Where are they now: Lyle Mouton?

[greasywheels121]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/bbw/columni...ading-off_x.htm

 

Life after baseball is a never-ending story

By Paul White

 

Ever try to get hold of a free agent during the offseason?

 

You can imagine my delight when I got through to someone without having to make "Steinbrenner" show up on the caller ID screen. Actually, a call from the Yankees probably would say "Cashman," the dual-purpose label describing man and function this time of year.

 

"So, just checking in since we last spoke," I said. "Anything firm yet?"

 

"Nothing yet, but I just spent the morning talking with a few people," the voice on the other end said. "That's what you have to keep doing."

 

Who's left out there looking, you're thinking. Don't try guessing. It would be like that commercial about trying to cash in airline miles: "Nope, uh-uh, no, no way, not a chance ..."

 

I was chatting with Lyle Mouton. Surely you remember — big, powerful outfielder, White Sox and more cups of coffee than a Starbucks snob, never quite made it. I'd been wondering about Lyle since I ran into him on a Friday evening at the winter meetings in December. And ran into him Saturday morning. And Saturday afternoon. And a couple of times Sunday.

 

Just a useful tip here, folks. If you're ever tempted to go to the winter meetings for stargazing, forget it. Sometimes, a team will slip a guy in the back door to show him off when they sign him to a big-bucks deal, but that's about it. This year's meetings were in Anaheim, Calif., close to home for the one-third of baseball people who don't live in Florida or Arizona. No matter, no need to bring those binders of baseball cards that autograph geeks carry.

 

Richie Sexson had a couple of quick "no comments" getting off the elevator after visiting a couple of teams. Jim Edmonds cruised through once in jeans and flip-flops, just looking for some friends.

 

Then there was Tommy John. His name comes up all the time anyway, though some younger folks probably think that's first name, middle name with a last name of Surgery. But the man himself, who has managed in the Yankees' system and coached Expos prospects the past couple of years, actually was there. That's getting closer to winter meeting reality.

 

But this is where you're less likely to say, "Oooohh," and more likely, "Oh yeah, him."

 

For every Edmonds cameo, there are repeated encounters with Mouton; for every brief Sexson comment, all the time you could want with Buddy Biancalana.

 

See, made you say it — "Oh yeah, him."

 

Biancalana has been in baseball as a minor league manager. He's been an agent, done private coaching, dabbled in a radio venture. He wants back on the field.

 

He managed a couple of minor league seasons in the Devil Rays' and Phillies' organizations. Got let go. You're never quite sure about some of these moves in baseball. A lot goes unspoken. But Biancalana is a huge proponent of the value of techniques such as breathing and relaxation exercises. He says meditation has been a major factor in his life. He's not afraid to pass along what he's learned to any interested minor leaguers. Some players swear by what he has taught them.

 

Then again, baseball isn't always open to something that might be called innovative. Of course, that's not the term that would be used by some of the more curmudgeonly sorts still trying to develop players.

 

Who knows if that's why a guy with experience has to work the lobby at the winter meetings? He probably wouldn't get a straight answer if he asked.

 

Biancalana, the former Kansas City shortstop, made his mark in the 1985 World Series, but he got more notoriety for being a David Letterman foil during Pete Rose's chase for the hit record. His fame has little to do with the defense that was his baseball strength. Truth be told, people like to say his name. As for the rest of his game, if Biancalana were any easier to say, let's just say it probably wouldn't be called the Mendoza Line.

 

Mouton never made the World Series or a splash on network TV, never hit it as big as expected on major league fields, kicking around six organizations, plus Japan. But he has his own version of fame — and a real job. He's a financial adviser in Florida.

 

We're not talking about your run-of-the-mill, signed-out-of-high-school, what-else-can-I-do ex-ballplayer. The man has a marketing degree from LSU. He even rankled some Yankees brass after his first pro season in 1991, skipping the instructional league for that one last semester he needed for the degree.

 

Here, let me lay a few more "oh yeahs" on you: Mouton, starting guard alongside Chris Jackson (who later became Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf) on LSU's 1989 West Regional basketball team. The man guarded Rex Chapman, Tim Hardaway, Vernon Maxwell, even some pick-up games against some Jordan fella who used to play in the minors.

 

Mouton has a national championship, won while starring across campus for the LSU baseball squad. That's what's in his blood. He's still a Louisiana legend, a trait that runs in the family. His grandfather, Wallace "Wa-Wa" Mouton, played for and ran a barnstorming team in Lafayette during segregation. Two of Wa-Wa's brothers played on that team and another brother, Curt, played piano with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton, then used his music to become a conspicuous community and church figure in Lafayette. There's obviously an adventurous gene in the lineage. But why the need to not let go of baseball?

 

"Because you've done it for so long," Mouton says. "You miss the people involved in the game. It's a case of being familiar with it. Remember, you get out of the game and you haven't built experience outside of baseball. Most people at this age are done feeling their way through the 'this job's not for me' part of their lives."

 

At age 35, that's something Mouton doesn't want to spend a lot of time on. He's married with two daughters and a son between the ages of 5 and 8. That's part of the enticement, in his case, to put that degree to work in the front office rather than put the uniform back on. After you've been through half of Triple-A and halfway around the world, why make a family endure more of that if you can avoid it?

 

That's part of why Mouton is especially proud of standing up to the Yankees 14 years ago to finish his degree, "not knowing that it would be such a big decision," he says. "Guys sign and they have it written into their contracts that the team will pay for them to finish school, you promise your parents, but then there's instructional leagues and winter leagues, and the longer you're out, well, guys just don't go back."

 

And the rest of that equation is that not everybody eventually gets the call from the cash man. The real world awaits.

 

"I know guys who found themselves six years out of high school and never above Double-A," Mouton says. "What do they do next?

 

"People don't realize it's not the same for baseball players as it is for a basketball player who gets drafted," he says. "For what you get paid in the minors, you go home every year hoping UPS is hiring extra drivers."

 

Right now, Mouton and plenty of others are hoping someone in baseball is hiring. He admits the game is "like that old shoe" but doesn't see trying to get into management as such a giant step from a shirt-and-tie job.

 

"Actually, baseball is like the corporate world," he says. "It's a growth process."

 

And for all but the select few and their millions, the growth process begins all over again when the games are over.

[JoshPR]

Cool Man, Thanks for that.

 

Wow Buddy Biancalana... Blast from the Past

[whitesoxin']

Lyle was one of my favorites on the White Sox. I don't know why, but I just took a liking to him. Thanks for the article.

[Hatchetman]

we traded jack mcdowell for that guy.