Ex-manager paved way for Phillies' first title

Danny Ozark, 85, the Phillies manager whose hound-dog face and penchant for malaprops sometimes obscured the success his teams enjoyed in the 1970s, died yesterday in Florida.

Mr. Ozark, whose 1976 and 1977 Phillies won more games than any other teams in franchise history, succumbed at home yesterday morning, according to a team announcement. The cause was not immediately known.

A longtime fixture in the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers' organization, Mr. Ozark was hired by the Phillies in November 1972, just as Mike Schmidt and a nucleus of young Phillies talent - Greg Luzinski, Larry Bowa, Bob Boone - were maturing. While he led them to three division titles, their inability to reach a World Series cost him his job in 1979.

"I was saddened by the news," said Schmidt, who played for Mr. Ozark during his Hall of Fame career. "He was a good friend, my first major-league manager, played a major role in the early years of my career, and was instrumental in building us into prominence in the mid-1970s."

Owner Bob Carpenter, impressed by Mr. Ozark's long association with the successful Dodgers, bucked public opinion in hiring the 49-year-old, who had never managed or played a day in the major leagues. Philadelphia fans had been lobbying for a more familiar face, such as Richie Ashburn or Jim Bunning.

During his initial news conference here, Mr. Ozark was asked for his reaction to getting his first managing job. For a fan base that demanded passion, his answer was perplexing. "I wasn't overly excited," he said. "I didn't jump up and shout 'Whoopee!' "

It was an indication of what was to emerge from the mouth of the sad-eyed man local reporters began referring to as "the Wizard of Oze."

Over the six-plus years and 1,105 games he managed the Phillies, Mr. Ozark became as renowned for the malaprops he uttered as for the teams he guided. For example, when a few controversial moves resulted in a 1978 loss, Mr. Ozark told reporters, "We flubbed that dub a little."

During an era when political scandal dominated the headlines, the manager once tried to explain away a slump by saying, "Even Napoleon had his Watergate."

Asked once how team morale was holding up, Mr. Ozark shot back, "Morality isn't a factor at this point."

And when he got a rare ovation from a Veterans Stadium crowd, Mr. Ozark was moved. "It really sent a twinkle up my spine," he said.

Yet for all the fun he had poked at him here, he stressed fundamentals and helped a young and talented team find its confidence as well as a place in Phillies history.

"We would not have had the success in the '70s if it wasn't for him," said Ruly Carpenter, who succeeded his father as team president. "He taught those guys how to play the game."

Though his first team, in 1973, wound up last, its 70 wins were an 11-game improvement over the previous year. Still, Mr. Ozark nearly didn't make it through that first season.

When his team was routed twice in midsummer by Montreal, general manager Paul Owens told a reporter in a hotel bar that his manager "had three weeks" to turn things around.

They did. In 1974, the Phillies won 80 games. They got to 86 wins in '75 when, on the day they officially were eliminated by the Pittsburgh Pirates, Mr. Ozark infamously embellished his misspeaking legend by proclaiming, "We're not out of it yet."

His optimism was only slightly premature. A year later, his Phillies captured their first National League East title, winning a team-record 101 games. He was named manager of the year by both the Associated Press and the Sporting News.

"He was a father figure to a lot of us guys going through the organization," Bowa said yesterday from Los Angeles, where he serves as a coach for the Dodgers. "I just think one thing Danny did was, he always wanted you to give everything you had and to work hard, and good things would happen.

"He didn't want you to worry about yesterday or tomorrow - play the game today. Each at-bat was a different at-bat. He thought the important thing was for you to be able to say at the end of the day that I did everything I could today, and tomorrow is a new game."

But the excitement that division title created was diminished when, in the franchise's first postseason series in 26 years, the Phils were swept by Cincinnati's Big Red Machine.

Mr. Ozark's 1977 team, now viewed as perhaps the most talented in club history, also won 101 games. But it followed that accomplishment with an even greater postseason disappointment.

