How an early stint with the Marlins influenced Craig Counsell's career as a player and manager
MIAMI – It’s been 27 years since a young Craig Counsell, the Florida Marlins logo emblazoned across his pinstriped chest, stepped in the batter’s box in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series. Even now, so far removed from that moment with the tying run on third, there was no way he could forget what was going through his mind.
“I was just telling myself, ‘Swing,’” Counsell recalled in a conversation with the Sun-Times this weekend, as the Cubs took on the Marlins in a three-game series. “‘You have a chance to win the World Series. Swing.’”
He hit a deep sacrifice fly to tie the game. And in the 11th inning, he scored the winning run on Édgar Rentería’s walk-off single.
Counsell only spent parts of three seasons with the Marlins – a blip in the span of a 16-year major-league playing career and another decade as a manager. But they were formative years. His time in Florida accelerated his career trajectory, got him his first World Series ring, and put him under the tutelage of Hall of Fame manager Jim Leyland.
“A lot happened really fast,” Counsell said. “To go from a Triple-A second baseman to playing in a World Series three months later – so, great memories.”
It all started with a promising report from then-Marlins scout Dick Egan, who described himself as “an old-timer then; now I'm an antique.”
Egan remembers sitting in the stands at a Triple-A Colorado Springs game when Dave Dombrowski, who was the Marlins general manager at the time and is now the Phillies president of baseball operations, called.
“There's no beating around the bush,” Egan said of Dombrowski in a phone interview Sunday.
As Egan tells it, Dombrowski asked, “Can Craig Counsell play second base for us?”
Egan’s response: “Yeah, sure.”
“I mean, right now, can he play second base? ”
Right in front of Egan, Counsell was taking infield reps during batting practice.
Egan doubled down.
“I said, ‘Yeah,’ not knowing exactly what was in my report,” he said.
His report was written on carbon copy triplicate paper, and his copy was back at the hotel.
Dombrowski said he’d call back, and when he did, the trade was done. Counsell was coming to the Marlins, and reliever Mark Hutton was headed to the Rockies. It was a unique deal, with a young player who had all of four games of major-league experience joining a playoff-bound team in exchange for a more established player.
Egan sweated through the rest of the game. Reading his report back at the hotel later that night didn’t help.
“I had a nice report on him, but it was not like, ‘Oh, this is a major-league superstar,’” Egan said. “And so I'm sitting there – Dombrowski made the trade, and so now it's my ass.”
Dombrowski, of course, had read the report. And more research had gone into the trade than Egan’s answer on the phone that day. But Egan has seen something in Counsell that ended up translating nicely to the majors.
“He was always working and trying to do something out there on the field to get ready,” Egan said.
He could breathe a little easier after Counsell’s solid Marlins debut. The rookie went on to hit .299 that year and become an unlikely World Series hero. And the Marlins, flush with talent and personalities, didn’t need a superstar. Counsell was the steady presence at second base they were looking for.
“As much as he can be quiet and introverted now, it was even more so then,” Cubs broadcaster Jon ‘Boog’ Sciambi said. “He was super quiet.”
Sciambi was in a similar situation in 1997. In the first year of his first MLB job, serving as the Marlins radio pregame and postgame host, he found sitting back and quietly observing served him well.
Sometime in August, Sciambi had Counsell on the postgame show. Sciambi told the rookie, “They’re going to come to me in a minute.”
After sitting in silence for a while, Counsell turned to Sciambi and said, “This is taking longer than a minute.”
“And then that's where you can add my quote, saying, ‘He hasn't changed much,’” Sciambi said, smiling.
That kind of dry humor – sometimes delivered with a straight face and others leading to a wry grin – is still a Counsell special.
“As a player, there was a mental toughness and a single-mindedness that he had,” Sciambi said, “that if you could have inputted that in players with more physical talent, I think it would have been incredible.”
He points to 1998, when Counsell was hit in the jaw by a fastball and didn’t go down to the ground.
Counsell says he stayed standing more out of confusion, followed by fear. He then went through the “miserable” experience of having his broken jaw wired shut, and going on a liquid diet for eight weeks. But the moment stuck with both Sciambi and Counsell in different ways.
Counsell, a special assistant in the Brewers front office in 2014, was in attendance when then-Marlins star Giancarlo Stanton was hit in the face by Milwaukee pitcher Mike Fiers and taken to the hospital.
“I was literally sick to my stomach,” Counsell said.
The Brewers then became the first organization to encourage C-flap helmets for all their players and standardize the extra protection in their farm system, which eventually became a national story in 2018.
“Then some guys got hit, and they didn't get hurt,” Counsell said. “And I was, weirdly, kind of proud of that.”
More threads that connect Counsell’s time with the Marlins to his post-playing career stem from Leyland’s influence.
“One of the things he always tested me on is, ‘Do you know who you are as a player? Do you know what you're good at?” Counsell said. “He never said it, but it’s like, if you don't know who you are, I don't trust you.”
Leyland, infamously gruff, and Counsell, even-keeled but direct, have different dispositions.
“He could be really hard on you, but you always knew that he loved you,” Counsell said. “And that's just a great trait for a coach.”
It’s one Counsell strives to embody – in his own way.
When Counsell reached the end of his contract in Milwaukee last fall and was mulling the next step of his career, he called Leyland.
Before Leyland managed Counsell and the Marlins to the World Series in 1997, he’d spent 11 years at the helm with the Pirates. His managerial career ended up stretching over two decades. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame this year.
“He’s had more experiences than I have, but at some points we’ve had similar experiences,” Counsell said. “So I was just asking him about those experiences.”
They’d come a long way from their unforgettable overlap in Florida, but it had forged the beginnings of a lasting connection.
NOTE: The Cubs dropped the final game of the series against the Marlins on Sunday 7-2 to fall short of a sweep.
“It's a good series, it’s a road-win series, but had a chance to make it a great series today and couldn't finish it,” Counsell said. “A little reminiscent of the [2-1] Toronto series, where we could have finished it off and just couldn’t do it. But winning series is a good thing. Just keep doing that.”
Cubs starter Javier Assad recovered from surrendering two home runs in the first inning to hold the Marlins to three runs through seven innings. But the Cubs offense that exploded for a season-high 14 runs Saturday had no such pizzazz Sunday. And reliever Julian Merryweather struggled to the tune of five hits and four runs.
Merryweather’s tough eighth inning included a unique quirk. After he intentionally walked Jesús Sánchez, the Marlins called on a pinch runner. But Sánchez exited before touching first base. Counsell walked out to get clarity and had Merryweather throw to first to appeal, resulting in an out.