Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

OT: John Vukovich has died...

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • OT: John Vukovich has died...

    Longtime Philadelphia Phillies coach John Vukovich is in grave condition in a Philadelphia-area hospital due to complications caused by an inoperable brain tumor, the team said Wednesday.
    damn

  • #2
    ESPN is reporting that he has now died.

    Thanks, John, for all your years of service for the Phils. You are missed.
    www.disciplerocks.com

    Comment


    • #3
      OT: John Vukovich has died...

      WOW!! I had no idea he was still fighting this battle. Prayers to his family. There will obviously be a lot of conversation over at the Phils board as this makes it way out, but I thought I'd pass this on for those who don't make it over to the other boards.

      ************************************************** ***

      Longtime Phillies coach Vukovich dies
      By PAUL HAGEN
      Daily News Sports Writer

      AP

      Phillies coach John Vukovich receives a standing ovation from Phillies fans after his recovery from a bout with brain cancer on June 15, 2001. Vukovich died Thursday due to complications caused by a recurrence of the brain cancer.


      John Vukovich, who came to embody the Philadelphia ethics of straight talking and hard work during his career as a Phillies player and coach, passed away early this morning from complications arising from treatment for a brain tumor.


      He was 59.


      Vukovich was never an All-Star in the big leagues and never managed. But he spent more years coaching the Phillies than anybody, from 1988 through 2004, and earned a special niche in the team's history along the way.


      Commemorative patches will be worn on the team's uniforms for the remainder of the season.


      Vuke, as he was widely known, had a reputation for never mincing words. And he had a stubborn belief that his strong opinions were usually right.


      "One time we were playing Pittsburgh," remembered righthander Curt Schilling, who always went over the hitters with Vukovich before his starts. "Vuke wanted me to throw Jason Kendall curve balls. So I threw him a curve first time up and he hit it out for a home run. I couldn't wait to hear what he would say when I got back to the dugout. And he said, ‘I didn't tell you to throw a hanging curve ball, I told you to throw him a curve ball.'"


      Vukovich had a wide array of friends in baseball, from superstars to broadcasters. He sat with Chris Wheeler on almost every team charter for years, talking baseball.


      "He was an old school baseball guy. He didn't have a lot of back-off in him," Wheeler said.


      Said John Kruk: "Just like Richie Ashburn and Harry Kalas are thought of as the voices of this team, when you think of this organization, for a guy who wasn't a great player, he's going to be remembered just as much as guys that were. Because of his longevity and the fact he never wanted to leave.


      "He was tough. He had that gruff exterior. But you knew that, deep down, all he cared about was making you a better player. Did he have trouble showing emotion? That he liked you? Absolutely.


      "But guys who played for the Phillies and didn't like him, who thought he was too tough on them, didn't know him. And when you're done playing, the next time he saw you he was going to give you a hug and a kiss or when you talked to him on the phone say that he loved you. That's the side they didn't see.


      "I think that stemmed from his playing career. He had shortcomings when he was a player. So he wanted to make sure he got the most out of his players.


      "He always had that protective guard. He wasn't going to let you inside. But the last five or six years is when I realized how much he cared about the players and the organization as a whole. I care about the Phillies organization, but I'm a Mets fan compared to him. He was a diehard. He was a Phillie."


      Vukovich survived a brain tumor that was discovered in May, 2001 and for a time it looked as though he had beaten the disease. But a recurrence was discovered last fall.


      Dodgers general manager Med Colletti knew Vukoovich for more than a quarter century, dating back to when both worked for the Cubs.


      "He was an overachiever as a player in a lot of ways. His playing career probably didn't earn him a lot of respect. But his coaching career, I don't know anybody more respected than him," Colletti said. "Some players didn't like him because he was honest with them. But they always respected him."


      Former Phillies All-Star, coach and manager Larry Bowa grew up playing American Legion baseball with Vukovich in Sacramento, Cal.


      "He didn't tell players what they wanted to hear. He told them the truth. Some of them didn't like it. Some of them really liked it," Bowa said. "It didn't matter if you were a superstar or just a utility player. When he played, even as a utility player, he wasn't afraid to get on the big boys. Schmitty, me, (Garry) Maddox, Lefty (Steve Carlton). He didn't care. He wanted the game played right."


      He is survived by his wife, the former Bonnie Loughran; two children, Nicole Stolarik and Vince; two brothers, Rich and Bill from California and triplet granddaughters: Anna, Lena and Stella Stolarik.

      Funeral arrangements are pending.




      http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/sports ... 860699.htm
      Official Driver of the Eagles Bandwagon!!!
      Bleedin' Green since birth!

      "Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many." - Mike Willey

      ”Enjoy The Ride!!!” - Bob Marcus

      Comment


      • #4
        very sad news. vuke was a real rock in the phils family.
        Don't kid yourself Jimmy. If a cow ever got the chance, he'd kill you and everyone you cared about!

        Comment


        • #5
          It's very sad to see such a long tenured member of the Phillies family taken so young.

          RIP

          Comment


          • #6
            RIP-- seemed to always be a good guy.

            Comment


            • #7
              I don't care that it's ESPN Insider although Vin - if you want to take it down - by all means.

              Here's a remarkable tribute from Jayson Stark on Vuke:

              Remembering a true gem of a manposted: Thursday, March 8, 2007 | Print Entry

              CLEARWATER, Fla. -- The AP news story will tell you that a career .161 hitter died Thursday. But for those of us in this world who were lucky enough to have our lives intersect with a beautiful man named John Vukovich, it feels as if we just lost Ted Williams.
              I've never spent a sadder day at any ballpark than I did Wednesday in Clearwater, because it seemed as if everyone I met knew the end was near for our good friend, Vuke, only 59 years old. And how could that possibly have been true?

