When shortstop Jerry Dybzinski joined the Pittsburgh Pirates, he couldn’t have imagined he’d become symbolic of 1985’s steep decline. It was a year that saw Pirates president Dan Galbreath fire general manager Hardy Peterson and put the team up for sale.
Jerry Dybzinski: A Short, Unhappy Pirates Career
October 8, 1983
The Chicago White Sox of 1983 were the darlings of the baseball world. After years of futility, they were 99-63 under their 38-year-old manager, Tony La Russa. They comfortably won the American League West Division and would face the East Division champion Baltimore Orioles in the League Championship Series. The Orioles led the best-of-five series, two games to one. For the crucial Game 4 at Comiskey Park, La Russa penciled Dybzinski’s name in the starting lineup for the first time in the series.
With the game scoreless, the White Sox started the bottom of the seventh with two singles. Dybzinski, bunting with Orioles pitcher Tippy Martinez on the mound, forced the lead runner at third. Now with one out, Julio Cruz singled to left field. Dybzinski was certain that the runner on second base, Vance Law, would try to score.
Dybzinski later explained to Bob Hertzel of The Pittsburgh Press, “I figured I would keep going for third to make sure they cut the throw to the plate off.” However, Law held up at third. Dybzinski forgot to check Law and see whether he was indeed going to attempt to score. He and Law got caught in rundowns, with Law eventually being tagged out by the catcher. The White Sox didn’t score. The Orioles won the game in 10 innings, 3-0, and went on to win the World Series. Dybzinski was the goat of the ALCS. The White Sox kept him around through the 1984 season, during which he served as a utility infielder, after which they released him.
“The Dybber”
Known as “The Dybber” or “Eye Chart,” Dybzinski was a right-handed-hitting shortstop, born and raised in Cleveland. He was a standout ballplayer at Cleveland State University. He lived a childhood dream when he started his major league career with the Cleveland Indians in 1980 before being traded to the White Sox in the spring of 1983. Before joining the Pirates, Dybzinski was a lifetime .235/.294/.292 hitter with 3 HR, 93 RBI, 62 OPS+, and 2.1 WAR. A classic good-field, no-hit shortstop was Dybzinski.
A Shortstop Problem
The 1984 Pirates had been a disaster. From 1977-83, Peterson and manager Chuck Tanner led Pirates teams that had been contenders and won a World Series in 1979. They finished last in 1984, thanks to a series of disastrous personnel moves. Right fielder Dave Parker left after the 1983 season. The Pirates tried to replace him with tall, lanky 25-year-old Canadian Doug Frobel. Unfortunately, being Canadian is all Frobel would become well-known for. In left field was Amos Otis, 37 and well past his prime, who didn’t last the 1984 season. The Bucs could have had Rupert Jones. However, he was cut despite being one of their hottest hitters in spring training.
In a desperate attempt to rekindle a lost past, Peterson brought back Tim Foli, the shortstop of those 1979 champions. Unfortunately, a series of injuries kept Foli mostly off the field in 1985. Young shortstop Rafael Belliard was a light hitter and not considered everyday shortstop material. Sam Khalifa, the Pirates No.1 draft choice in 1982, was deemed not quite ready. On April 12, Peterson signed Dybzinski to a contract to play for the Pirates’ Triple-A team in Hawaii.
The Pittsburgh papers thought the move reeked of desperation. Peterson hadn’t consulted Tanner before signing “The Dybber.” Tanner found out by reading a Chicago Sun-Times article that quoted Dybzinski as saying he was assured he’d be called up to the Pirates after playing in Hawaii for a short while.
A Man Ahead of His Time
One Pirates player who wasn’t crazy about the move was Bill Almon. The former shortstop was signed by the Pirates in 1985, with the intent that he’d be a reserve outfielder/first baseman. Previously unaware that the Pirates were looking for a shortstop, he asked for a shot at the position. Almon told Charley Feeney of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “I can field just as good [sic] as Dybzinski and I’ll hit better.”
