I knew I'd never make it back to the major leagues as a player. Lee MacPhail came to me and asked if I wanted to manage the Yankees' Fort Lauderdale club. I thought about it for a day or two and decided to take the job. That was the turning point. I knew it was what I wanted to do.
A manager should stay as far away as possible from his players. I don't know if I said ten words to Frank Robinson while he played for me.
I managed Dal Maxvill, and he's now our general manager. I managed Bob Gibson. He's a broadcaster. Tim McCarver. Bill White. Nellie Briles. He used to be a broadcaster. I tried to count them up one time.
I don't believe a manager ever won a pennant. Casey Stengel won all those pennants with the Yankees. How many did he win with the Boston Braves and Mets?
I don't believe there's a baseball job that I couldn't take care of.
I never had the slightest desire to be a major league manager, and all knew it. But Ban Johnson, Bob Hedges, and Jimmy McAleer persuaded me that the Browns were in a sort of a jam, and it was up to me, as an old standby, to do what I could.
Playing baseball is fun. If I could play, I'd never retire. But managing is work. It's constant decisions of whose feelings you want to hurt all the time.
I just talked to a young lady, a freshman at Santa Barbara. She's taking a course, and 'Moneyball''s one of the required readings. This young lady could dream of one day becoming a general manager.
If you're playing baseball and thinking about managing, you're crazy. You'd be better off thinking about being an owner.
Guillen wasn't finished about his intent to stick with Contreras with left-hander Neal Cotts warming up. He was dominating the Twins, ... People think I'm a bad manager or don't know the game or fall asleep during the game and wake up and change pitchers. I'm watching the same game they are.
I'm a big Alex Cora fan, as far as aggressiveness, the things that he sees like pitch tipping. His eyes are really good.
I've won plenty of games by knowing when to take out my pitcher; whom to replace him with; or how to place my infield or outfield to defend properly against the opposing hitter.
I managed 26 years and found out when I retired I didn't own the game. I thought I owned it when I was managing all those years. You can climb to the top of the mountain, get down on your knees and kiss the ground, because you'll never own that mountain. That mountain is only owned by one single person, and he'll never give it up. That's the way baseball is.
After you manage the Yankees for 12 years, it's really tough to envision going somewhere else. But then the Dodgers called.
I managed the Dodgers for 20 years. It's hard to believe that there are only four guys in the history of baseball who managed the same team for 20 years or more. One was owner of the team, Connie Mack. Another was part owner of the team, John McGraw. Then there was my predecessor, Walter Alston, and me. It's amazing. In the 20 years I managed the Dodgers, 210 managers were fired.
In order to become a big-league manager you have to be in the right place at the right time. That's rule number one.
If you seriously aspire to be a manager in the big leagues, there is a baseball 'book' that one must learn. Alongside that book, you must practice Spanish. Of 25 players on each roster, sometimes there are between eight and 15 players who speak Spanish.
Some people asked me if I would be interested in managing the A's. I said a definite no thank you. At night, that place is a graveyard with lights.
Increasingly, it becomes evident that managing a ball club is a psychiatrist's job. In a short series, the mental attitude of the combatants is everything.
He's (Jack McKeon) been around baseball for twenty-plus years. He knows what it takes to be a manager. I hope he gets the chance.
Tony La Russa is considered among the best in his business. Yet nearly half the time he led his organizations into competition, they were defeated - 2,728 wins, 2,365 losses.
When I was with the Giants, I played for Dusty Baker, and I love Dusty to death. I think he's a great manager and great person, but he platooned me. His reasoning was to get everybody in the lineup. It wasn't that I couldn't play every day.
If I managed the Cubs, I'd be an alcoholic.
I became a major league manager in several cities and was discharged. We call it discharged because there was no question I had to leave.
I like Billy Beane for the fact that he - his idiosyncrasies, that he can't watch the games without getting too emotional, that he often has food down his shirt, that he tends to break a few chairs now and then. I mean, these things make him human.
