Big manager's chair belongs to Maddon

Tue, Nov. 15, 2005
Joe Maddon was a baseball player. So what was he doing walking past the baseball field? Going to football practice, sure. He was a freshman at Lafayette College and the quarterback on the freshman team. And it was fall in Easton, Pa. The leaves were turning. The air was chilly.
Hut one. Hut two. Hike.
There was fall baseball, the team was practicing.
"And I said that's not right. I should be over there playing baseball," Maddon recalled Sunday. "So I retired from football."
He was a baseball player whose career lasted four years in the California Angels' organization before he took off the catcher's gear for good and became a coach.
What Maddon really is is a baseball man.
A minor league coach. A minor league manager. A big league coach, first down in the bullpen then later on the bench. He filled in as major league manager on several occasions, working as an interim skipper. You couldn't say he was keeping the seat warm until the big guy returned or until another was hired because Maddon wouldn't sit in the chair behind the desk in the manager's office out of respect for the position.
No, when Maddon finally fills that seat, it will be because that seat is his.
There's a high-back, swivel chair in the spacious manager's office inside the Tampa Bay Devil Rays' clubhouse. For the past three summers, it belonged to Lou Piniella. Now it belongs to Maddon, who will be introduced at noon today as the fourth manager in the team's history.
The overwhelming reaction is: Joe who?
And it's natural since the Rays just hired a man who spent the last 31 years operating in the background of the Angels' organization. Say this about the 51-year-old Maddon, he is loyal.
Check out his favorite football team - the Arizona Cardinals.
"I've been a Cardinals fan since 1962 or '64," Maddon said.
So . . . you're the one.
Bigger names interviewed for the Rays' job. Former Detroit Tigers manager Alan Trammell and Atlanta Braves hitting coach Terry Pendleton. Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt was a late entry. Joe Girardi, who served as Joe Torre's bench coach with the New York Yankees last season, appeared the early favorite before taking the job with the Florida Marlins.
The Rays even flirted with Bobby Valentine, who managed the Texas Rangers and took the New York Mets to the 2000 World Series and just won the Japan series with the Chiba Lotte Marines.
They decided on Maddon because he better fits the organization's new concept. Outside of the four in-house candidates, Maddon was the best-prepared, bringing a thick binder to his initial interview stuffed with the findings of his research on the Rays.
Maddon was the Angels' bench coach when they won the 2002 World Series, so he knows a little about winning. He's also been a member of some bad Angels teams, so he knows what losing smells like.
He's been a part of a staff that was able to move from one end of the standings to the other, which is what the Rays' new front office swears is their intention.
Maddon's reputation is that of someone who's part old school, part new school. He knows his way around a computer and can interpret data, but he can also read a player's mannerisms. He won't need a computer to figure out when Aubrey Huff is in a slump or a printout to show him which buttons to push to get a little more out of Toby Hall. He's supposed to be a whiz working with younger players, and we know the Rays have cornered the market on those.
Maddon comes from outside the organization, which keeps in step with the "Under Construction" theme. The team could have hired Piniella's bench coach, John McLaren, and kept a little continuity in the manager's office. This way, they import fresh ideas and maybe create a little uneasiness in the clubhouse come spring training.
Goodness knows that won't hurt.
The Rays hand him a team that will have a small payroll and needs much work, and Maddon knows this. It was included in the binder he brought to his first interview last month.
Maddon left that meeting and declared he and the Rays a perfect fit.
Time will tell, but for now it feels good. Just like fall baseball practice 33 years ago at Lafayette and the high-back, swivel chair in the manager's office that awaits the new manager.

Source: http://www.bradenton.com/