Interim Man

For a change, it doesn’t look as if Joe Maddon will manage the Angels this year.

Mike Scioscia, hired for the job in November, seems hearty and competent enough to make it to work every day, though one never knows what an umpire might do to set a man off.

These are the Angels, and unusual things do occur. The organization has one of the great interim manager histories in the game, seven men over nine short regimes. Twice it has employed interims to the interims, when the acting manager fell too. The Angels bring them in as routinely as Macy’s hires Christmas help.

They get fired, they get suspended, they get sick, they quit in tears, they stop a runaway luxury bus with their body, whatever, and Maddon picks up what’s left. He managed 22 games in 1996, eight in ’98 and 29 in ’99.

“People see things in him,” Angel General Manager Bill Stoneman said.

Maddon, the Angels’ bench coach, is bright and responsible, unfailingly upbeat and loyal, qualities that make good hunting dogs and sound baseball managers. And there are too few of both.

He was the field manager last season when the Angels set aside their differences, won 19 September games and began to act something like adults again. He salvaged a sane final month, when 30 more days of trauma might have done irreparable harm in their clubhouse. And many Angels returned for spring training refreshed and willing to believe they were capable of September again, if not in total harmony then at least not at each other’s throats.

That was Maddon.

In the clubhouse, Tim Salmon’s face softens at the mention of him. When Salmon signed his first professional contract, Maddon was in the room.

“He’s one of the good guys,” Salmon said, “and that has never changed. What you see today is the way he’s always been.”

As a result of that September in an otherwise miserable season, Maddon became a strong candidate to replace Terry Collins permanently, and a virtual lock if the club did not hire a veteran big-league manager such as Don Baylor or Phil Garner.

Then the general manager resigned while eating a Cobb salad with the team president. The new general manager had never heard of Joe Maddon. The coaching staff gradually found jobs in Seattle and Cleveland. When a rookie manager was hired, it wasn’t Maddon.

It stung him, but only for a moment. The team decided someone else was better qualified. Maddon, the team player, could live with that.

*

Two nights before Thanksgiving, Maddon took a telephone call. It was Scioscia, who asked Maddon to be his bench coach. It was their first conversation. Maddon hung up the telephone, turned to his mother and said, “I really like that guy.”

Maddon stood in the sunshine the day before the season began and said, “I’ve never been the prodigy. And, you know what? I’m glad I haven’t been.”

He is 46 and just began his 26th season with the Angel organization. He likes his new job and he likes his new boss. These are not frustrating times for a man who nevertheless has managerial aspirations, and was never closer to realizing them than he was in September.

“I believe that for whatever reason it was not the right time,” Maddon said. “I also believe that because it did come down this way there was something else I needed to learn. I’ll take the time to do that, so that when the opportunity does present itself, I believe I’ll be fully prepared for it. I’ve never wanted something to happen to me before it was my time to do it or have it. I firmly believe in earning something, then once you do earn it, you deserve it. You’re ready for it. That’s the way my whole life has basically gone.”

When Stoneman telephoned to say he would not be the rookie manager, that Mike Scioscia would be, Maddon did not hesitate in asking for a place on Scioscia’s staff.

“Those things I’m not able to control, I honestly don’t waste a moment worrying or thinking about,” Maddon said. “It makes no sense. For me, it’s all about doing the right thing every day and building up enough of those days so maybe at some point it’ll be good enough for somebody. If it’s not, what I’m doing right now is pretty hot. I really enjoy working for this man, a lot. I mean, a ton. If Mike was the skipper here for the next 10 years and he’d like me to be his bench coach for the next 10 years, I would be totally thrilled by that. Totally.”

Scioscia and Maddon were raised 90 minutes apart, not far from Philadelphia, Scioscia in Springfield, Pa., and Maddon in Hazleton, north of Allentown. Both former catchers, their friendship has grown quickly because of the geographical bond, because of the Angel project they share, and, finally, Maddon said, “the fact he loves Philly cheesesteak hoagies too.”

“His sense of humor is very familiar,” Maddon said. “And the method of speech, the slang, all of that is very familiar to me, so I felt very comfortable with him.”

*

For Scioscia, whose managerial experience before Monday was one season in the Pacific Coast League and another in the Arizona Fall League, