A TEACHER WHO’S LEARNING : Trebelhorn Joins Long List of Managers in Milwaukee

Tom Trebelhorn is manager of the Milwaukee Brewers and not something found in the brass section of a symphony orchestra.

He is also a substitute teacher in Portland, Ore., and may some day be seen in a TV commercial saying, “You don’t know me but . . . “

Wearing uniform No. 42 and carrying a fungo bat as he heads for the clubhouse or strolls among the diamonds at the Brewers’ training base here, he is often stopped by puzzled fans who ask for his autograph and an explanation of what he does with the club.

“I tell them that I try to manage it,” he said, smiling.

It may take awhile before Trebelhorn sheds his anonymity. He may be the major leagues’ least recognized manager since the Brooklyn Dodgers hired Walter Alston in 1954.

Alston was also greeted with headlines reading, “Walter Who?” then managed the Dodgers for 23 years, all on one-year contracts.

Said Trebelhorn, who has a one-year contract: “That’s still better than a none-year contract.”

Trebelhorn hopes to remain a substitute teacher in the off-season.

“Teaching on a part-time basis allowed me to be underpaid as a minor league manager and convinced me that I really love to teach,” he said.

“I need 180 days over a five-year period to remain certified, and I’m planning to do it again next winter.

“The only thing that would change that is if I’m so successful in this job I just don’t have time to go back. I mean, given a choice, this is the job for which I want to stay certified.”

The blue eyed, sandy haired Trebelhorn, at 39, is a mixture of wit, humor and energy, a man having obvious fun in a job he planned for but had no idea he would get.

“I grew up wanting to be a doctor,” he said. “Then I wanted to be a major league player and then a major league manager. Since I’m over the age limit for med school now, I hope to be able to continue managing.

“I’ve been thinking about it ever since I exhibited a tremendous amount of mediocrity as a player and changed my tack.”

Trebelhorn hit 13 homers and batted .242 in his five minor league seasons. With Birmingham of the Southern Assn. in 1973, a frustrated Trebelhorn, the backup catcher, cornered Manager Harry Bright to ask how good he thought the team was and how good he thought the starting catcher was.

Bright answered “not very” to both questions.

Trebelhorn said, “Look, Harry, it’s June and I’m something like 2 for 9 playing behind a catcher who’s not very good on a club that’s not very good. I think I’ll just go home and teach school and coach.”

Bright said, “Wait, Treb. I think you’ve got something to offer. I think there’s a job for you in the organization.”

Trebelhorn went to Oakland’s farm club in Lewiston, Me., as a player-coach in 1974, became a manager at Class A Bend, Ore., in ‘75, then either coached or managed in the Oakland, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee systems until fate intervened last spring.

He was scheduled to spend the first half of the 1986 season as a roving batting instructor in the Brewer farm system and the second half as manager of their Rookie League team at Helena, Mont. As the divorced father of three sons, Trebelhorn liked the schedule, feeling it gave him adequate time to attend to the boys’ needs.

In fact, since he wasn’t due to report to the Brewers’ training camp until March 10 of last year, he had just returned from a Hawaiian vacation with his sons in late February when he heard that a gas explosion had ripped through the team’s new facility here and that coaches Tony Muser, Herm Starrette and Larry Haney had been severely burned.

Trebelhorn called General Manager Harry Dalton and asked if he was needed. A week later, aware that Muser would be sidelined indefinitely with second- and third-degree burns, Dalton asked Trebelhorn to come in as the third base coach under George Bamberger.

Muser returned to the club in early May, but his physical activity was limited. Trebelhorn remained at third base, with the understanding that he would return to his minor league assignment this year. Then, in mid-September, Bamberger resigned, deciding that he lacked his previous zeal and could no longer cope with the travel.

Trebelhorn was appointed interim manager and told by Dalton he was one of five candidates to succeed Bamberger.

Said Trebelhorn: “I held a meeting with the players and told them, ‘If I do things you don’t like, don’t be afraid to go upstairs and say that this cat ain’t any good.’ ”

A number of Brewers did just the opposite after the sixth-place club went 6-3 under Trebelhorn.

Veterans Cecil Cooper, Robin Yount, Paul Molitor and Jim Gantner reportedly urged Dalton to remove the interim label.

“Harry asked what I thought and I told him that I thought Treb would be outstanding,” Molitor said recently. “He’s familiar with the younger players because he managed them in the minors and he has the respect of the veterans because he’s aggressive and receptive to ideas.

“For a long time we could sit back and hammer it out. We didn’t need to be aggressive. We didn’t need to be innovative. Times have changed.”

Trebelhorn got the job Oct. 1. He is the fifth Milwaukee manager in Dalton’s 10 years with the club--Bamberger served two terms--which leaves him somewhat behind the pace he established while general manager of the Angels, when he had five managers in six years.

The Brewers, of course, hope that Trebelhorn represents some missing stability. Dalton, who has been accused of using his managers as scapegoats for his teams’ failures, said he does not regret any of his moves “because you can never be sure how a man will fit in with a certain group of players until you try him.”

He said in several instances--Bamberger’s--he had been forced to make changes for reasons of health and that in others he didn’t have the time to make a thorough search. Trebelhorn will be the ninth manager to make his major league debut for Dalton, starting with Earl Weaver in Baltimore.

“Some worked out and some didn’t,” Dalton said. “Maybe Weaver’s success emboldened me. Maybe I just wasn’t that high on some of the people we would have been recycling. The fact that a guy has never managed in the majors has never bothered me. How do you know if he can do it or not if he never gets the opportunity?”

Trebelhorn won a Pacific Coast League pennant at Vancouver in 1985, his first year of managing in the Milwaukee system. Dalton described Trebelhorn as intelligent, organized and knowledgeable about the game. He said that Trebelhorn has the obvious respect of the players and that his experience as a high school teacher should give him insight and rapport with a club in transition.

Of the 49 players in the varsity camp, 40 are 28 or younger.

“He knows that age group,” Dalton said. “He knows how they think and react.”

Trebelhorn concurs.

A graduate of Portland State University, he has taught history, language arts and math.

“I never saw a good coach who wasn’t also a good teacher. It’s synonymous,” Trebelhorn said of his high school experiences. He added that the interests and thinking of young players are no different than those of young people in general.

“If someone mentions a heavy metal group to me I don’t have to just sit there, rolling my eyes and acting like a dumb square,” he said. “I can say, ‘Yeah, they’re interesting, but a little heavy on the bass.’ I can send the guy away saying, ‘Hey, that dude knows what he’s talking about.’ ”

Trebelhorn, however, would seem to have more going for him than awareness of the latest hits by Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath.

Asked to list his attributes, he said: “I’m organized. I approach every task with an idea of how I want it done and how I can help implement it. I respect players and have always seemed to earn their respect. I have a deep desire to win and the energy to work hard at it.”

Trebelhorn is in the middle of most drills. His workouts, at least in the period before the exhibition games began, often lasted five hours or more. The living room of his hotel suite has been turned into a film room where he and his coaches can review the day’s activity.

“I don’t smoke, drink or chew tobacco,” he said. “My only vice is a little golf. I’m a baseball workaholic. I suppose there’ll come a burnout time, but what a way to go.”

The Trebelhorn Brewers swept a doubleheader from Toronto on the last day of the 1986 season. They won each game by one run, stealing bases to set up the decisive runs.

That’s the aggressiveness Molitor spoke of, the way the Brewers have to go about it now.

“The player on the field has a better feel for what may work than the people in the dugout,” the manager said. “I want them to think more on their own and express it. I want them to try and stretch their limitations.”

Muser will be Trebelhorn’s third base coach. If it hadn’t been for the explosion, their roles might have been reversed.

“Tom and I have talked about it,” Muser said. “He’s an outstanding baseball man, an outstanding person. I have no animosity. The organization made an excellent choice.”

Baseball card collectors will still find Bamberger’s card in the Topps set. They haven’t caught up with Tom Who yet. Tom Who accepts it in stride.

“Sparky Anderson said that the best advice he could give me is something Walter Alston said to him 20 years ago, and that is, ‘Stay yourself and do what you think is right,’ ” Trebelhorn said.

“I know there’ll be times when I’m scared, when I won’t know what to do and what I do won’t work, but you just have to play through that and go on.

“All you can do is give it your best.”