Davidi on baseball: A Tribe of chiefs

During an idle night at the winter meetings last December, John Farrell, Terry Francona and Bud Black gathered in the hotel lobby to do some catching up.

The trio first met and became close while playing for the 1988 Cleveland Indians, and now all of them had gone on to become managers in the big-leagues.

Francona, with two Boston Red Sox World Series championships under his belt, was the most accomplished. Black, headed into his fifth season with the San Diego Padres and the reigning National League manager of the year, was a star on the rise. And Farrell, having only recently been hired by the Toronto Blue Jays, was the newest member in the fraternity of 30.

As they surveyed the lobby Ron Washington, another player on that ’88 club who had just guided the Texas Rangers to the World Series, was also nearby. So too was Charlie Manuel of the Philadelphia Phillies, bound for his 10th year as a skipper after serving as hitting coach on that Indians team.

That made for five members of a lacklustre Tribe squad, one that finished sixth in the American League East at 78-84, now managing in the big-leagues, a full sixth of the clubs in the majors.

They shook their heads in wonder and kept coming back to a single question: Why?

“No one had an answer but it was just like, ‘Can you believe, in that old ballpark in Cleveland some years ago, that we’d all be doing this right now?'” Farrell recalls. “None of us could come up with a reason why, but I think you look at the personality traits and the type of people, maybe that’s more the reason. Maybe the things we share in similarities as people are the reason why.

“We all had an interest in the game and a desire to stay in the game. But to say the way we played on the field in 1988 was a window into the future – that would be a stretch.”

Francona stresses the last point.

“That team was awful,” he says. “We were so bad we couldn’t be arrogant. I was really good friends with all of them but I don’t know if you would have asked any of us at that point, any of us would have said that’s what we would end up doing.”

After nearly two decades of coaching and managing in the minors and majors, Manuel was handed the reins of a big-league club for the first time in 2000, when he was named the 37th manager of the Indians.

His coaching career began in 1983 and from 1990-93, he spent three years managing Cleveland’s triple-A affiliates in Colorado Springs and Charlotte before rejoining the Indians for a second stint as hitting coach from 1994-99. He was subsequently promoted, led the Tribe to an AL Central title in 2001 and then was fired midway through the ’02 season, right after serving as a coach on Joe Torre’s all-star game staff.

Now 67, Manuel joined the Phillies as a coach the next season and was promoted to manager on Nov. 4, 2004, promptly leading his team to six consecutive winning seasons, the last four resulting in NL East titles, and a World Series title in 2008.

Farrell remembers Manuel being the life of the Indians clubhouse in ’88.

“He was so outgoing and gregarious,” says Farrell. “But I think in our own right, everyone was liked and whether it was grabbing a beer together, a card game in the clubhouse, you were always in the midst of what was going on, not in a loud and vocal way, but you were always involved in the core group.”

Of the Cleveland five, the career-paths of Farrell, 48, and Black, 54, are the most similar, and not just because both are former pitchers.

Black retired from the mound after the 1995 season and rather than stay on the field he moved up to the front office, serving as a special assistant to Indians general manager John Hart in 1996, ’97 and ’99. That one year gap was spent as the pitching coach for triple-A Buffalo, and helped set the stage for his return to the dugout as the pitching coach for the Los Angeles Angels on Nov. 23, 1999.

He spent seven years in Anaheim, with his staff’s earned-run average ranking among the top-five in the American League five times, and was part of the World Series winning club in 2002.

After the 2006 season the San Diego Padres came knocking, he became the 16th manager in franchise history, and has since twice led the spendthrift franchise to winning seasons, including last year, when the Padres finished 90-72, two games back of eventual World Series champion San Francisco in the NL West.

Farrell’s throwing days came to an end in 1996, and he was unsure of which direction he would take afterwards. He decided to head back to school and finish his bachelor’s degree at Oklahoma State University, and while there ended up joining the baseball program as an assistant coach and recruiting co-ordinator.

After five years in that role Farrell – much the way Black did – moved up to the Indians front office, taking over as director of player development in November 2001. But five years as an executive left Farrell with an itch to return to the field and – again, like Black – he found himself back in uniform when he joined Francona’s Red Sox as pitching coach in November 2006.

Under Farrell’s guidance Boston hurlers posted the second-best ERA in baseball in 2007 at 3.87, trailing only Black’s Padres at 3.70, and helped the Red Sox win the World Series. His fine work made him one of the game’s up and coming managerial prospects, but he didn’t bite at any offers until the Blue Jays came after him last fall.

He was named the franchise’s 12th manager Oct. 25 and guided the team to a 45-47 mark in the first half.

Initially close with Black on the ’88 Indians, over time Farrell eventually became tighter with Francona, although he and the Padres skip remain friends.

