A Major player

When the George Washington University baseball team played on the West Ellipse, a scenic piece of real estate located between the White House and the Mall, startled tourists found themselves wandering into a ballgame smack in the middle of the most powerful city in the world.

President Truman supposedly watched from his balcony, and a helicopter carrying President Nixon once landed during a game. A player tossed a ball to Nixon as he got out, and Secret Service agents, taking no chances, pounced on it.

The field had no fence. Balls hit into the gaps kept going. And going. Bill Collins, one of the men trying to bring major league baseball back to the nation’s capital — or its suburbs, at least — hit one of the longest balls ever at the Ellipse, a gapper no one could reach, a home run for sure. Except that rounding first, Collins, a freshman catcher for the Colonials, slipped and fell on some sand. He settled for a triple, barely safe.

Now, 35 years later, Collins finally has made it past third base. He is heading home. Will he get there? That depends on whether baseball commissioner Bud Selig decides to move the Montreal Expos to the Washington area and whether Collins’ ownership group gets the nod.

After earning his fortune in telecommunications (cell phone and pager networks), Collins has pursued his real passion since the early 1990s — attempting to bring a major league team to Northern Virginia. Meanwhile, across the Potomac, a group headed by former Nixon staffer Fred Malek is doing the same thing for the District.

Selig has said any decisions on relocation and owners will be announced at some point after tomorrow’s All-Star Game. If the Washington area gets a third try at the big leagues, which appears likely (then again, with baseball, you never know), the re-named Expos will play in RFK Stadium before moving into a new ballpark.

Collins, the head of the Virginia Baseball Club, last month unveiled plans to build a $360million stadium in Loudoun County, near Dulles airport. He figures to be the majority owner if his group is picked, bringing a rare, I-played-the-game perspective to a club comprised mainly of nonjock corporate types. Collins spent three seasons in the Milwaukee Brewers’ organization, reaching Class AA before choosing what he then believed would be a career in politics.

But it was at GW that Collins excelled as a player. Back then, no one knew of William L. Collins III. He wasn’t even called Bill that much. When Collins fell down that day rounding first, his coach, Steve Korcheck, yelled out, “Gosh darn, Meat!” or something more explicit. Kor-check called everyone “Meat,” an old baseball appellation, but it stuck to Collins.

A multisport star at DeMatha Catholic (he was quarterback and kicker for the football team) from Oxon Hill, Bill “Meat” Collins was a stud at GW from 1969 through 1972, an All-Southern Conference, switch-hitting catcher who wore No.7 like his idol, Mickey Mantle. Collins was a decent hitter, but his real strength was behind the plate.

“He had a gun for an arm, and he was great at blocking pitches,” recalled Hank Bunnell, considered the best pitcher in GW history.

Best of all was how Collins took over a game.

“He was intelligent, a good receiver, a student of the game, and he had really good baseball knowledge,” said Korcheck, an ex-catcher himself who left GW in 1970, earned his doctorate and wound up as president of Manatee Junior College in Bradenton, Fla., for 17 years.

Even while young and relatively inexperienced, Collins knew enough to teach pitcher Jodie Wampler how to throw a slider. “I went on to have a great college career, and it was all because of that pitch,” Wampler said.

“I always approached baseball from a cerebral standpoint,” said Collins, who puts on a golf tournament to raise money for the GW program every year.

But what distinguished Collins from most others on the field was his fiery personality, his football-like mentality. Catchers are supposed to be like quarterbacks. Collins was that — and a linebacker, too.

“He was very dedicated to the game, very competitive,” said Korcheck, who played for the Washington Senators in the 1950s. “He wanted to win all the time, which was fine.”

Some lead by example. Others verbalize and spray their emotions all over the place. Collins did both.

“Bill was a pretty forceful guy,” Wampler said. “He was a take-charge guy just like he is today.”

Bob Tallent, better known as a former GW basketball coach, also worked as a baseball assistant and, for one season, coach. Tallent remembers Collins dropping by his office, wearing a rubber suit and challenging him to one-on-one hoops.

There was no doubt who would win. Tallent averaged 28 points a game for the Colonials after transferring from Kentucky, where he was recruited by the legendary Adolph Rupp. But Collins always put up a fight, sometimes literally.

“He was pretty rough to play with,” said Tallent, whose brothers, Mike and Pat, also played basketball for GW. “He didn’t believe in letting you score, put it that way.”

Sam Perlozzo, the Baltimore Orioles’ bench coach and a former GW star, said, “Bill didn’t do anything halfway. He had a goal in mind, and that’s what he wanted to do, and when he set himself to do something, he’d usually get it done. He was a fierce competitor. He was an intimidator in college. It was just his personality and the way he went about his business.”

