Lee Elia, manager of Cubs and Phillies, dies at 87
Lee Elia, a former major league player and coach who was managing the Chicago Cubs in 1983 when he famously criticized the team’s fans for booing in a memorable postgame rant, has died. He was 87.
The Philadelphia Phillies said Elia, who spent more than 50 years in professional baseball, died on Wednesday. No further details were provided by the team.
Elia, a Philadelphia native, had a 238-300-1 record in four seasons as a major league manager — two with the Cubs and two with the Phillies.
“Elia was a valued contributor to the Phillies for much of his half century in professional baseball,” the team said in a statement. “The third base coach for the 1980 World Series championship team, he also spent time in the organization as a minor league player, manager, scout and director of instruction.
“Affiliated with 10 different organizations throughout his distinguished career, he always considered himself a Phillie at heart.”
Elia landed his first managerial job in 1982 with the Cubs at age 44. In his two seasons with the Cubs, Elia went 127-158, but he was most remembered for his expletive-filled rant directed at booing Cubs fans just 19 games into the 1983 season.
On April 29, 1983, Elia was the skipper for the Cubs when they dropped to 5-14 with a 4-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Wrigley Field crowd of 9,391 threw garbage at players Keith Moreland and Larry Bowa as the Cubs made their way to the clubhouse.
Elia responded with a rant that lives on with censored versions still being played on various programs years later. As part of his remarks, he declared that “85% of the world is working” and that “the other 15 come out here.”
Back then, there were no lights at Wrigley Field and the Cubs played only day games at home.
“At the moment, it was very, very difficult,” Elia said 25 years later while revisiting that day as part of a charity drive. “But you sit here and you’re 70 years old and you look at it and you say to yourself, ‘You know, yeah, it was unfortunate.’ But for crying out loud, we’re human beings and you make mistakes sometimes.”
The Philadelphia native managed the Phillies during the 1987 and 1988 seasons, going 111-142-1. He was the third base coach when the Phillies won the 1980 World Series.
Elia also worked for the Seattle Mariners from 1993-97, 2001-02 and in 2008 as a hitting coach, bench coach and special assistant to the field manager.
Seattle manager Dan Wilson, who played for the Mariners from 1994 to 2005, called Elia a special man and coach.
“Lee really taught me how to play in the big leagues,” Wilson said Thursday. “He taught me how to hit in the big leagues. He was like a father to me in the game and just really dearly missed. He treated everybody with so much love. When you’re called and referred to as Uncle Lee, he made a lot of impressions with people and that’s how he was known to us and we are going to miss him dearly.”
After signing with the Phillies as an amateur free agent in 1958, Elia made his major league debut as a shortstop for the Chicago White Sox in April 1966 and played in 80 games. The Cubs purchased his contract in May 1967, and he played in 15 games in the 1968 season. He batted a combined .203 with three home runs and 25 RBIs in 95 MLB games.
Elia, born July 16, 1937, also coached and served in other capacities with the Phillies, New York Yankees, Mariners, Toronto Blue Jays, Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles between 1980 and 2008.
The Associated Press and Field Level Media contributed to this report.
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Kristen Shilton
TORONTO — The 2026 Winter Olympic Games are less than 90 days away in Italy, and there is still work to be done on the ice surfaces that will showcase NHL players suiting up at their first Games in a decade.
The league hasn’t allowed its skaters to participate at the Olympics since 2014 in Sochi. Now that they are on the cusp of returning, there are serious questions about the quality of ice both men and women players will be working with in February.
“There’s still work ongoing on the rinks and the ice conditions,” confirmed NHL commissioner Gary Bettman at the NHL GM meetings on Tuesday. “It’s something that we’re monitoring closely, and we have absolutely no control over. This is all on the [International Olympic Committee] and the [International Ice Hockey Federation].”
Bettman said the league is getting “constant reassurances” from the IOC and IIHF that “everything will be fine” with the rinks by the time athletes arrive overseas. At this point, the main hockey rink — Santagiulia Arena — is still under construction. The venue was meant to undergo testing for Olympic events in December, with a U-20 world championship tournament. But that’s now been moved to another rink — the Rho Fiera — that will host secondary hockey matches during the Games.
Those building delays could mean that no games will actually be played at Santagiulia Arena until the women’s hockey schedule officially opens Feb. 5 with an untested ice surface. Beyond just being a safety issue for players, there’s also a question of testing things such as bathrooms and concessions for fans in a newly constructed space.
While the NHL can’t do much to expedite the construction process, they are staying actively involved in what’s going on. When the league’s current Global Series showcase in Sweden between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Nashville Predators wraps up this weekend, NHL executives will make a pilgrimage to Milano-Cortina to check the status of rink construction for themselves.
What they find there remains to be seen. All Bettman can reiterate is that it’s out of the NHL’s hands.
“We’re simply invited guests,” Bettman said.
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