When Frank LaCorte signed with the Atlanta Braves in 1973, the
Gilroy native wasn’t shy about letting it be known that he was
certain he would make it to the major leagues.
LaCorte showed up four days early to his minor league assignment
in Greenwood, S.C. He didn’t think the hotel the Braves put him up
in was particularly nice
– especially when he found himself locked in his room the
morning he was planning to go to training camp for the very first
time.
Gilroy – When Frank LaCorte signed with the Atlanta Braves in 1973, the Gilroy native wasn’t shy about letting it be known that he was certain he would make it to the major leagues.
LaCorte showed up four days early to his minor league assignment in Greenwood, S.C. He didn’t think the hotel the Braves put him up in was particularly nice – especially when he found himself locked in his room the morning he was planning to go to training camp for the very first time.
When an older man came along and unlocked the door from the outside, LaCorte gave the gentleman an earful about “the kind of organization” that would put a player up in such a shoddy hotel.
Later, the rookie realized he had no way to get to batting practice because he didn’t have a car.
The 22-year-old righthanded pitcher decided to hitchhike to the ballpark. After watching several vehicles pass him by, an older man finally stopped to pick LaCorte up.
“Where are you going?” the man asked.
LaCorte told him he was trying to get to the ballpark.
“I just signed with the Atlanta Braves,” LaCorte recalls saying very smugly. “I’m going to be in the majors.”
“Oh, yeah?” replied the man. “Well, I’m Hoyt Wilhelm and I’m going to be your manager.”
Wilhelm, one of the great early relief pitchers, would be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985. The crafty, ageless knuckleballer informed LaCorte that it was he who let the young player out of his hotel room after he’d gotten locked into it earlier that morning. It was Wilhelm who’d listened to the rookie’s tirade about the Braves organization.
And now it would be Wilhelm who would be exerting the most influence on LaCorte’s young playing career.
Luckily, LaCorte says, his new manager seemed more amused than upset by the rookie’s antics.
“He liked me from that point on,” LaCorte says.
And the young pitcher lived up to his promise of making it to the big leagues.
Up in the Show
Two and a half years after first reporting to Greenwood, LaCorte was called up by the Braves. He went 4-24 in four rough seasons with the Braves, and was traded to the Houston Astros for righthander Bo McLaughlin early in the 1979 season.
McLaughlin wound up pitching just 49.7 innings for the Braves, and was released in 1981.
LaCorte, meanwhile, found a role for himself with the Astros, who used him out of the bullpen rather than starting him as the Braves had done.
After finishing five games for the Astros in 1979, LaCorte was given a great deal more responsibility in 1980.
It would be the best season of his career, with one of the franchise’s best teams in its history.
The reliever’s 8-5 record with 11 saves and a 2.82 ERA helped the Astros to clinch the National League West Division. He had upped his career strikeout rate of 7.6 per 9 innings to nearly 8 per 9 innings. A year later he would pitch arguably even better, striking out 9.5 per 9 innings, and would once again help the Astros make the postseason.
Just last month, the members of that 1980 team, which fell 3-2 to the Philadelphia Phillies in one of the most thrilling league championship series in major league baseball history, were invited back to Houston for their
25-year reunion.
LaCorte spent six years with the Braves, five with the Astros and three with the Angels. But he considers his 1980 Houston teammates his “solid friends.”
“I said ‘I’m in,’ right from the get-go,” says LaCorte about the reunion. “I’ve spoken to a lot of guys since I left (Houston). But there were a lot I hadn’t seen in 20 years.”
Just like old times
LaCorte and his wife of 30 years, Karen, flew to Houston for the reunion, which drew most everyone from that 1980 team – from players, such as Cesar Cedeno, Joe Morgan and Nolan Ryan, to sportswriters who covered the team, to the woman who sang the National Anthem during the series with the Phillies.
For Karen LaCorte, it was a reunion of the “Wives’ Club,” the group of Astros spouses who had become like family to her during her husband’s playing years. The homecoming brought back a lot of memories, both good and bad, about what it was like being a ballplayer’s wife trying to raise a family.
“The guys would leave, and as a wife and mother, you’ve got to be able to hold down the house,” Karen says. “It’s not for the girly-girls. I might look like one, but …” she laughs.
Frank and Karen, also a Gilroy native, met long before Frank’s major league career took off. He was best friends with Karen’s next door neighbor. At the time, LaCorte was a 19-year-old student and baseball player at Gavilan College. Karen was two years younger and attending Notre Dame High School in Salinas.
“He took me on one date and said ‘I’m going to marry you,'” Karen says, with a smile. “I laughed at him.”
“But she’s still here,” Frank chimes in from his desk chair in his office at Marx Towing, where the two reminisce about his ballplaying days.
After four years of dating, the couple got married. Shortly after that, Frank signed with the Braves and they moved all the way across the country.
It was the first of many, many moves during Frank’s 14-year career – 44 in all, the LaCortes calculate. Soon, Karen would be making those moves with the couple’s first child, Vince, now 26. Vanessa, now 21, came five years later.
