BASEBALL PLAYOFFS American: Detroit vs. Minnesota : NOT ALL TALK : Twins Manager Tom Kelly Has Quietly Brought Minnesota Back Into Playoffs

When the Minnesota Twins clinched the American League’s Western Division title last week against the Texas Rangers, a wild celebration among the players began on the field at Arlington Stadium. But in the Twins’ dugout, it was soooo quiet.

Why? Because that’s the way Tom Kelly likes it.

Kelly, the Twins’ manager, remained on the bench and watched quietly, which isn’t at all out of character for him. The youngest manager in the major leagues, 37-year-old Tom Kelly is fast establishing a reputation for himself.

He has been called a fledgling baseball genius, a players’ manager, a great motivator and an extremely focused field leader.

Kelly also has been called rude, boring, obnoxious, short-tempered and one of the worst interviews in professional sports.

Here is a sample from a Kelly interview that lasted about three minutes:

Question: “Tom, you must know you’re considered a very difficult person to interview.”

Answer: “Yeah, and I’ve had enough of this one, too.”

End of interview.

Maybe none of that matters. Certainly Kelly doesn’t care whether he becomes a household name. What’s wrong with bland? Being colorful may be overrated, because, after all, beige is a shade, too.

Winning ought to be enough, or so it seems to Kelly. But now, in the playoffs, spotlights are going to shine on Kelly and there is a chance they will illuminate a subject that has been standing with one foot firmly planted in the shadows.

Most everything known about him so far has been under his own tight control. In his second year as a big league manager, Kelly is already within sight of the World Series, which means he is a lot further along this season than such glib managers as Tom Lasorda, Pete Rose and Bobby Valentine.

To begin with, some of the Kelly story is about numbers. Under Kelly, the Twins had the best home record (56-25) in the major leagues. That was almost but not quite overshadowed by their 29-52 road record, the second-worst in the American League. Each time the Twins got pounded on the road, though, they bounced back. Such resiliency was to Kelly’s credit, according to Andy MacPhail, the club’s executive vice president in charge of baseball, a fancy way of saying general manager.

“In today’s day and age, the most important thing a manager can do is to get players to play hard, day in and day out,” MacPhail said. “The manager has to get the most out of his players that he can. We kept coming back from some pretty horrific road trips and I think Tom was responsible to a large degree because he fostered and nurtured a winning attitude.”

For years, the Twins had a real attitude problem. Minnesota last won a division title in 1970. At that time, the big names on the team were Harmon Killebrew, who hit 41 home runs, and Tony Oliva, who batted .325. It was also five years before a 24-year-old left-handed hitting first baseman-outfielder named Tom Kelly came up for his only shot at the major leagues.

Kelly played in 49 games and hit .181. After such a season it was pretty clear that if Kelly wanted to stay in the majors, it would have to be as something other than a player.

He went back to the minors--first as a player, then as a player-manager and finally as a manager--and didn’t return to the big leagues until 1983, when then-manager Billy Gardner hired him to coach third base.

Gardner, who was fired after the 1985 season, was replaced by Ray Miller, who was fired the next season with only 23 games left. To the surprise of some, Kelly was named interim manager. To the surprise of many, he signed a one-year contract, which was renewed Monday.

For reasons both political and financial last year, Kelly was the second choice of owner Carl Pohlad.

Pohlad wanted a manager with experience to replace Miller. Jim Frey, fired by the Chicago Cubs, was at the top of Pohlad’s list and was offered the dual job of executive vice president and manager.

Under that arrangement, MacPhail, then 33 and vice president in charge of player personnel, would have reported to Frey. MacPhail quickly put himself in Kelly’s corner.

“I was motivated purely by the interests of the organization and frankly, my own self-interests,” MacPhail said. “(Kelly) certainly was my first choice.”

Frey, however, told Pohlad he didn’t want to be a general manager, although he would consider the manager’s job. When he asked for a contract of at least three years, and the Twins wouldn’t budge from two, Kelly’s fragile situation began getting stronger by the minute. So did MacPhail’s.

Pohlad finally agreed to sign Kelly to a one-year contract and promoted MacPhail to executive vice president, but only after Ralph Houk was brought in as a vice president to keep an eye on the youngsters, Kelly, then 36, and MacPhail.

MacPhail says he did not consider the hiring of Kelly a gamble, despite Kelly’s lack of major league managing experience.

“Everybody has got to start somewhere,” MacPhail said. “I don’t think it’ll be that long before Tom Kelly gets name recognition.”

It’s going to be a very long time, though, if Kelly has anything to say about it.

“I don’t like to talk about myself,” he said. “The limelight should be on the players.”

He also said: “There’s not much a manager does.”

And:

“I just watch the players play.”

And:

“I don’t fine them and I don’t scream and holler too much.”

