Nick Piccone
I love Darren Daulton. For his unabashed knack for delivering some fairly interesting, if not weird, interviews over the years, all that love was pushed to the forefront when Daulton underwent surgery to remove two malignant tumors in his brain a few years ago.
And if this story is anything like the actual incident, I love Dutch even more. John Kruk, the newest addition to the CSN Phillies broadcasts, debuted his new Krukcast today and had this amazing story to tell regarding an incident between Daulton and Phillies closer Mitch Williams. Let’s just say Dutch also had a knack for delivering some much needed reality checks during his playing days.
“There was an incident, it’s been documented, with Mitch Williams our closer. Terry Mulholland pitched the gem of a complete game, which Terry had a knack to do. When he started it, he wanted to finish it. Mitch came in and he was upset. He yelled at Jimmy Fregosi for not bringing him in, ‘If I’m you’re closer you gotta put me in that game.’ Darren took Mitch to the back room and said, ‘Look, that’s not what we’re about and if that ever happens again I’ll rip your arm off and you’ll never pitch again.'”
“We understood that Darren didn’t have meetings but when he said something we listened and we took it to heart because Jimmy Fregosi demanded that of Darren and then Darren in return demanded that of us.”
“You can’t find a better leader in baseball. When he got traded to the Florida Marlins in 1997, Jim Leyland was their manager and he said they wouldn’t have won without Darren.”
I still remember the day he got traded. Daulton was my first true Phillie love, and I felt the same sadness, but also closure, that I did when Chase Utley was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Love you, Dutch. And love you even more now.
You can listen to Kruk’s entire first podcast about the 1993 Phillies below.
You can follow Nick Piccone on Twitter (@nickpiccone) and e-mail him at [email protected]. Subscribe to his podcast on iTunes here. Click here to read his pro wrestling articles on PhillyVoice. Follow Philly Influencer on Twitter (@PHL_Influencer), Facebook and Instagram.