- “I was at a luncheon celebrating the release of my Road to 500 video, an event attended by representatives of the Philadelphia sports media. Following the speeches, Stan Hochman, a writer for the Philadelphia Daily News, cornered me, and we got into a general discussion about the Phillies organization, past and present. I told Sam I thought the organization wasn’t as attentive to details as it once had been, and that certain things—the AstroTurf, the dugouts, the clubhouses—weren’t being maintained as immaculately as in the past. I told Stan that we actually had a family of stray cats roaming under the stands after hours, and that the dugout runway to the clubhouse smelled like cat piss. Needless to say, I said this without thinking, as I should have, that he was taking it all down, and certainly without meaning to disrespect the people responsible for stadium maintenance. The next day, Stan’s Daily News article reported—accurately, I’m afraid—what I had said. That afternoon when I arrived at the clubhouse, I found a sweeper, disinfectant, and other household cleaning articles in my locker, plus a bouquet of flowers. The worst part, of course, was that I had unintentionally offended several close friends, especially clubhouse man Kenny Bush and stadium operations director Mike DeMuzio. I should have been smart enough to know that (a) the stadium was managed by the City of Philadelphia, and (b) certain friends might be hurt by seeing my words in print. I drove another nail into my coffin when I was quoted in a Philadelphia publication following my retirement as saying, “The Phillies are my team.” I meant simply that I had given my life to the Phillies—which I had. To this day, I cannot understand how anybody could think otherwise. But some in the front office evidently did. (P.S.: The dugout runway did smell like cat piss.)” Clearing the Bases (Schmidt, Mike;Waggoner, Glen) Kindle Location 1035-1049