Every home game was a ritual. Karen would get four seats, pack a lunch and bring the kids’ toys.
“They were literally raised in the stands,” she says.
Vince, who was only eight when his father’s career wrapped up in 1986, has some vague memories from his early childhood.
“I just remember traveling all the time with my mom and it was a little rough,” says Vince, who followed in the footsteps of his father by pitching in the minor leagues with the Angels and Orioles organizations before a 2001 shoulder injury forced him out of the game. “The only thing I remember is hanging out in the clubhouse with the players, running around.”
As good as it gets
The LaCortes call the early days of Frank’s career the best years of their lives, despite being the most difficult for the family.
Frank LaCorte was under pressure because he knew if he didn’t perform once he was called up to the majors, there were plenty of pitchers in the minors hungry to take his place.
“If I looked over my shoulder, there were 500 guys behind me, ready, hoping we would fail,” he says.
That pressure inevitably affected the LaCortes’ home life as well.
“With pitchers, they bring home their wins or losses. And then we had to wait five days (until he pitched again),” Karen says. “If he had a loss, those five days were miserable. If he won, the five days were absolutely wonderful.”
The family also depended on his paycheck. Today’s version of free agency in major league baseball, which has driven up player salaries dramatically, didn’t exist. LaCorte’s first contract was for just $30,000.
“It’s an expensive life to live. … People don’t realize,” Karen says, adding that many players had to keep two homes to keep life bearable for their families. The LaCorte family had to be ready to move at a moment’s notice, which could also get expensive. Frank said with today’s multi-year contracts, that doesn’t happen quite as often.
As his career continued and he had more and more success, LaCorte’s contracts grew and peaked with a $1.3 million cumulative deal with the Angels.
That was an impressive figure, but LaCorte remains more interested in the numbers that really matter – the ones he put up on the playing field.
Snubbed but not forgotten
Perhaps his gaudiest number as a pitcher was his ERA in 1980 before the All-Star break: 0.38. Astonishingly, LaCorte was snubbed from the All-Star team that year, making him the pitcher with the lowest ERA before the All-Star break to not be named an All-Star.
It was a topic his Astros teammates were still talking about at the reunion.
“Everybody brought it up,” Karen says. “It was so neat to hear that.”
Since his career ended in 1986, LaCorte has been back on a major league field just a couple times – he doesn’t like going to the ballpark these days. He cites overly critical fans and a desire to be in the game instead of watching it as reasons to stay away.
But being introduced with the rest of the 1980 team on the field at Minute Maid Park in Houston brought back lots of memories.
“It was hard, standing on the line and looking at the mound,” LaCorte says. “I was thinking, ‘Man, I would do anything to keep doing this.'”
While LaCorte was on the field with his old teammates, Karen watched from a box seat above.
“Have 25 years passed?” she was thinking.
LaCorte says he still hasn’t gotten over losing the five-game NLCS to the Phillies in 1980, during which he saved Houston in Game 2 in the 9th inning by striking out Manny Trillo and getting Garry Maddox to foul out with the Philadelphia’s Bake McBride on third. The Astros won 7-4.
“Even after 25 years, I’m still not over it. I’m not,” LaCorte says.
“(His former teammates) aren’t either,” Karen adds.
At the reunion, LaCorte joked about the fact that he and Karen have remained married while several of his old teammates have gone through divorces.
“I’d say, ‘This is my first wife, Karen,'” LaCorte says.
He saw several of his teammates’ marriages end because they lacked a genuine bond.
Says Karen, who recalls names, facts and memories with as much excitement as her husband, “(As a wife) you’ve got to be flexible and have a love of the game.”
Frank finishes the thought, laughing, “If not, you divorce your husband when the game is over and the money stops rolling in.”
Now that the pair is settled in Gilroy, where Frank runs Marx Towing with Karen, who is also involved with several local charities and is in charge of the Garlic Festival recipe cook-off, the secret to the success of their marriage remains the same as when they were a major league couple.
“Sometimes you get to be the picture and sometimes you have to be the frame,” Karen says. “The key to the whole thing is knowing when you’re the picture and when you’re the frame.”
NLCS, Game 2
How Frank LaCorte got out of a jam and prevented Philadelphia from going 2-0 up on Houston in the 1980 LCS:
Astros 3, Phillies 3
PHILLIES 9TH: LACORTE REPLACED LEONARD (PITCHING); Rose made an out to center; McBride singled to right; Schmidt singled to center [McBride to second]; Smith singled to right [McBride to third, Schmidt to second]; Trillo struck out; Maddox popped to first in foul territory.
0 R, 3 H, 0 E, 3 LOB
Burn baby, burn
On May 26, 1982, after walking three batters in a row in the 10th inning of an 0-0 game against the Montreal Expos, Houston Astros relief pitcher Frank LaCorte was yanked and headed to the locker room in a rage. He proceeded to stripped off his uniform, pulled out a book of matches, and set fire to his jersey.
“That jersey took a long time to burn,” he told reporters. “Took a lot of matches. It doesn’t burn easily, but it burns long.”
The Astros lost 4-0 and LaCorte was fined $250.
