Dick Williams -- aka Mr. Crotchety -- heads to Cooperstown

He was a June firing, dumped as the Mariners manager when the high-priced talent failed to produce for him and a team with increased expectations did an early fade.

Last month, this profile fit John McLaren.

Twenty years ago, this was Dick Williams.

The difference between these former Seattle managers now is Williams has a better retirement plan.

At 79 and as cantankerous as ever, Williams awaits his induction Sunday into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., having a last laugh on anyone who doubted him and his bench abilities, particularly those in the Pacific Northwest.

"Evidently, they didn't like the hardnose brand of baseball I demanded," he said of the 1986-88 Mariners. "I had success with it at three other places. It got me in the Hall of Fame."

Williams remains one of seven managers to win pennants in both the American League and National League. He is one of two men to lead three different teams to the World Series. He is the only man to guide four different teams to a 90-victory season.

Seattle, however, remains a blot on his glossy big league managerial résumé. Not only did this franchise prove to be his least memorable stop, it was his last on a big league bench. One full season and parts of two others at the Kingdome only reaffirmed that it was time for him to get out of the game. His record with the Mariners was a woeful 159-192.

Asked if there still were moments when he yearns for a dugout seat and a return to power, Williams from his Las Vegas home rather cryptically said no. In his eyes, players are no longer receptive to direction, something he saw coming when he washed out in Seattle.

"I wouldn't last a week," he said. "The game has changed so much. I can't remember the last time I saw a guy hit a cutoff man or the right base. The tail is wagging the dog, and it's hard on the good guys like McLaren. You can't have it both ways. I had my fling with it."

With the Mariners, he openly clashed with ace pitcher Mark Langston, repeatedly describing him as "gutless" in a memorable post-firing interview with the Seattle P-I. Two decades hardly have eased any ill will between them, though their paths have never crossed. Williams won't be inviting the retired left-hander to his induction ceremony.

The former manager still gloats over the memory of Langston's final start under his direction. He left the pitcher on the mound for the ninth inning while holding a 3-2 lead in Kansas City, even though the Mariners starter already had thrown 128 pitches. Langston lost it in the ninth inning, 4-3, and later complained about his overuse.

"He was the new breed coming in," Williams said. "He had all the ability in the world. We didn't see eye to eye. I left him in in Kansas City. I left him in to get his brains beat out. There was no question in my mind that I was tickled pink by that.

"He'd be behind 2-1 in the eighth and want out. He'd be up 2-1 in the eighth and want out. He wasn't going to call his own shots, in my mind."

Langston, retired and living in California, did not return a recent phone message to reminisce about Williams.

However, not everyone on those Seattle teams was turned off by the manager's tough-love approach.

"He was hard-nosed and very difficult for a lot of guys, but I loved him," former Mariners second baseman Harold Reynolds said. "He made me an All-Star. He gave me a chance to play every day. He was a perfectionist who got the most out of you. He was on me every day. Every day. Every time I would pop up in batting practice, and I would hear him yell, 'Reynolds, hit it on the ground!' "

Classic Williams was the day in spring training when he gathered his players around for a rundown drill that was supposed to last 10 minutes. It took an agonizing 2 1/2 hours.

"He said, 'No batting practice, because if you can't execute this right, there's no reason to hit,' " Reynolds recalled.

Williams became a manager in 1965, his first season following his retirement as a journeyman big league player, thanks to a series of events involving another Seattle team. He was hired to join the Triple-A Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League as a coach and part-time player if needed. He was named manager when the franchise was uprooted to Toronto by the parent club Boston Red Sox, replacing Edo Vanni, who chose to stay in the Northwest rather than move to Canada and the International League.

Williams won two Governor's Cup championships in as many seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs, was put in charge of the Red Sox and immediately took the Impossible Dream team to the World Series in 1967 -- the Red Sox's first appearance in 21 seasons.

Demanding and irascible, he never stayed anywhere long. Fired by Boston, he turned up in Oakland. In his three seasons, the A's won two World Series and reached the ALCS in the other season. He tried to jump his contract and become the New York Yankees manager, but Oakland owner Charlie Finley wouldn't allow it. Finley fired him, too.

