Astros Want Nothing To Do With Dierker

David Barron
Dierker severs relationship with Astros 03/22/2013 11:47 PM

After almost a half-century as a pitcher, sales representative, broadcaster, manager and goodwill ambassador for Houston's Major League Baseball franchise, Larry Dierker's association with the Astros will end April 15.

The end of the relationship, Dierker said this week, stems in large part from his disappointment and frustration that he was not allowed a chance to return to the broadcast booth this season.

He said he met Wednesday with team marketing officials and refused to sign a contract that would have called on him to do up to 180 appearances on the team's behalf each year.

"I told them from the start that if it's not meaningful work, I don't want it," Dierker said. "I'm not a guy who just wants to go around signing autographs and taking pictures with people. They never have been able to understand that, I guess, or believe it.

"So that's the end."

Dierker's dissatisfaction with the administration of owner Jim Crane and president George Postolos has been well known in the wake of the decision to hire former players Alan Ashby, Geoff Blum and Steve Sparks along with play-by-play announcer Robert Ford to fill out the broadcasting roster with TV play-by-play voice Bill Brown.

Offer 'next to nothing'

Dierker, 66, said he met this week with marketing director Scott Wakeman and Meg Vaillancort, senior vice president for community relations, but rejected the offer of an appearances-based contract with a salary he described as "next to nothing."

"It's not a surprise. It's a disappointment," he said. "It's not anything that I need. It's something that I want.

"There is a certain amount of bitterness. You invest 48 years in a market, and you see everything being destroyed and you can't do anything about it."

Postolos said Friday afternoon, "We raised Larry's salary in 2012, and we offered to raise him again in 2013 and expand his role to include pre- and postgame analysis on CSN. He wanted a different job, but we determined he was not the right fit for the job he wanted. That made him unhappy.

"Larry was complimentary of the direction of the franchise until he didn't get the job he wanted. His remarks today are sour grapes. We regret his bitterness but still wish him well."

Dierker acknowledged the possibility of reasonable disagreement over what he sees as his value to the franchise and the view of management, whose approach he described as "cold, calculating and humorless."

"The degree of accomplishment, that is a matter of pride," he said. "Pride cuts both ways. It can be a pride in doing good work and having success, or it can be in being too proud of yourself, which is not a good thing.

"Obviously, based on the decisions they've made, they think I'm too proud of myself. Because it is personal to me, I don't think that I am."

Planning to move on

Dierker said he has talked with other teams and hopes to have a position with another team by next season.

"I won't be a full-time scout or won't be going to the winter meetings, and I'm not interested in managing," he said. "But I could probably be a bench coach, and I could certainly do announcing and marketing and writing and a lot of stuff I could do from my house that would be beneficial to any team, but apparently not this team."

Dierker's preference, he said, would have been to fill the opening left when broadcaster Jim Deshaies accepted a position with the Cubs. Ashby filled that position.

One of the provisions of the contract he declined to sign included studio appearances on CSN, but he said he was not interested in the tedium of pregame work, hanging around to watch the game and commenting afterward.

"To me, that's a job for a kid getting started. It's not a job for me," he said. "It's like going to the minor leagues."

Dierker signed with the Colt .45s in 1964 and made his major league debut on his 18th birthday, Sept. 22, 1964, striking out Willie Mays in the first inning. He was the Astros' first 20-game winner in 1969 with a 20-13 record and pitched a no-hitter in 1976 against the Montreal Expos.

His career record with the Astros of 137-117 ranks third in wins in franchise history, and he holds team records for starts (320), complete games (106), innings pitched (2,2941⁄3) and shutouts (25).

Lengthy second career

After pitching his final season in the majors in 1977 for the Cardinals, Dierker spent a year working in sales with the Astros before becoming a broadcaster, a position he held from 1979 to 1996.

In 1997, owner Drayton McLane made the startling decision to move Dierker from the booth to the dugout as Astros manager. He led the club to National League Central Division titles in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2001 and was NL Manager of the Year in 1998.

His 435 wins as a manager is second in Astros history to Bill Virdon's 544.

Dierker resigned after a fourth straight NL Division Series loss to conclude the 2001 season, and his uniform No. 49 was retired in 2002. He returned to the broadcast booth on a limited basis in 2004 and 2005 and remained with the team as a community outreach executive.

Dierker said the final appearances on his current contract include a luncheon for team sponsors and an April 1 softball game between the Astros' and Rangers' ownership groups.

"If something is going to happen like this, it's best that it happens when you don't need anything to do," he said. "But I feel I have something to give and enough energy to do something that is challenging or meaningful.

"I've always worked, and after a couple of years sitting around talking to people in (Larry's Big Bamboo, the home plate bar at Minute Maid Park named in the honor of his spring training hangout in Florida), it wasn't going to work. I needed more than that."

He said he has no opinion on the future of Larry's Big Bamboo.

"They can do whatever they want," he said. "I don't care if they take (my name) off or leave it."

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Well that certainly didn't end well. Not a big fan of how new ownership has treated long term employees of the club. Larry has been involved for 50 years.. Stretch was for 30.. And there are many others.... They squeezed Bill Brown and lost Deshaies over money...