For all the success Mr. Ozark enjoyed here, he is destined to be remembered for a move he didn't make in Game 3 of the 1977 National League Championship Series.

With the series tied at a game apiece, the Phils led the Dodgers, 5-3, entering the ninth inning on Oct. 7, 1977, a day of such excruciating frustration that it is still recalled here by Phillies fans as "Black Friday."

After Vic Davalillo beat out a drag bunt with two outs in the ninth, pinch-hitter Manny Mota lined a ball that Luzinski, the leftfielder, who was normally replaced by Jerry Martin in the late innings, mishandled at the wall.

That double would be the key hit in an improbable two-out rally that gave the Dodgers the victory. A night later, in the rain at Veterans Stadium, Los Angeles beat the deflated Phils and clinched the series.

"He was the third batter up in the ninth," said Mr. Ozark, referring to Luzinski and trying to explain his puzzling non-move. "I wanted him in the lineup in case the game was tied."

That painful loss exacerbated dissatisfaction with Mr. Ozark among the fans, the media, and even his own players. A microcosm of their strained relationship occurred in 1978 when the manager went to the mound to remove future Hall of Famer Steve Carlton. The unhappy pitcher angrily spiked the ball at his feet.

In writing about the Phillies' growing unhappiness with their manager, Inquirer columnist Frank Dolson would later say that "in their view, Ozark obviously was someone who couldn't lead a thirsty horse to water."

As an injury-riddled 1979 season wore on, Mr. Ozark couldn't even stick his head out of the dugout without hearing the boos. Finally, on Aug. 31, he was fired and replaced by Dallas Green.

"If Danny Ozark had one fault," Ruly Carpenter said, "it was that he was too nice. He was tremendously loyal to his players. There were just times when he should have been a hell of a lot tougher on those guys. . . . On the other hand, he was a very tough person to put up with the things he did, the crap he took."

In 1980, the club Mr. Ozark had nurtured throughout the previous decade finally won the franchise's first World Series championship under Green.

Contacted at his home in Vero Beach, Fla., that night, Oct. 21, 1980, Mr. Ozark admitted that he and his wife, Ginny, had tears in their eyes.

"I wish I'd have been there to be a part of it," he said. "Those players all were with me. We developed the club together. We suffered together."

His Phillies victory total of 594 (along with 510 losses) still ranks third, behind Gene Mauch's 645 and Harry Wright's 636. Those are also the only men to have managed more Phils games than Mr. Ozark.

"He was the perfect manager for that team of evolving stars in the '70s, and he never seemed to let anything bother him," broadcaster Chris Wheeler said. "He handled his dismissal with dignity and went home to play golf and spend the rest of his years with Ginny."

Born Daniel Leonard Orzechowski on Nov. 24 1923, the Buffalo native began his professional baseball career in 1942 as a first baseman in the Dodgers' minor-league system.

In 1956, he became the manager of the Dodgers' Class B Wichita Falls team. By 1965, he was a third-base coach in Los Angeles, where he stayed until the Phillies called. He returned to the Dodgers in 1980 as a coach.

Phils manager Charlie Manuel, who once played in the Dodgers' system, said he got to know Mr. Ozark there.

"I consider him a friend of mine," Manuel said. "I knew him from the minor leagues. He was a great guy."

Mr. Ozark finished his career with the San Francisco Giants, acting as interim manager in 1984 when Frank Robinson was fired. But he never managed again.

"Ginny and I really miss Philadelphia," Mr. Ozark said in a Phillies Magazine story published last month.  "We enjoyed our time there. That city is a great sports town. The fans are the greatest. They do express themselves, but that's OK. We made a lot of lifelong friends there."

In addition to his wife of 60 years, Mr. Ozark is survived by two children, Dwain and Darlene; three granddaughters; and four great-grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements were pending.

Here are some of former Phillies manager Danny Ozark's more interesting malaprops:

EndText