COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Before Jim Leyland was a Hall of Fame manager, he was the bleeping manager, and he made sure the best player he ever coached knew it.
Yes, we’re talking about The Tirade.
If you’re among the millions of baseball fans who have watched Leyland’s legendary reaming of superstar slugger Barry Bonds during spring training in 1991 — footage of which ought to be a first-ballot entry into the YouTube Hall of Fame — you might assume the two men never spoke again.
That’s how badly the then-Pirates skipper ripped into Bonds after the reigning National League MVP was moping through camp during a contract dispute.
It was … awesome.
But, as with most things in life, the truth is not as it may seem.
The best part of this story? The rest of it.
You can probably guess who just might be in attendance Sunday to see Leyland inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Bonds might be the last person you would expect to see in Cooperstown, given his complicated relationship with the Hall and its jury of writers.
Baseball’s all-time home runs leader and one of its greatest players ever is still not in, and, because of his role in the steroids era, it is entirely possible he never will be.
It would be understandable if Bonds did not want to set foot here.
And yet …
He so loves and respects Leyland — the man he calls his favorite manager of his career — that he appears set to make an exception.
At least that is the word.
I asked Leyland on Saturday if he anticipates Bonds will be here.
“I'm not going to address that right now,” he said. “But you can … you can think about that, and I would say that’s a possibility.”
And I would say that sounds like a non-confirmation confirmation.
Stay tuned.
Either way, however, the enduring friendship tells you everything about Leyland — and maybe even a little about Bonds.
For all of the many strengths that Leyland displayed in his 22 seasons as a big-league manager, his greatest was his ability to connect with every corner of the clubhouse, from the last utility man on the bench to the superstars like Bonds and Miguel Cabrera and Justin Verlander.
No matter that he didn’t rise above Double-A. Leyland the coach worked like hell to gain the trust of his teams, and he did just that.
“I think it actually helped me in my managerial career that I wasn't a good player because I realized how hard it was to play the game,” he said. “So when somebody popped up with a man on third and less than two outs, or struck out, I understood that. I'd been there and done that, even though I was on a lesser level. Over time, that really helped me become a better manager. I understood what the players went through.”
The confrontation with Bonds was Leyland at his best.
Here he was doing the damn near unthinkable — standing up to Bonds — earning respect from not just every other player on the team but the MVP himself. Bonds knew how much Leyland cared for and believed in him, and — perhaps struck by a rare flash of self awareness — he knew his manager was right.
He has called Leyland exactly the mentor he needed as a young player, and he remained close with his old boss even after leaving Pittsburgh for San Francisco in 1993.
Leyland, meanwhile, called their relationship “great, except for about five minutes one day.”
As for those five minutes, he said recently: "I'm not proud of that to this day. It happened. And you can't turn away from it because everybody saw it, so you can't act like it didn't happen. But I'm not proud of that."
Whether his guest list Sunday is as expected or not, it’s safe to say all is forgiven.
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