Neither does he talk too much with reporters, who are constantly amazed at the lengths Kelly will go to to avoid saying anything of substance. Even some reporters from the Twin Cities get Kelly’s silent treatment.

Mark Vancil, who covers the Twins for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, recalled a postgame session in Kelly’s office after a recent victory over the White Sox in Chicago. Vancil said that Kelly never looked up at a room full of reporters and ate all the while he was being questioned.

“One- or two-word answers and then 90 seconds of silence in between,” Vancil said. “He’s unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like him.”

MacPhail, though, spoke up on Kelly’s behalf, saying that Kelly believes that a reporter covering a game ought to be able to write what he sees without a manager helping him do it.

“He doesn’t have a personality like Sparky (Anderson),” MacPhail admitted.

There is one theory that Kelly watched as Miller tried it his way and wound up getting fired. Miller was often outspoken, loved to be quoted and played up to the press. Kelly dressed next to Miller, with whom he shared the manager’s quarters. When Miller was canned, Kelly decided that he did not share Miller’s views on media relations.

Kelly doesn’t acknowledge that he even has an ego. He chews tobacco and pitches batting practice every day. He goes out of his way not to draw attention to himself and if that means avoiding reporters, well, that’s just the way it goes.

So far, it’s gone just great for Kelly. He has won a division title in his first try, the Twins could be in the World Series later this month and he has earned the respect of his players.

“I’ve played for a lot of years and . . . as far as keeping things on an even keel, he’s the best I’ve ever been around,” said pitcher Joe Niekro, who is five years older than Kelly.

In the meantime, there is a whole bunch of managers a lot richer than Kelly. In fact, this year, there were 22 of them. Kelly’s 1987 contract was for $100,000, which put him a four-way tie for the lowest-paid manager in the majors. The others are Tom Trebelhorn of the Milwaukee Brewers, Jim Leyland of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cal Ripken Sr. of the Baltimore Orioles.

Pohlad, who has extensive interests in banking and real estate, opened the Twins’ checkbook Monday and made Kelly slightly more comfortable financially.

“It’s inconceivable he doesn’t have a long-term future in Minnesota,” MacPhail said.

Long-term is going to have to be just a year at a time, at least for the next year, for Kelly, since that’s all he re-signed for. Still, that’s got to look pretty good to him. Not so very long ago, Kelly’s future wasn’t nearly as clear as it appears to be now. Among the other managers in the divisional playoffs--Anderson, Whitey Herzog of the St. Louis Cardinals and Roger Craig of the San Francisco Giants--Kelly is surely the least known to the public.

That’s inconsequential, Kelly said.

MacPhail said: “I’ve never seen him short with the players. The only place I’ve seen him short is with the media.”

How short is short?

Q: Do you think that you’re kind of an unknown in the playoffs, when you consider what everybody knows about the other managers?

A: I don’t know what an unknown is.

Q: Well, an unknown is someone about whom not much is known. Is that you?

A: People in baseball know me. The outside probably doesn’t. I don’t see that it matters much.

Maybe it doesn’t, but Kelly certainly didn’t enhance his reputation among California fans when he defended the actions of one of his players accused of scuffling with a 17-year-old Angel batboy Aug. 3 in Anaheim.

That was the game in which Niekro was ejected after umpires found an emery board they said he was using to scuff the baseball.

Six balls were collected as evidence, and as batboy Jeff Parker was carrying them in a bag through a corridor near the clubhouse, Al Newman of the Twins stopped him, demanding to see the baseballs.

Parker said that Newman leaned on him and forced him to the floor. Newman denied Parker’s version and got Kelly’s support.

“I don’t see why everyone is making a big deal out of it,” Kelly said at the time.

Now, nearly two months later, everyone is making a big deal out of Kelly. He doesn’t like that very much either, but at least he’s consistent. Whether he’s on the run from praise or on the defensive, it just doesn’t matter much.

Apparently, such an even-handed temperament is a much-admired personality trait for a manager. That and winning, of course. And Kelly has been a winner at almost every level since he began managing with Tacoma in the Pacific Coast League in 1977.

He said he keeps his mind on baseball. Actually, there are two things on Kelly’s mind: the season and spring training.

“I am pretty dull,” Kelly said.

Perhaps that explains why Kelly kept to himself when the Twins wrapped up their first division crown in 17 years last week in Texas. He just sat and watched as his players celebrated.

“That was my fun,” he was quoted as saying.

For sure, it’s fun to be a winner. And eventually, Kelly may learn that it’s OK to share how it feels. Hey, it could happen this week during the American League playoffs. The playoffs might turn out to be quite a showcase for Kelly, if he chooses to use them that way.

There probably are lots of fans out there who don’t know what makes Tom Kelly tick but would like to.

Not that it matters much, of course.