from
Franklin Park to
Neither of Colletti's parents nor his numerous aunts,
uncles and older cousins attended college. His mother, Dolores, had aspirations
of going to music school and becoming an opera singer, but she married young
and stayed home to raise Ned and Doug.
She passed on her dreams to her sons, emphasiz! ing that higher education was
something they could attain. Adjacent to Colletti's
first home a 30-by-21-foot
converted garage behind an uncle's house was a school bus stop.
"I'd tell Ned, 'Those children are going to grade school, high school and
college," Dolores said. "It was more or less like programming."
Colletti's mother also nurtured his love of baseball.
World Series games were played during the day in the 1960s, and she promised as
he left the house for school that she would keep track of the action.
"I'd describe what happened to every batter in longhand on a pad of paper,
and when he got home he could relive the game," she said.
By then his parents had moved to the corner of
"Our windows were open in the summer because we had no air
conditioning," Colletti said. "And the
trains ran on diesel, so it smelled bad."
For relief he would walk to Joe and Al's Deli a few blocks away. Sometimes Cubs
third baseman Ron Santo would be there, eating a prosciutto
sandwich.
Colletti stopped by the bustling deli during his
visit to the neighborhood when the Dodgers were in
They pulled a green metal index card box from a drawer and Colletti's
eyes widened. It was the same box that 40 years earlier held grocery tabs for
his and other families who needed credit until payday.
"It was ingrained that you had to watch what you spent and be wise with
how you spent it," Colletti said. "We
bought such small portions of everything, a couple slices of ham, a small hunk of cheese."
As he drove through the quiet stre! ets of modest, tidy homes and
mom-and-pop businesses, Colletti proudly rattled off
names of other East Leyden High alums who made their mark in sports: Denver
Broncos Coach Mike Shanahan, former Boston Celtics coach Jimmy Rodgers, former
Toronto Raptors general manager Glen Grunwald and
former Independence Bowl executive director Glen Krupica.
"I love the fact I grew up here," Colletti
said. "It doesn't stun you with its beauty or its setting. But every time
I come back I make a point of driving through town. It's a good point of
reference. It's good for humility. It keeps you connected with the basics of
life."
Colletti's childhood memories center around family and baseball. There's the one about his first
Cubs game on April 15, 1961, the day before his seventh birthday. His dad
splurged on box seats and he was awestruck by Ernie Banks,
Cubs center fielder Al Heist hit a grand sla! m in the ninth for a walk-off
victory against the Hank Aaron-led Milwaukee Braves.
"From that day, I was hooked," Colletti
said.
As a teenager he spent summer days taking a train and two buses to get to
Wrigley Field and paying 60 cents for a bleacher seat. He liked to sit in the
front row in left-center field and scored every play much the way he does
today.
His dad and uncles told him about the last time the Cubs were in the World Series,
in 1945. Ned Sr. and his brothers Pasquale and Joe slept outside the ticket
booth the night before the first game at Wrigley. Their youngest brother,
Frank, wanted to go with them, but they wouldn't let him because he was only
11.
"They promised they would take me the next time the Cubs were in the World
Series," Frank Colletti said with a wry smile.
"Of course, I'm still waiting."
Frank, 72, is the only living Colletti from his
generation. Several of his brothers died in middle age, including Ned Sr., who!
contracted lung cancer in 1980 and died less than two
years later at 51.
When his dad became ill, Colletti was a writer for
the Philadelphia Journal making $20,000 a year covering the Flyers hockey team.
He and his wife, Gayle, bought a duplex and had a baby on the way. The Journal
folded, Colletti received a $14,000 offer to become a
public relations
"You can't do that," Ned Sr. told him. A few days later he
reconsidered, telling his son he ought to take the job.
"He knew he was dying and wanted to make sure my mom was taken care
of," Colletti said.
Ned Sr. died a few months later and Colletti immersed
himself in his new job, eventually making the uncommon transition from public
relations to baseball operations when Jim Frey became general manager.
"Ned did a lot of work, statistical stuff, contract stuff, that frankly,
as a field man all my life, I wasn't prepared to do," Frey said.
