The lease for his condo on Clearwater Beach doesn’t expire until the end of the month, so Larry Bowa has stuck to a routine. He avoids the restaurants and the crowds. His wife, Patty, and his dogs are good company. And every morning that Major League Baseball permits small workouts with the proper distancing applied between people, there is a red fungo waiting for Bowa to swing.
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He went to work Tuesday morning. Four or five Phillies position players were at Spectrum Field. Some pitchers played catch.
“I get up, go down there, and work them out if they want,” said Bowa, 74. “If they don’t, then I’ll do something in the gym there and head on home.”
Bowa knows there is an expiration date to this arrangement, just like there was to the formal spring workouts that kept him more involved this year than usual. He’ll pack the car and drive back to Philadelphia.
He just can’t do it yet.
“We’re creatures of habit, let’s face it,” Bowa said. “Baseball players, I have been a creature of habit since I first signed. There was a void. Sunday and Monday, I didn’t go in. The complex was closed. You sort of miss that. I still feel spring training is here. In my mind, spring training is still going on, even though nobody’s here. You condition your mind to these certain dates. That’s how I have been my whole career.”
It’s his 55th year in baseball. And there’s still no more perfect #SpringTraining sight than watching Larry Bowa hit ground balls on a gorgeous March morning. pic.twitter.com/sp1iosWZbg
— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) March 10, 2020
Bowa’s title in the twilight of his baseball career is a nebulous one. He is a senior advisor to the general manager, and that is the kind of title teams will sometimes bestow on franchise icons to keep them around. A ceremonial sort of thing.
In recent years, that title has meant different things for Bowa. He did more amateur scouting. He worked more with minor-league infielders. He did community events. He came to spring training and put on a uniform. He was willing to share time in the dugout during exhibition games with anyone who wanted it.
But when camp opened last month, Bowa found himself a little more involved on the field. Juan Castro, the new infield coach, greeted him most mornings like this: “Hey, this is what I have planned today. What do you think?” The early work, on the half field next to the club’s offices, often featured instruction from Bowa. He threw batting practice every other day. The coaches gave him leeway to extend his knowledge. That happened when Alec Bohm wanted extra drills on his footwork, and when Jean Segura requested additional time to acclimate to third base.
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It happened even in larger group drills for baserunning. Paco Figueroa, the first-base coach, is half Bowa’s age and the two have struck a relationship. The game has trended younger and younger, with a heavier reliance on technology. That is good. So is experience, and there is room for all of it in the healthiest organizations.
“They’ve asked me a lot of questions,” Bowa said of the coaching staff. “I go out there and let them do their thing. They are the ones in charge. Juan will ask me things. Paco will ask me some things. But they are the ones who make the decisions. I respect that. I think they respect the fact that I’m willing to offer some advice if they ask. I don’t ever go out there and say, ‘This is what you guys should be doing.’ I’ve already had my gig doing that. I go with the flow.”
The natural flow, with Joe Girardi as manager, was a more involved Bowa.
There was a time when that might have been controversial; Bowa, in his more fiery years, held modern players to a standard that his critics believed was unfair. He was prone to emotional displays — in public and private settings. Some people loved that. It rubbed others the wrong way.
Bowa does more observing now. He joked that this generation of players might not know what he did on the field, but there is no need to be that person who rhapsodizes about the past.
“There are a lot of guys, especially young guys, who really don’t know about the history of the game,” Bowa said. “So, obviously, they go google you. They find out. ‘Oh, I didn’t know he played that long. I didn’t know he had 2,000 hits.’ That respect thing comes into play right away.”
He laughed.
Larry Bowa talks to Manny Machado and Bobby Dickerson in 2019. (Jake Roth / USA Today)
That rapport was evident in recent springs, even after Bowa’s time as bench coach ended in 2017. It was amplified in the truncated time the Phillies were gathered in Florida. Segura, one morning this spring, emerged from a back door to the clubhouse and approached the half field that doubled as Bowa’s second home during workouts.
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“Back for some more?” Bowa asked.
“You know it,” Segura said. He pointed his glove at Bowa.
The old shortstop has a trained eye for the finest of infield details. Bowa echoed what most Phillies officials expressed during spring training: He liked what he saw from Segura.
“I think the biggest thing is him accepting that role,” Bowa said of the transition to third base. “I don’t think it had anything to do with his ability. He came in with a great mindset. He definitely has enough arm. There were a couple of balls early in the spring where he … when you play short, you try to get every ball. But at third, you have to understand who is playing next to you and where he’s at. As we progressed through the spring, he was good. I think he’ll do a real good job. That position might prolong his career. That is all instincts down there. At shortstop and second, you have to read hops and make your own hops. At third, it’s very instinctive. I thought he did a good job.”
Those are the topics the Phillies wish they could discuss right now. Soon, Bowa will make the long trip home. He’ll leave Clearwater with a hint of optimism, even if no one knows what comes next. He is, after all, a creature of habit, and this is the time of year when baseball men are supposed to be filled with hope.
“We have a good group,” Bowa said. “I was hoping we would start on time because I felt something different in the air when we first started camp. We have to get over this big hurdle first, then worry about baseball.”
(Top photo of Larry Bowa and Didi Gregorius: Jonathan Dyer / USA Today)
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