Lee Elia obit

Lee Elia, manager of Cubs and Phillies, dies at 87

 

He was not on the list.

Lee Elia, a former major league player and coach who was managing the Chicago Cubs in 1983 when he famously criticized the team's fans for booing in a memorable postgame rant, has died. He was 87.

The Philadelphia Phillies said Elia, who spent more than 50 years in professional baseball, died on Wednesday. No further details were provided by the team.

Elia, a Philadelphia native, had a 238-300-1 record in four seasons as a major league manager -- two with the Cubs and two with the Phillies.

"Elia was a valued contributor to the Phillies for much of his half century in professional baseball," the team said in a statement. "The third base coach for the 1980 World Series championship team, he also spent time in the organization as a minor league player, manager, scout and director of instruction.

"Affiliated with 10 different organizations throughout his distinguished career, he always considered himself a Phillie at heart."

Elia landed his first managerial job in 1982 with the Cubs at age 44. In his two seasons with the Cubs, Elia went 127-158, but he was most remembered for his expletive-filled rant directed at booing Cubs fans just 19 games into the 1983 season.

On April 29, 1983, Elia was the skipper for the Cubs when they dropped to 5-14 with a 4-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Wrigley Field crowd of 9,391 threw garbage at players Keith Moreland and Larry Bowa as the Cubs made their way to the clubhouse.

Elia responded with a rant that lives on with censored versions still being played on various programs years later. As part of his remarks, he declared that "85% of the world is working" and that "the other 15 come out here."

Back then, there were no lights at Wrigley Field and the Cubs played only day games at home.

"At the moment, it was very, very difficult," Elia said 25 years later while revisiting that day as part of a charity drive. "But you sit here and you're 70 years old and you look at it and you say to yourself, 'You know, yeah, it was unfortunate.' But for crying out loud, we're human beings and you make mistakes sometimes."

The Philadelphia native managed the Phillies during the 1987 and 1988 seasons, going 111-142-1. He was the third base coach when the Phillies won the 1980 World Series.

Elia also worked for the Seattle Mariners from 1993-97, 2001-02 and in 2008 as a hitting coach, bench coach and special assistant to the field manager.

Seattle manager Dan Wilson, who played for the Mariners from 1994 to 2005, called Elia a special man and coach.

"Lee really taught me how to play in the big leagues," Wilson said Thursday. "He taught me how to hit in the big leagues. He was like a father to me in the game and just really dearly missed. He treated everybody with so much love. When you're called and referred to as Uncle Lee, he made a lot of impressions with people and that's how he was known to us and we are going to miss him dearly."

After signing with the Phillies as an amateur free agent in 1958, Elia made his major league debut as a shortstop for the Chicago White Sox in April 1966 and played in 80 games. The Cubs purchased his contract in May 1967, and he played in 15 games in the 1968 season. He batted a combined .203 with three home runs and 25 RBIs in 95 MLB games.

Elia, born July 16, 1937, also coached and served in other capacities with the Phillies, New York Yankees, Mariners, Toronto Blue Jays, Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles between 1980 and 2008.

Elia was hired as a bench coach for the 1980 and 1981 Philadelphia Phillies major league team. They finished the season NL East Champions with a 91–71 record, one game ahead of the Montreal Expos. That season he helped lead the Phillies under manager Dallas Green to the peak of all the sport, a 1980 World Series Championship. The following year in 1981 the Phillies finished with a 59–48 record. They won the NL East first half with a 34–21 record, however, finished third in the second half with a 25–27 record. They still qualified for the playoffs however and were matched up with the NL East second-half winners, the Montreal Expos. The series went to all five games and the Expos knocked out the defending Champions 3–2 in the National League Division Series. Some notable players he coached in these two years with the Phillies include Larry Bowa, Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt, and Ryne Sandberg.

