He Listened

By Ron Washington

Pedro gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten in my life from anybody. He called me when I was having problems in Texas. He stayed on the phone with me and talked it all through. Mostly he listened, but he also cared enough to tell it to me straight. This was when I was manager of the Rangers and made a mistake and used cocaine. I did wrong, and I had to deal with the repercussions. I thought we had handled it in house. I went through Major League Baseball and confessed to the organization what I had done. I offered to resign, if that was best for the team. I saw psychiatrists. I went through all of the things that recovery entailed. The Rangers organization supported me and we moved on. Then almost two years later it came out in the press and I had to deal with it all over again, this time in front of the whole world. What Pedro did for me was stay on the phone trying to guide me on how I should handle it. At a time like that, when it feels like the whole world is turning on you, you need to talk to people who care about you, and this is what Pedro expressed to me:

Even though we all have flaws, I care about you, man. I’ve always cared about you. And if I didn’t care about you, I wouldn’t be making this phone call. But I’m going to tell you what I think is the right thing: You can’t avoid anything, Wash. You’ve got to face this head on. Sometimes you have to accept the truth, even though it may take you down a little bit for you to get back up. It’s not as bad as you think it is. It may hurt, but that’s just life. You’ll get over it. People are very forgiving. When you run from things, they continue to follow you, but when you take it on and you deal with the repercussions, it makes you stronger and it keeps you happier. At least you have truth on your side. And when that day is over of facing the truth, guess what? It’s over.

Those were the thoughts Pedro shared with me during that period of time, when he called me. That’s the way I’ve lived my life. That’s my character. But at a time like that it helps when someone cares enough to talk you through it and remind you what you already know. That’s who Pedro was. He was showing you the human being first, and then he had to do his job, and that’s what I loved about him. I followed his advice, and I was glad I did. It all played out exactly the way he said. Pedro knew what the people in that business expected, and his advice definitely made it easier.

One thing about Pedro as a reporter was he always listened. He allowed you to express yourself. From the first year I knew Pedro, 1996, when he was a Sacramento Bee sportswriter and I was on Art Howe’s coaching staff in Oakland, we hit it off pretty good. Right from the start he came up to me talking like we were the best buddies in the world. Like he could stand up there and ask me anything and I’d give him the answer. And you know the answer to that is I goddamned did. Pedro wasn’t shy and it didn’t seem to me like he had an agenda. He was warmly trying to find the answer to what he might ask. I’m a baseball freak, and whenever he had baseball questions, he came to me and we’d take that discussion wherever it went. He used to find me outside on the bench. I had to get out of the clubhouse, and I certainly did. I couldn’t make anybody better sitting in that goddamned clubhouse.

Throughout the years, ever since then, Pedro didn’t hesitate to call if he had a question about something. He would call just to get my opinion. Like if there was a trade that might happen, he would call to get my take on one player. I’ve told people to learn from Pedro: Use your resources. He was tremendous at using his resources. Not in the sense of using your resources. But if you know somebody who knows something, call them. I tell that to kids today: Don’t be afraid to ask what you don’t know, because then you ask somebody that does know, and guess what? Now you know. You can only really listen to someone if in your mind you’re still open, and Pedro had a way of listening closely even when it seemed like he already knew what he thought about something. That’s how I try to be when I’m working with a player.

To become a great coach you have to listen. I can’t teach you what I know unless I know what you don’t know. The only way I can find that out is to allow you to speak. As a teacher, your pupils have to be a part of what you’re trying to give to them. You’ll never get anywhere if you go in with an attitude of “I know everything” or “You either get it or you don’t.” It’s easy to coach up somebody when you know what you’ve got to coach them on, but it’s tough to coach up somebody when you haven’t let them show you who they are. You can’t build a strength in somebody if you don’t know what their weaknesses are, and the only way you can find out where they’re weak is to let them express themselves. When they begin to tell you who they are, what they’re about, that gives you an opportunity to see how you should approach them.

It takes patience to be a good listener and that was something Pedro understood. We talked a lot about patience. He would talk to me about his son Rio and trying to teach him patience, trying to keep him in the moment, and when the moment came—that is, the big leagues—you’ll still be in the moment. If there’s one thing I always expound on with a kid I’m coaching, it’s patience: Don’t get ahead of what’s in front of you.

You teach patience by constantly expressing it. You’ve just got to keep preaching it over and over and over. And all of a sudden patience builds up in people. It really does, especially if you’re around them on a daily basis like we are in the game of baseball. You can get a kid to understand what patience is. He may not get it right away. It may take some things to knock him down for him to understand. But when he has that positive reinforcement around him every day, the game begins to show him that it takes patience. Even if you have the ability, you’ve got to wait for it to happen at the right time.

You think about these young kids today, how they want things to happen right now, and for some of them it does, but for the majority it takes good coaching to make them understand you will get what is due to you in due time as long as you put in the work, be open-minded to learning, and you stay patient. It’s like A-B-C-D. You can’t jump from B and go to D, because when you get to D, there’s going to be something you’re going to have to have in D that you didn’t get in C because you jumped C. So what’s going to happen? You’re going to end up going all the way back. You’re not going to go back to C. Your ass will go all the way back to A and you’re going to end up starting all over again.

See, I get going, talking about patience, and it makes me think of Pedro all over again. The world is going to miss Pedro. He didn’t do anything but pour love into you any time he called you or saw you. My heart just skipped a beat when I heard he had passed away. He will be sorely missed, man, especially by me, but he’s in a better place.