Dan Gladden played in the big leagues for 11 seasons. He was asked before Tuesday night's game at Target Field if he could recall a players-only meeting that had a positive effect on a team.
"I was never in a players-only meeting," Gladden said. "I was in a lot of meetings where the manager would say his piece and then ask, 'Does anybody have anything they want to say?' "
Gladden paused, then said: "Wait. I did have one players-only meeting. There were two of us: me and Steve Lombardozzi. He came over to my house."
This was a reference to the notorious dispute between Twins teammates Gladden and Lombardozzi that turned to fisticuffs in July 1988.
There were no reports of such a disturbance from 3:50 to 4:15 p.m. on Tuesday in the home clubhouse, as the Twins called a players-only meeting to discuss the events of the recent road trip, where they went from being overmatched in Toronto to being an insult to competitive athletics in Cleveland.
As desperation goes, players-only meetings rate slightly above the manager putting nine names in his cap and drawing out a lineup or tipping over the postgame food spread in the middle of the clubhouse.
That last one — a favorite of my managerial hero, Gene Mauch — is hardly an option these days, since the food is now kept in more sanitary conditions in a back room of most clubhouses.
Legend has it, one day in Montreal, Mauch dumped an urn of soup (hopefully, vichyssoise) over the head of pitcher Mike Torrez after a tough defeat for the Expos.