When Bo Porter Became the New Manager of the Houston Astros… by Brian T
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When Bo Porter became the new manager of the Houston Astros… By Brian T. Smith, November 17, 2012 Houston was home. Bo Porter knew it. The love of his life was born in the city. Spring was warm, summer scorched. The endless winters and cold world of Newark, N.J., disappeared. Porter could breathe in Houston. He had space. He felt the promise of opportunity, the potential for change. He also could dig in, plant roots, raise a faithful family and always return home. Even when Major League Baseball pulled him away. Even when The Show randomly called his name. It was 1997. Porter was 25. He'd already proved life wrong, evading Newark's South Ward to reach the Class AA level in the Chicago Cubs' farm system. But a life layered with constant travel and ceaseless restarts - 12 teams from 1997-2003, including three MLB clubs - still waited, and Porter wanted to build something that would last. He created it in Houston when he married his wife, Stacey. His mother and two brothers moved here. His son, Bryce, was born here. Now Bo lives the impossible: He loves his job, his family and the city he works in. Being the first-year manager of the Astros? That's just part of the dream. "Baseball can take you a million different places. You don't know what team you're going to be with, you don't know what city you're going to be in," Bo, 40, said. "We wanted to basically stabilize that portion of our life. Houston was always obviously home to my wife; it had become completely home for me. We just felt like there is no need to go anyplace else … and now it becomes our home year-round." 'It felt like home' It's the first day of school, Bo's sophomore year at the University of Iowa. A female freshman from Houston quietly stands on a street corner. Bo throws a line. "Are you going to be coming this way every day?" he asks. Stacey is nervous. Her eyes dart around, trying to discover who the young man is talking to. Then she realizes it was directed at her and breaks into laughter. A conversation begins that's still going. Twenty-one years later, with two different versions of the story floating around the Porter household, Bo swears he was being sincere. "I don't have pickup lines," he says. "He didn't. And that's what saved him. Seriously," Stacey says. "At that point, he had me. It felt like home. It was very familiar from the very beginning." The Porters dated for five years and have been married for 16. Stacey introduced Bo to Houston. Bo showed Stacey a life few wives ever see and fewer can ultimately handle: flights, taxis, trades, turmoil, drama, 12-hour workdays and a billion-dollar game that never stops. How have they made a baseball marriage work? How are they more in love and more devoted to each other than ever? Trust and understanding, religious faith, a strong home base in Houston and old-fashioned date nights. "They breathe to the same rhythm. Their heart pumps with the same rhythm," said John McIver, Bo's childhood friend from Newark. "They are just so in tune and they are a great support for each other. Their families love each other. It's just two people destined to be together. … It does make you look at your relationship and say, 'Wow. I want that.' He's a very blessed man." Former Cardinals manager Tony La Russa was known for secluding himself in a St. Louis hotel during baseball season while his family stayed in the Bay Area. The Porters plan weekly personal getaways. Nothing fancy, seldom elaborate: a quiet dinner and a movie are the norm. When the season calls and date nights are tougher to secure, Stacey often joins Bo on the road. "Through all the years in the minor leagues and the up-and-down from the big leagues and going up the coaching ladder, she was by my side completely 100 percent," Bo said. "It's just as much her career as my career." From Iowa City, Iowa, to Peoria, Ill. From minor league stays in Sacramento, Calif., and Greenville, S.C., to brief major league stops in Chicago, Oakland and Texas. Now Houston, whose many attributes - diversity, education, sophistication, Fortune 500 companies, "all the shopping in the world" - a lifelong resident proudly touts. "We're always representing Texas," said Stacey, who ran track and played volleyball at Houston's Westbury High School. To make it to Houston, though, Bo first had to get out of Newark. The strong survive McIver is filled with stories about his childhood. Bo was balancing football and basketball with baseball and still maintaining a B average in school when McIver went away for a summer. Pre-departure, McIver could handle Bo in sports. Post- summer, McIver couldn't stay in the game. McIver also remembers Bo's briefcase. Bo grew up in Newark's South Ward: Avon and Madison Avenues and 14th Street. An unforgiving East Coast inner-city neighborhood. No space, little breathing room, many struggles. "When you are born and raised in the community and the atmosphere in which I was born and raised in … the strong will survive - and that's probably putting it lightly," Porter said. Porter and McIver later went to Weequahic High School, where, McIver says, "people literally brought guns to school … not just students - teachers." McIver and the rest of Bo's friends formed a barrier, buffering the future Astros manager from anything that could cut short his trajectory. Bo's response was sincerity. Other kids carried guns; Bo carried a briefcase. The briefcase captured Bo's self-belief and personal drive. Bo was a 4-year-old bat boy when he envisioned devoting his life to sports. Soon, he was cementing down tiny magnetized players on his electric football board that kept falling over and presiding over Sunday games as commissioner of the neighborhood league. At 13, Bo realized he'd have to earn a full athletic scholarship just to escape the South Ward. The child who initially failed to understand why his struggling dad wasn't around - the pair have since reconciled and Bo's father, Irving Johnson, is a minister in Newark - watched his mother's relentless determination and channeled her fire into his own passion. Beverly Porter's favorite memory of her son's dedication: A 5-year-old Bo is forced to stay home inside while his single, unmarried mother works late to support a family. All Bo wants to do is play baseball. So he creates a small field inside his bedroom, drawing a tiny home plate that's neatly tucked into a corner. Then he takes the mound, bouncing a ball while trying to command the strike zone. "I'll never forget it," Beverly said. "I came home and I saw this home plate drawn on my wall and I said, 'Boy!' And he said, 'I wanted to play baseball and I wanted to be the pitcher.' " By high school, anyone who tried to limit Bo's vision was wasting his time. Anyone who doubted a man who now cites Frank Robinson, Dusty Baker and Davey Johnson as baseball mentors was a fool. Anyone could see that because Bo carried a briefcase at Weequahic. "There is no room for mediocrity in Bo Porter," said McIver, who moved to the Dallas area after Bo settled in Houston. "His dedication to the pursuit of excellence is unparalleled. He has a very low tolerance for people who don't live up to … his standard of commitment and his standard of effort." Better than a movie Bo doesn't settle and doesn't relent. Which is why on a cool, bright, relaxing early November afternoon in Houston he's walking through the Astros' dugout and proudly pointing out to his wife everything he's about to alter. Next to the Astros' bench are a small video area and hitting cage. Beyond the dugout, a hallway leads to Houston's locker room. Bo doesn't see inspiration and can't find energy. Everything looks boring and dull. Hayden Fry, Bo's football coach at Iowa, installed life-affirming messages inside the Hawkeyes' chambers when he began turning the program from a yearly joke into an annual title contender. Bo can't even find baseball pictures along the Astros' hallway. "This is all going to change," Bo tells Stacey. She smiles and listens, following her husband up a hallway, holding his hand as they walk toward the Astros manager's office. Minutes later, Bo's discussing what it means to be one of only three African-American clubhouse leaders working in the national pastime. His answer says much about his baseball life and the self- pride that runs through his veins. It says even more about him. "I believe when you are blessed, it's your responsibility to share your blessings to impact other people," Bo says. " … I hope it also sends a message to other African-Americans that these things are obtainable. But at the same time, there are things that you're going to have to do to put yourself in a better position. Nothing was given to me." Then Stacey starts talking about the movie that is Bo's life. Except it's better and more unbelievable than anything Hollywood would ever greenlight. From Newark to Peoria to Houston. From a street corner in Iowa City to the manager's chair in the city he's long loved and in which his wife grew up.