Continually hired and let go, he managed, in order, the California Angels, Montreal Expos and San Diego Padres, taking the latter to the 1984 World Series, before coming to Seattle.

In 1986, he was out of baseball, doing Miller Lite beer commercials with other sports figures, when the Mariners fired Chuck Cottier and needed a replacement. Williams was picked over Billy Martin, coaxed back into the game with a $250,000 annual salary.

"I didn't seek them," Williams said. "They sought me out. The price was right."

He met with Mariners owner George Argyros, was offered the job in Denver and was flown to his San Diego home aboard Argyros' private jet. He remembers that someone forgot to unload his luggage and the jet had to make a second trip to California just to drop off a couple of bags.

Williams and his wife took an instant liking to Seattle. They lived in a fifth-floor condominium near Pike Place Market that looked out on Puget Sound. Only when he scanned the Mariners roster did the view become obscured.

"We didn't have any talent there," he said.

He got along fine with the Mariners general manager, Dick Balderson, though he noticed the executive wasn't given near enough latitude to run things. He was convinced club president Chuck Armstrong meddled too much in the operation. He built friendships that he still maintains with team broadcaster Dave Niehaus, who will join him in the Hall of Fame, and with popular suite ticket salesman Al "Moose" Clausen.

Williams' temper could lead to comic relief. While chatting with a P-I reporter covering his first Mariners game and introducing himself, the manager took a call at his desk. He told his young visitor a deal was in the works and to come back later with the rest of the press corps for pregame briefing.

Wandering through the clubhouse, the P-I writer struck up a conversation with Bob Kearney, the Mariners' loopy catcher. Kearney said he was convinced he was about to be traded. He asked the reporter if he had heard anything. Taken aback by this, the unprepared journalist sputtered something about the phone call in Williams' office and news to come.

Hearing this, Kearney headed to Williams' office. He apparently demanded to know if he'd been traded. Williams asked where he had heard this. Kearney fingered the reporter. The now extremely angry manager found the P-I writer sitting in the Kingdome home dugout, innocently talking to others in the press corps. Williams let loose with a profanity-filled tirade while fans were taking their seats. He was dressed only in his underwear.

Williams was fired after the Mariners opened the 1988 season with a 23-33 record and were headed for a seventh-place finish. He was shoved out the door the year before Ken Griffey Jr. was brought up to the big league club.

"We had success in a lot of places," he said. "Seattle was not one of them."

He has returned to the city just once since his firing, promoting his 1990 autobiography "No More Mr. Nice Guy," done in collaboration with former P-I baseball writer Bill Plaschke, now a Los Angeles Times columnist. Williams has planned a Seattle vacation next month to reconnect with the city and old friends.

Williams will enter the Hall of Fame as a member of the Oakland A's, the franchise that best embraced his demanding approach. He never purposely intended to be a tyrant in Seattle or anywhere else. He just wanted to instill discipline that led to winning.

"I was going to be stern but fair," he said of his managerial approach. "If some guys couldn't stand the heat, then they didn't belong in the major leagues.

"I don't know anybody who refused the World Series checks I helped them get."

WILLIAMS' RECORD

Dick Williams' regular-season managerial record:

Year	Team	W	L	Pct
1967	Boston1	92	70	.568
1968	Boston	85	76	.531
1969	Boston	82	71	.536
1971	Oakland	101	60	.627
1972	Oakland2	93	62	.600
1973	Oakland3	94	68	.580
1974	California	36	48	.429
1975	California	72	89	.447
1976	California	39	57	.406
1977	Montreal	75	87	.463
1978	Montreal	76	86	.469
1979	Montreal	95	65	.594
1980	Montreal	90	72	.556
1981	Montreal	44	37	.543
1982	San Diego	81	81	.500
1983	San Diego	81	81	.500
1984	San Diego4	92	70	.568
1985	San Diego	83	79	.512
1986	Mariners	58	75	.436
1987	Mariners	78	84	.481
1988	Mariners	23	33	.411
21 years		1571	1451	.520

1-World Series, lost to St. Louis in seven games

2-World Series, defeated Cincinnati in seven games

3-World Series, defeated N.Y. Mets in seven games

4-World Series, lost to Detroit in five games