Charlie Leibrandt pitched for the Royals before being traded to the Braves in December 1989.

DOWN AND AWAY, GOT IT? DOWN AND AWAY, GOT IT?



Kent Mercker pitched six full seasons for the Braves, between 1990 and 1995. He was a both a reliever and, in his last two seasons in Atlanta, a starter.

Whenever I think of Leo, I think of his mound visits. One time he comes out and looks at me and goes, "Why the [bleep] didn't you come in here and talk to him? Get him settled down!" And I say, "I'm the third baseman, Leo. It's your job to be able to tell him." And we started going at it there on the mound. I think he was just kidding around, just trying to give the pitcher a blow, because he looked a little tired.You can push harder when they're going well and not when they're going bad. When they're going bad, that's when they need some support, mentally and physically. If someone's going well, and they get away with something, you make sure they know they got away -- when they're going good. And then when they're going bad, try to point out the good things that they've done.He picked his spots, when he tried to get in your face and get you going a little bit. He came out one game in San Diego, like in, I don't know, '92 or '93, and got in my face on the mound. "Are you hurt?" I said no. He said, "Well, why don't you start pitching like you're not hurt, or we'll get somebody out here who can!" It was all in an effort to try and get me to stop being defensive and go more on the attack.We were working on the side in 1994 or 1995, and he was getting frustrated with me. I was frustrated, too, and he just started ranting and cussing, and I just turned around and said: "Leo, that does nothing for me. Knock it off." He shut up.One time up in Toronto, I came out of a game, and I was pretty heated and he was pretty heated that I was pitching the way I was. We got into it from opposite ends of the dugout pretty good. When the game was over, he said, "You know what, if you didn't care enough to get that mad, then I wouldn't want you on my team." There is never a grudge with Leo.He doesn't put up with a lot of crap.There were times when Rocker would come over in a side session and throw four pitches and get pissed off and throw the resin bags up against the backstop and start cussing and carrying on. When he would do that, I'd say, "See you later." I'd walk out on him. "Hey, where you going?" I'd say: "I ain't watching you do this crap. If you want to use some common sense here and try to upgrade your pitching, then we're going to stay. But if not, forget it."[Mazzone] doesn't get bored. He's not tired of seeing me pitch or John Smoltz pitch. You see a guy pitch 35 times, 35 starts. And it might be 70 times in between that he's throwing. That gets a little tedious.He's able to communicate what he sees and kind of get you to throw the ball like you should be throwing. A lot of pitching coaches I had weren't able to do that. They'd always say, "Nice pitch, nice pitch." That can't help me. One pitching coach I had, the relationship got so bad, I wanted to throw before he came to the park! I didn't want to hear that kind of stuff, because I knew it wasn't true.Leo would just say, "You can't get guys out with that." And we'd work on it, and we'd try to sharpen things up so that, when you go into a game, you'd have some confidence.When you go out on the mound, he may be talking to somebody else. But if you let one pitch go -- maybe your elbow was down -- he'd be right on top of you, and you'd get your elbow back up.