In 1975, at the age of 37, Elia had begun his managing career in the Western Carolinas League with the Class A Spartanburg Phillies. After his first season of managing he led his team to a league best 81–59 record. The following season the team took a bit of a nosedive and finished with a 59–80 record. In the 1977 season, Elia was promoted as the manager of the Double-A Reading Phillies in the Eastern League. He managed his team to a 63–75 finish, which was good for third place in the Can-Am Division. Notable players he managed on this team were future 1980 World Series champions Kevin Saucier and Keith Moreland. During the 1978 season, Elia remained head man in Reading and turned it around significantly. They finished the 1978 season with a 79–57 record, which was good for second in the league and only 1.5 games back of the first place Yankees. In 1979, he was named manager of the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, the Oklahoma City 89ers. The 89ers finished with a 72–63 record and won the west division. They went on to play the Evansville Triplets (Detroit Tigers affiliate) in the American Association Championship Series. They lost the series in six games as the Jim Leyland led Evansville team won the league. A notable player on this roster was Lonnie Smith, who was a 1982 All Star and a three-time World Series champion left fielder.

In 1982, at the age of 44, Elia was hired as the manager of the Chicago Cubs. He was hired by Dallas Green, who had been his manager the previous two years in Philadelphia. That season they brought players such as Ryne Sandberg, Keith Moreland, and Dickie Noles over from the Phillies roster. They finished the season with a 73–89 record and finished fifth out of six in the NL East.

Elia was often remembered for a infamously profanity-filled tirade directed at the fans at Wrigley Field on April 29, 1983. After the Cubs dropped a one-run game at home to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Elia lost his temper while making post-game remarks to four reporters (the Chicago Tribune's Robert Marcus, the Chicago Sun-Times' Joel Behrig, the Daily Herald's Don Friske, and WLS-AM's Les Grobstein, who recorded it with the only microphone that was in the room). During this tirade Elia vented his feelings about Cubs fans in the stands who were booing and heckling Chicago.

After being fired by the Cubs, he was hired as manager for the Triple-A Portland Beavers (Phillies organization) in the Pacific Coast League. Elia's tenure in Portland is perhaps best remembered for his role in an unusual incident during a May 30, 1984, game against the Vancouver Canadians. Elia was ejected for arguing a called third strike and subsequently threw a chair onto the field before leaving the dugout; this in turn led to the ejection of the team's batboy, Sam Morris, when he refused (acting on instructions from Beavers players in the dugout) umpire Pam Postema's demand that he retrieve the chair that Elia had thrown on the field. Elia led the Beavers to a 62–78 record. He was hired as a bench coach for the Phillies the next season.

In 1987, 61 games into the season, Elia was hired as manager for the 29–32 Phillies. He proceeded to lead the team to an 80–82 record to finish fourth in the NL East. The team was 51–50 that season once he took over as manager. He remained the head man in 1988, but a very disappointing season led to his firing once again as manager. They finished with a 65–96 record and that was good for last place in the NL East.

Elia was named manager of the Clearwater Phillies for the 1990 and 1991. In his first season, he led the team to a 50–87 record. In the following season, he made a dramatic turnaround with the team as they finished with an 81–49 record.

In 1992, at age 54, he was hired as the manager of the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons of the International League. He led the team to an 84–58 record before retiring from being a manager.

Elia resided in Odessa, Florida, with his second wife Priscilla, and his two daughters, Tana and Ashley. He was the uncle of Olympic swimmer Frank Leskaj, the first Albanian-American to represent Albania in the Olympics.

 

Teams

As player

Chicago White Sox (1966)

Chicago Cubs (1968)

As manager

Chicago Cubs (1982–1983)

Philadelphia Phillies (1987–1988)

As coach

Philadelphia Phillies (1980–1981)

Philadelphia Phillies (1984–1987)

New York Yankees (1989)

Seattle Mariners (1993–1997)

Toronto Blue Jays (2000)

Seattle Mariners (2001–2002)

Tampa Bay Devil Rays (2003–2005)

Baltimore Orioles (2006)

Seattle Mariners (2008)

Career highlights and awards

World Series champion (1980)