Former Cubs manager Lee Elia remembered for one of greatest sports rants of all time
The news that former MLB player and manager Lee Elia died this week brought back vivid memories of Elia's profanity-laced rant against Chicago Cub fans after the team's 5-14 start to the 1983 season.
It's an all-timer, trumping Kansas City Royals manager Hal McRae's destruction of a locker room telephone, among other well-known managerial meltdowns.
As a die-hard Cubs fan, considering the magnitude of the rant and the story behind it, I had to have a signed 1968 Topps card of Lee Elia. I bought the card about two years ago and felt it was well worth the few bucks I paid for it.
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Elia died Wednesday at age 87. He played 12 years in professional baseball, including a 15-game stint with the Cubs in 1968. All told, Elia played in 95 big league games over two seasons, starting with the Chicago White Sox in 1966.
His final stats: .203 batting average with three home runs and 25 RBIs.
Elia went on to manage the Cubs in 1982 when they finished last in the National League Eastern Division with a 73-89 record, and for 123 games in 1983 before being replaced in August by Charlie Fox.
His firing came one season before Jim Frey took over as manager in 1984 and steered the Cubs to the division title and their first playoff berth in 39 years.
Here's how it unfolded: On April 29, 1983, the Cubs lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-3. The winning run scored after a wild pitch by Chicago closer Lee Smith, who would go on to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019.
As detailed in George Castle's book, fans, entangled in Ivy, poured beer on Cubs players Keith Moreland, Larry Bowa and Ron Cey as they headed to the clubhouse after the game.
Elia blew his top in the postgame presser in a five-minute verbal explosion, resulting in what many consider to be the greatest sports rant of all time.
WARNING: This video contains extreme profanity.
He ripped Cub fans for their lack of support from the stands, which had some merit. Back then, in the 1970s and early-80s, the Cubs did not draw well at Wrigley Field, given the team's continuous losing ways. Wrigley was typically less than half full during those days. In 1983, the Cubs averaged just over 18,000 in home attendance at a 40,000-capacity ballpark.
Elia, who also managed the Phillies in 1987 and ’88 and coached for several teams, didn't hold back that spring day, criticizing those few thousand who did go to the ballpark, punctuated by F-bombs and other extreme profanity. He summarized that they were part of the 15 percent of Chicagoans who didn't work for a living and had no appreciation for ballplayers working hard at their jobs.
Cleaning up his language for Sports Collectors Digest, Elia told local media: “I'll tell you one thing. I hope we get hotter than sh--, just to stuff them 3,000 people that show up every day. Because if they're real Chicago fans, they can kiss my a-- right downtown and print it! They're really behind you around here—my ass."
His term “print it” referred to the Chicago Tribune, which acquired the Cubs two years earlier and owned the team until 2009, when they were sold to the Ricketts family, the Cubs’ current owner.
The story of the recording behind Elia's episode is a classic in itself. Chicago radio reporter Les Grobstein was the only member of the media in the Cubs' cramped clubhouse to record the rant, although there are reports that longtime sports television personality Mark Giangreco had the tirade on videotape, but had lost it over the years. Regardless, if Grobstein hadn't activated his tape recorder, the exact tirade would've never been heard.
If you read between the curse words in the rant, Elia could tell the Cubs were on the verge of something, special despite their struggles in 1982 and '83.
“The changes that have happened in the Cubs organization are multifold,” Elia said in the midst of his rant. “Once we hit that groove, it will flow and it will flow, the talent's there. It would be different if I walked in here at 8:30 [in the morning] and saw a bunch of guys who didn't give a sh--. They give a sh--. It's a tough National League East. It's a tough National League period.”
RIP, Lee Elia. Cub fans will never forget him and the unwavering support of his ballplayers.
— Don Muret, a former reporter for Sports Business Journal and VenuesNow, is a lifelong Cubs fan and longtime card collector.
Don Muret