Colletti sat with Frey during games and one day
mustered the courage to ask him if he could provide the front office with
statistics that might help predict performance.
"I said yes and didn't think much more about it," Frey said.
"Then we got together to prepare for negotiations after the winter
meetings and it would have taken two stevedores to carry what he brought me. Everything on everybody."
Eventually Frey was replaced by Larry Himes, and when Himes was fired in 1994,
so was Colletti. The Giants hired him and within two
years he was
Colletti negotiated the contracts of every player on
the Giants' 40-man roster, including Barry Bonds' five-yea! r,
$90-million contract that will expire this year.
Even as Colletti's career blossomed, he remained
close to his roots. Within five minutes of the Giants' victory over the St.
Louis Cardinals that sent them to the 2002 World Series, Uncle Frank's phone
rang.
"It was Neddy, telling me I was finally going to
a World Series," Frank said. "He remembered."
The guys with lunch pails and sweat stains in
During games, Colletti becomes Nervous Neddy outwardly
anxious and blatantly superstitious, characteristics Gayle and their two grown
children would instantly recognize.
Sometimes he is surrounded by his front-office brain trust
"When Ned came in, people wondered about their future and the future of
the staff," said Ng, who also was an
"There's always anxiety. You have to earn trust and respect. But he's
given everyone a very fair chance. The easy thing to do is bring in your own
staff, and I give him credit for working with the existing staff."
On the road, Colletti often sits only with former
traveling secretary
One recent game was typical. Colletti filled a foam
container with food from the press-box buffet line and took it to his booth. He
keeps meticulous track of the action on a standard score sheet issued by the PR
department, and became distressed when reporters had taken them all. Scoring a
game any other way, in his mind, would bring bad luck.
DeLury tracked down a score sheet as the game began
and Colletti charted pitches and their velocity between
bites of chicken. He left his green beans untouched, placing a napkin over them
like! a paramedic covering a victim at a murder scene.
Any comment that suggests the Dodgers are doing well or have the game in hand
is met by a stern look and, sometimes, strong words.
"Watching the game is a personal thing with me," he said. "I
don't want conversation interfering with what I'm doing. I want to watch it my
way."
It's a purposeful exercise. Colletti sets aside the
megabucks and multiyear deals and reminds himself of his upbringing by
returning to Franklin Park when there is a lull in the Dodgers schedule or by
using
He and Doug went through some of their dad's belongings earlier this summer and
came across a passbook savings account from the 1950s. Ned Sr. put away the
grand sum of $9 a week until he had enough for an engagement ring for Dolores.
"You could see the amount building slowly, then right at the time they got
engaged, the account was wiped! out," Doug said.
Colletti's closest friend is a local barber named Art
Artman, whose son died in a car accident two years
ago. Colletti took a leave from the Giants and rushed
home to comfort him.
"When Ned said he was coming back, I cried in the basement like a little
kid," Artman said. "It meant so much to
me."
Mortality is more than a passing thought for Colletti
because his father died so young. He counted the number of days Ned Sr. lived
and woke up Sept. 5, 2005, knowing he had outlived him by one day.
"The Giants were playing the Dodgers," he said.
Someday Colletti would like his accomplishments
measured by something other than wins and losses. Tranquillity
will have replaced the clamor that began outside his bedroom window as a child
and has yet to cease.
"I do want to win a World Series and I want to go to
"One of my goals is that when I am laid in my casket, people at my funeral
wouldn't even know I was in baseball."
That might be difficult if the Dodgers win a World Series during his tenure
something he never experienced with
the Cubs and Giants.
"Every time I watch the final game of the World Series, I get choked
up," he said. "I know what it takes to get there and how difficult it
is."
And if the Dodgers never win it all? As he steered his
rental car toward Wrigley Field and another game, Colletti
said he would find solace knowing he never let down the folks in
"I didn't do anything on my own," he said. "There were so many
people who guided me, mentored me and looked out for me. When you come from a
town as small and industrial as this is, when you can share your pride and joy,
it adds to the goodness of whatever you accomplish."
steve.henson@latimes.com
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