Almon was an analytics disciple before anybody called it that and perhaps without even knowing it himself. As the San Diego Padres shortstop in 1977, he led the major leagues with 41 errors. In 1982, he led the AL with 26 errors at shortstop as a member of the White Sox. By that time, he didn’t appeal to teams as a regular shortstop. Discussing his 1977 season with Hertzel, Almon said, “I also led the league in total chances by more than 100 over some pretty good shortstops . . . I may have let 41 people on base with errors but I got to 100 balls that were base hits with [others] at shortstop. With today’s market, a lot of emphasis is placed on total errors and not so much on total chances. Yet they complain when their shortstop doesn’t have range.”
Almon knew of which he spoke. In 1977, he also led the majors with 303 putouts, a 5.63 Range Factor per Nine Innings (RF/9) and a 5.43 Range Factor per Game. (Range Factor is measured simply by adding a fielder’s putouts and assists.) His 5.51 RF/9 also led the AL in 1982.
A Man Out of Time
Tanner had Almon working out at shortstop in the spring with infield instructor Alex Monchak. Nevertheless, on April 18, Dybzinski was called up from Hawaii. Dybzinski made his Pirates debut in St. Louis on April 20 as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement. He made his first – and only – Pirates start the next night in a 6-0 loss. He was 0-for-3 at the plate and committed an error on a wild throw that let in a run. (The next batter singled, making the run an earned run charged against hard-luck pitcher José DeLeón.)
It was soon clear that Dybzinski wasn’t Tanner’s guy. He appeared in just three more games, all as a late-inning replacement. On May 6, he accepted an assignment to Hawaii (who wouldn’t?) but never played in the majors again.
Unfairly a Symbol
As the Pirates floundered and struggled to score, finally Peterson was fired on May 23. Galbreath told Feeney he had made up his mind after watching the Pirates get swept at home by the Cincinnati Reds the previous weekend by scores of 6-3, 8-0, and 7-1. “We didn’t seem to have a chance to win any of those games,” said Galbreath. “I said to myself, ‘This is ridiculous.’”
Peterson had reportedly become strangely reclusive. He was making deals without consulting Tanner. He was spending less and less time in his office and around the team. Players were acquired without Peterson having even seen them play. It was no way to run a railroad.
Unfairly, Dybzinski, who did nothing but play hard and do what he was told, became a symbol of Peterson’s failures with the Pirates. Wrote Post-Gazette columnist Bruce Keidan, who came to Pittsburgh from Philadelphia and brought with him that tough, unforgiving Philadelphia style of reporting, “The Pirates were drowning, and you [Peterson] tried to rescue them by throwing them a doughnut. When that didn’t work, you threw more doughnuts. Jerry Dybzinski was a classic doughnut. Nobody saves a foundering franchise by calling up a Jerry Dybzinski.”
The Last Word
Joe L. Brown, the architect of the 1960 and 1971 World Series champion Pirates, was brought out of retirement to serve as an interim replacement for Peterson. Brown jettisoned some malcontents and brought in some young players who would be key to the Pirates’ resurgence. It wasn’t enough to save the team from another last-place finish and another year where attendance failed to reach 775,000 in 1985. Galbreath was forced to sell the team.
With no buyers anxious to invest in the baseball equivalent of a dumpster fire, Pittsburgh Mayor Richard Caliguiri put together a consortium of local corporations known as Pittsburgh Baseball Partners to buy the team and keep it in Pittsburgh. The new ownership group brought in Syd Thrift as general manager. Thrift continued Brown’s good work, adding more important pieces and hiring Jim Leyland as his manager. Leyland was an unknown who previously served as La Russa’s third base coach on the White Sox, including during that disastrous inning when Dybzinski ran his team out of a possible AL pennant.
With Thrift’s trades and drafts and Leyland’s leadership, the Pirates won the National League East Division three years in a row from 1990-92. Unfortunately, that run of success, too, was unsustainable. The Pittsburgh Baseball Partners ran the team like a corporation. The 1990s were the era of downsizing. The new owners thought ballplayers made too much money. High-salaried players were traded or allowed to leave. The Pittsburgh Baseball Partners would eventually sell the team, too. But that, as they say in Pittsburgh, is “a whole ‘nother story.”
Photo Credit: © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images
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