              "I keep hearing his voice," said his buddy, long-time Phillies broadcaster Chris Wheeler. And I felt the same way.

              John Vukovich had one of those voices that rose above the din, even if you were sitting in a stadium with 40,000 people and he was down there on the field, in the third-base coaches' box, 100 feet below you.

              It was the strong, tough voice of a sheriff in a 1960s western, with just enough edge to get your attention and just enough tenderness to let you know that the man you were listening to cared more than anyone else in the room, or the ballpark.

              And it didn't even matter what the subject was.

              Didn't matter if it was a baseball argument he refused to lose. Or a ball game it had just pained him to lose. Or a conversation about our families or our mutual friends in a sport that had been so good to both of us. You were always riveted by the passion that came pouring out of his vocal chords.

              If you were fortunate enough to spend time with John Vukovich, it was the most memorable slice of your day. Guaranteed. You learned something -- always. You probably took some major abuse for something -- always. And you walked away laughing -- always.

              Of the 31 years he spent with the Phillies, only one of them (1980) had the happy ending this man never stopped chasing. And those unhappy endings hurt him more than anyone else I knew -- anyone.

              He took those losses harder than he took any out he ever made at the plate. And he had a tough time abiding the people around him who didn't ache as much as he ached. Every once in a while, those people heard about it, too. Imagine that.

              Sometimes, he'd even let them know how he felt without saying a word -- like the night a few years ago he was so aggravated by one loss, he stopped the team bus, climbed off and walked back to the hotel, smoke bombs wafting out of his ears, unprintable bombs erupting out of his mouth, every stride of the way.

              I covered John Vukovich as a player. I covered him as a coach. I covered him the last couple of years in a role he had a tough time adapting to -- "team executive." And as hard as I try to keep at least a little professional distance from the people I cover, it was impossible for me not to think of John Vukovich as a friend.

              For most of the last 20 years, we stayed in the same building during spring training. We knew each other's wives and families. We met on elevators, in parking lots, in restaurants, even out on street corners.

              And you could never just "run into" John Vukovich. You were going to have A Conversation. There was never a bad occasion to tap into this man's brain, because there was always something in there worth hearing.

              I'm glad I soaked in as much as I did, because I still hear that voice, almost any time something unusual happens in a baseball game, explaining the way it's supposed to be done.

              John Vukovich should have managed someone's baseball team. As recently as six months ago, his friend and mentor, Dallas Green, stopped me in the Phillies' press room to ask me, please, to get this guy's name out there last winter, to connect him with somebody's managerial vacancy.

              But by November, our friend's health was already beginning to worsen. So he couldn't have taken one of those jobs even if he'd been offered one.

              At least Dallas Green can say now he's the only man who ever hired Vuke to manage a big-league baseball team. That was in October, 1987, when Green was running the Cubs. If you don't remember how John Vukovich did in that job, well, there's a good reason for that.

              Unfortunately for both of them, an hour later, Dallas Green and his bosses from the Tribune Company had a loud debate that was later described as a "philosophical difference." So Green wound up quitting, and John Vukovich's managerial reign ended before he even made it to the press conference.

              It's still hard to believe he never got another chance to actually make it to some team's podium. Heaven knows the guy had enough friends in baseball. You'd have thought somebody would have hired him.

              But he was just opinionated enough, just fiery enough, that, for two decades, GMs were too intimidated to hire him. It was pretty much that basic.

              Yet there was such a soft, caring side to this man. Dodgers GM Ned Colletti couldn't help but wonder Wednesday if he ever would have gone where he's gone in life without John Vukovich, "always steadying me and prodding and instigating me to make myself better."

              They met each other 25 years ago, with the Cubs. Their bond was forever. So Ned Colletti has never erased the voice-mail message from his friend, Vuke, the day he got that GM job -- the one in which John Vukovich told him how proud he was, and that, "I love you, buddy."

              I've known the guy even longer, more than 27 years. I only saw him get 13 hits in the three seasons I covered him as a player. But I'll never forget him.

              When I was just a young guy, learning to cover baseball, I can't tell you how many times John Vukovich would take me aside, put his arm around my shoulder and start teaching. About how players think. About how coaches and managers think. About how baseball is meant to be played. About the life lessons baseball never stopped delivering.

              There were many, many times we disagreed about the course of events in his universe. He let me know just about all of them, too. But he had a way of sending his messages.

              He'd let me know exactly how wrong I was. But by the end of the lecture, he'd be telling me, "You're too smart to write that crap. You're too good to say that baloney." And I'd know the truth. The reason he just spent all that time yelling at me was the same reason he'd spent all that time teaching me the game when we were both a lot younger: Because he was too good, too caring, a human being to do anything else.

              On New Year's Eve, 1999, my phone rang. It was a friend of mine -- and fellow John Vukovich fan -- in the baseball-writing business. He had just read my end-of-the-baseball-century column in that morning's newspaper. One of the items in that column was a rundown of The Five Worst Hitters of the 20th Century.

              "How'd you leave Vuke out of that list?" he wondered, laughing.

              Well, it took some doing. I admitted to that. I had to make sure I raised the minimum at-bats to qualify for the list above the 559 career ABs John Vukovich got. But I did that -- for him.

              Not because I didn't want to subject myself to the earful his inclusion would have inspired, either.

              It was because it didn't do justice to the great John Vukovich to sum him up as just some guy who batted .161. It didn't then. It doesn't now. And it never will. Ever.

              Comment


              • #8
                a very touching tribute by stark. vuk was a great guy.
                Don't kid yourself Jimmy. If a cow ever got the chance, he'd kill you and everyone you cared about!

                Comment

                Working...
                X