“We didn’t compare career paths,” Farrell says of the similarities on their road to managing. “There was a genuine interest and desire to stay in the game. The front office was a side that we as players were never exposed to, to see all the inner workings and underpinnings. There were a few years he filled that adviser’s role for John Hart, where my path to that came in a different way. But the fact that you have that perspective on the game I think gives you some insights into what Alex (Anthopoulos) or Jed Hoyer in San Diego face.

“We certainly don’t know it because you don’t know it until you sit in that seat, but I think you can understand a little bit more readily all the factors that go into decisions. That might help the dialogue between the two.”

Like Manuel, the opportunity to manage was a long time coming for Washington.

The former shortstop wrapped up his playing career in 1990 with triple-A Oklahoma City and began coaching the next year in the New York Mets system. He joined the Oakland Athletics as a first base coach in 1996 and the spent the next 10 seasons after that as the third base coach, developing into a regular interviewee for managing vacancies.

The Rangers eventually gave him a chance, naming him the 17th manager in franchise history on Nov. 6, 2006. He joined Johnny Oates as the only Rangers managers to reach the post-season and Washington is the first to lead the club to a playoff victory, let alone a trip to the World Series.

As manager of the AL all-star team, the 59-year-old extended a coaching invitation to the rookie Farrell much in the way Leyland asked Washington to join him for the 2007 contest in his first season.

It was both a nod to a former teammate, and a welcome-to-the-club gesture from one of the elder statesmen on the ’88 Indians.

“I think we all were students of the game, we all cared about our teammates, we all cared about the game of baseball, and we were fortunate enough that when we retired as players there was an organization that cared enough about us to let us spread the knowledge and wisdom that we gained from people along the way,” Washington says. “I’m very appreciative of all the peopl
e that have influenced me in my life, and what I try to do is pass that influence on as much as I can.”

Francona was a highly-touted prospect when the Montreal Expos chose him 22nd overall in the 1980 draft, and the same was true when the Phillies hired him on Oct. 30, 1996 and made him the youngest manager in baseball at the age of 37.

The former first baseman and outfielder, hampered by knee injuries, played 11 pro seasons before calling it quits after a 1990 campaign spent mostly at triple-A Louisville and included five stints on the mound.

Unsure of what to do, he began coaching the next season as a hitting instructor for the Chicago White Sox’s rookie ball team. He moved up to manager in 1992, was quickly identified as a rising star, was poached to join Buddy Bell’s big-league staff in Detroit as the third base coach in 1996, and was running his own team the next year.

“I went to the minor-leagues as a manager and loved it,” says Francona. “I don’t know when I was a player that I really thought about it much. I was young and carefree, did my own thing, just worried about myself, and tried to be a good teammate. When you go to the minor-leagues, you get to learn how you feel, get to learn to maybe say how you feel, and go from there.”

The Phillies struggled under Francona, posting a cumulative mark of 285-363 during his four seasons at the helm. But the experience set the stage for him in Boston, where his blue-collar roots as a player and analytical approach made him a perfect match for the Red Sox.

Hired as the 44th manager in franchise history on Dec. 12, 2003, he led the team to the 2004 World Series title, the franchise’s first since 1918, and won another championship in 2007, with Farrell as his pitching coach.

Francona looks back at the ’88 Indians and sees nothing that would have led him and the others to the manager’s chair.

“There’s got to be a few things everybody shares, the wanting to compete, to be a leader, things like that, but not from that team, I tell you,” he says. “We were at a point in our careers where we were just trying to survive playing. We weren’t thinking about coaching or managing.”

Although Farrell and Francona were teammates for just one season, the bond between them has become stronger and stronger over the years.

During their playing days, the two would train together ahead of spring training, with Farrell bringing his whole family down to Tucson shortly after the calendar’s turn to join Francona in the desert. As they worked out their families bonded, and a friendship that extends well beyond baseball developed.

That’s why Francona says he doesn’t like competing against his former teammates and friends, describing it as “not the most comfortable thing.”

“It’s hard because we want to win so bad,” he adds, “it’s just not optimal.”

Neither was watching Farrell jump ship to a division rival.

“Once he had his mind set on managing, I knew we were going to lose him. He’s too good,” says Francona. “It was just a matter of which team he went to.”

Farrell smirks when Francona’s words are relayed to him.

“Tito may say that but deep down he wants to kick everybody’s ass,” he retorts grinning. “I like competing against them. There will always be a personal connection at some level, but I think as a former player, what goes on between the lines is the most important thing.”

Yet the uniqueness of their stories and of how one bad team could produce so many fine managers is not lost on Farrell.

The Indians back then were still several seasons away from turning the corner. Many of their former teammates are no longer in the game. And few teams, if any, can boast a similar graduation rate.

“I think it’s a rare occurrence and certainly a special outcome that we’re managing our respective teams,” says Farrell. “There are times I think back and wonder: What is the common link? Why did it turn out to be this way? That’s where different thoughts come to mind.

“There’s not one thing that really stands out, other than the fact that the people love the game, they like players that play the game, and you find ways to bring out the best in all.”