Perez Gives Reds Dogged Determination : Baseball: He succeeds Piniella as manager, but gets only a one-year contract because of his lack of experience.

Tony Perez insists his actions as new manager of the Cincinnati Reds will speak louder than words.

“A lot of people think I’m a sleeping dog, but I’m not a sleeping dog,” said Perez, 50, whose nickname is Doggie.

“I don’t know if you know much about me. I don’t talk much, but I can act. I think you’ll know a different Tony Perez as manager.”

Perez, an important member of the Big Red Machine that won consecutive World Series in the 1970s, has worked quietly the last six years as a first base coach and batting instructor.

He is an unknown quantity as a manager, prompting the club to give him a one-year contract instead of the three-year deal Lou Piniella received in 1990.

“I have to prove myself,” Perez said.

Perez left his native Cuba at 17 to seek his fortunes in baseball. He started with Geneva of the New York-Penn League in 1960, teaming up with another newcomer to the Reds’ organization: Pete Rose.

It was a new land, a new language, a new level of baseball. And he was scared.

“I didn’t even know the word for scared,” he said. “I had to say scared in Spanish.”

He learned English and how to handle pressure as well as any hitter.

The first baseman appeared in six league playoffs and five World Series, helping lead the Reds to World Series titles in 1975 and 1976. He was known as their best clutch hitter, driving in more runs--1,028--than any other major league player from 1967-76.

The Reds traded him to Montreal after the 1976 season to open first base for Dan Driessen, a move former club president Bob Howsam soon regretted. The Reds didn’t return to the World Series until 1990.

Perez completed his 23-year career in the major leagues by hitting his 379th home run on Oct. 4, 1986, one day before he retired from the Reds as a player. The home run enabled him to tie Orlando Cepeda for the major league record among players from Latin America.

Because he doesn’t have any managerial experience, he’s going to have to draw upon his playing days a lot for strategy.

“As a hitter, you try to beat (the pitcher) any way possible,” he said.

The Reds surrounded him with coaches who also lack major league managing experience: Ron Oester, first base; Dave Miley, bench, and Don Gullett, pitchers.