Perlozzo, a speedy, slick-fielding shortstop, was a year behind Collins at GW. Unlike Collins, Perlozzo got to play in the majors, appearing in 10 games with the Minnesota Twins in 1977 and two games with San Diego in 1979. He since went on to be a successful minor league manager and a respected big league coach. After Baltimore fired manager Mike Hargrove before the season, Perlozzo loomed as the favorite to replace him.

The O’s instead hired Yankees coach Lee Mazzilli, whom Perlozzo managed for a week at Class AAA Tidewater nearly 20 years ago. “It was right there in my lap,” Perlozzo later told a reporter.

Perlozzo might be close again. Word among baseball types is that if Collins lands the Expos, he will hire Perlozzo to manage the club. It also is likely the D.C. group, which might tap Collins’ expertise, would give Perlozzo a hard look.

Naturally, Collins cannot commit to anything publicly because a) he doesn’t have the team and b) the Expos already have a manager, Frank Robinson. Still, Robinson, who turns 69 next month, is not expected to follow the Expos to wherever it is they settle.

“Sam is an outstanding coach in professional baseball,” Collins said. “He’s had two or three opportunities to be a manager, and it’s very surprising he hasn’t been rewarded with a managing position. He is one of the candidates we would look at very closely.”

Said Perlozzo: “I would like to have that opportunity, but I learned a long time ago not to take anything for granted. … But I know Bill, and I know I’d be considered.”

Perlozzo and Collins, both members of the GW Athletic Hall of Fame, go back to before college. They once played against each other in a high school football game. A native of Cumberland, Md., Perlozzo was an elusive scatback for Bishop Walsh. Collins played for DeMatha, which won 14-13. Collins’ PAT was the difference.

“I ran well,” Perlozzo said. “But I know one thing. They could hit.”

At GW, Perlozzo caught Collins’ passes on the same intramural football team. They shared a room, along with Wampler, in Adams Hall, a dormitory on 19th Street long since torn down. Immediately, Collins, who knew the city pretty well, took both under his wing and proceeded to supplement their education. Perlozzo came from a small town, Wampler an even smaller town in Virginia.

“D.C. didn’t intimidate Bill like it did us,” Perlozzo said. “He took me to some places I couldn’t believe I went to. He said, ’You’ll go, and you’ll like it.’ There were no gray areas with Bill. ’This is what we’re gonna do, and let’s go.’”

Collins was the most popular member of the most popular fraternity, Delta Tau Delta, the jock frat, a big man on the small, urban campus. To say he got the most out of college life would be a grave understatement.

“Off the field is the much more interesting story,” Bunnell said with a laugh. “If I had to describe him as anything, it would be as the supreme fraternity man.”

Collins liked to play practical jokes (leaning a trash can filled with water against a door, then knocking on the door and running away was a favorite) and was known to drink a beer or two. Bunnell kept a pet rabbit that Collins liked to hang out the dorm window (he never let go). During sing-alongs at the Red Lion, a campus tavern, Collins was always the loudest.

“He lived life well,” Tallent said. “He claims that one of my jobs as a coach was to keep him out of trouble. I failed miserably. No, he didn’t do anything bad. He was a typical college kid.”

Yet Collins excelled in the classroom, taking a tough, pre-law curriculum and graduating in four years with a degree in political science and a grade point average above 3.0. How he did it was a source of wonder to many.

“He didn’t kill himself in the classroom,” Tallent said. “But he was smart. I used to tell him that he emerged unscathed by the blade of education.”

Collins dedicated himself to baseball after he was drafted by the Brewers in 1972. He made it to Class AA in his first year. Later, his roommate was pitcher Denny McLain, who won 31 games for Detroit in 1968, the last pitcher to win 30. McLain was a noted character who ran afoul of the law and did prison time after he retired.

Washed up by the time he came to the Washington Senators in a big trade in 1971, their final season, McLain was in the throes of a final attempt to make it back to the big leagues two years later when he met up with Collins.

“A wonderful person,” Collins said. “He taught me to play golf.”

Collins’ path to the Brewers was blocked by two younger catchers, Darrell Porter and Charlie Moore. But he could leave baseball because he had options. Beginning with a college internship, Collins established solid political connections on Capitol Hill through the force of his personality. Sen. Ted Stevens, Alaska Republican, eventually hired him as political director of the national Republican Senate campaign committee.

Collins retired from baseball in 1975, remained in politics for a while, started a consulting firm and used his contacts and knowledge to make inroads in the telecommunications industry. Eventually, his path again crossed with that of Selig, who now holds Collins’ dreams in his hands. Selig owned the Brewers when Collins was a farm hand.

“We kid about it,” Collins said. “He said he remembered me. He said, ’You weren’t very good, and you were slow.’”

Collins said Selig also told him to remain patient.

“That’s what’s so frustrating about this process with Major League Baseball,” Collins said. “I’m not the most patient person in world. I’m very competitive. I hate to lose at anything.”