Daily Madden: When Coaches Go Toe To Toe
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - In spring training play, Cincinnati manager Dusty Baker and Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson argued at home plate before the game over whether to use the DH. It reminded John Madden of incidents he had with other head coaches, including the late Norm 'The Dutchman' Van Brocklin.
"We're playing him in a preseason game when there was a strike," Madden told the KCBS morning crew. Van Brocklin said he didn't have a captain to call the coin flip. "The heck with him, I said, 'I'll tell you what... I'll call it for you.' And he goes 'okay, you go ahead.' So I called heads and it was tails. I said 'we win.' So I took the ball and the wind."
Madden and Van Brocklin were good friends.
"You do things like that with guys that you have a history with... If you don't know them too well, then it's not funny to mess with them," he said.
Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman broke his leg Monday in a sky diving stunt to benefit the Wounded Warriors Project. It happened on his second leap of the day.
"When you do something like that and you get through it, then you just ought to take your odds and get the heck out of there," Madden said, noting it's something he'd never do. "I wouldn't even get up where you have to do it from, so I couldn't get to point A." (7:45)
Daily Madden
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