The undrafted and undersized shortstop was 20 years old when he arrived at his first spring training 60 years ago. Gene Mauch, in his seventh season as Phillies manager, was asked by a reporter about the kid from Sacramento, California, who had been cut from his high school team three years earlier.

“I love the way he approaches the game,” Mauch told the writer. “He’s got great hands and he does a lot of good stuff, but I can’t hear him when he hits.”

That’s not the kind of scouting report that would lead you to believe a franchise legend had just arrived on the scene, but that’s what Larry Bowa became. The big story now is, at the age of 80, he remains an active one.

“That’s the first thing I remember about my first spring training,” Bowa told NJ.com by phone from Clearwater, Florida, where he is once again donning red pinstripes at another spring training. “I don’t know if (Mauch) knew that I heard him, but I did know that when I first came up, they considered me an out.”

He was just that in his first professional game, striking out four times against a 19-year-old phenom named Nolan Ryan.

By the end of his first season in the minor leagues, however, Phillies farm director Paul Owens described Bowa as the team’s best prospect.

With some guidance from Bill Allen — the younger brother of Hall of Famer Dick Allen — Bowa hit .313, scored 70 runs and stole 24 bases in his first minor-league season, ending the year with a promotion from Single-A Spartanburg to Triple-A San Diego.

It was the start of a 20-year professional playing career that included five All-Star Game appearances, two Gold Glove awards, a No. 3 finish in the MVP voting in 1978 and the first World Series title in franchise history in 1980.

The kid with the quiet bat finished with 2,191 hits, including 1,798 with the Phillies, which ranks sixth in team history. He also ranks third all-time in defensive WAR, fourth in games played, plate appearances and at-bats. He ranks sixth in stolen bases.

Bowa was in the lineup for the final game at Connie Mack Stadium in 1970. He had the first hit in Veterans Stadium on April 10, 1971. He managed the team during the last game at the Vet in 2003 and the first game at Citizens Bank Park in 2004.

Combined with his fiery made-for-Philadelphia personality, Bowa became an unforgettable figure in Phillies history long ago. The difference between Bowa and so many others is that he’s still going strong.

Not some aging ornament

Bowa turned 80 in December, but make no mistake about it: He’s not some octogenarian ornament waving to fans, simply signing autographs and sharing stories about the good old days.

He’s here to work.

“Larry Bowa at 80 is probably as good as at least half the coaches in the big leagues,” Phillies infield instructor Bobby Dickerson said Tuesday on the eve of the team’s first official spring-training workout. “He’s there every day and his energy level, his intelligence and his work ethic is always evident. It’s amazing. I tried to work out with him this morning and he buried me. I’m 60, so he’s 20 years older than me. He really is an inspiration to these young players.”

Bowa is grateful that he still has an avenue to exhaust his energy, and he feels fortunate that he can still teach the game he loves.

“When you turn 80, people think you should be sitting in a chair watching TV,” he said. “But this game has been my life and the fact that (owner) John Middleton and the managers that have come after I left (as a coach in 2017) have left it open for me to come (to spring training) and do what I want to do, I’ve been very fortunate that way. It’s a long time doing this and I’m so proud that most of that time has been with the Phillies.”

Dickerson, who returned to the Phillies coaching staff as an infield instructor in 2022, decided after that season he wanted Bowa to dress for home games and assist him in instructing the infielders during the pregame work.

“I tell him all the time that whatever he wants to do, I want him to do it,” Dickerson said. “That’s because I learn something from him every day. I just love his energy. He really is cut from a different cloth, which explains the career he had.”

Forty-two of Bowa’s 61 years in baseball have been spent with the Phillies. The gap years were fascinating, too. They included five years as a third-base coach — first under Joe Torre with the Yankees and then for the Dodgers, two of the most historic franchises in baseball history. He also was part of Torre’s World Baseball Classic coaching staff in 2013.

There were times when he was steaming mad at the Phillies, but they never lasted. General manager Ed Wade brought him back as the team’s manager in 2001 for his third stint. Three of his four seasons as the Phillies’ manager ended with winning records, but without playoff berths and Bowa was fired near the end of the 2004 season.

It took a decade for him to return to the organization for a fourth time. This time, he became part of the late Ryne Sandberg’s coaching staff in 2014. The two men had become close friends after Bowa and Sandberg were traded from the Phillies to the Cubs in 1982. They also became the double-play combination for the 1984 Cubs team that ended a 38-year postseason drought.

Bowa has been in red pinstripes ever since. He coached through the 2017 season and has been a senior advisor to the general manager ever since. In addition to his duties on the field, he also scouts players in the Phillies’ minor-league sites during the season.

‘Still has an edge’

Bowa’s first love remains on the field and that’s where he spends all his time in spring training.

Bowa dresses in the coaches room, but his main office in Clearwater is the half field that sits just outside of a side entrance to the home clubhouse at BayCare Ballpark. That’s where Bowa has hit thousands and thousands of grounders to the likes of Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and so many other less heralded Phillies.

When Bowa retired from playing in 1985, his .9797 fielding percentage was the best in major league history. Sixteen players have surpassed him since then, and two of them studied the art of defense from Bowa. Freddy Galvis is third on the all-time list and Rollins is fourth. The only two players ahead of them are Omar Vizquel and Troy Tulowitzki.

These days, the infield cast soaking in Bowa’s knowledge consists of Alec Bohm, Trea Turner, Bryson Stott and Bryce Harper.

Bowa, once accused of being too negative and too edgy to manage modern-day players, insisted he has mellowed some.

“Yeah, I don’t get as upset as I used to, especially in camp here,” Bowa said. “I love Bobby, and I think he’s a great infield instructor and he’ll ask me what I got and I just tell him he’s got it covered. I’ve seen him get mad and he’ll say, ‘Well, get off the field if you don’t want to do it that way.’ And then he’ll say, ‘You know you have to jump in here.’ I just say, ‘Bobby, I already went through all that.’ I’m done with all that. I don’t do all that, especially at 80 years old.”

Dickerson said he doesn’t know what Bowa was like 25 years ago, but he insisted that “he still has an edge.” More important, though, he has a goal in mind.

“I’ve heard over the years that one of the negatives about Larry Bowa is that he can be too negative,” Dickerson said. “I’ve heard people say he can be negative about a player or talk bad about them and find things wrong with them.

“But if you pay attention, when he says things it’s because he has spent countless hours and time and energy trying to correct things and help a player get better. When he says a guy can’t backhand a ball, he’s not being negative. He’s identifying something and he will do everything within his power to help that player.”

Bowa admitted age has caught up to him in some ways. He used to be a regular part of the batting-practice rotation in spring training, but in recent years he has cut back on that part of his coaching game.

“I don’t know if I’m going to throw this year,” he said. “This year might be the year I say no. I don’t know, because I haven’t thrown in a while, and I’d just as soon hit ground balls and talk with the infielders and Bobby. But whatever they want me to do, I’ll do it.”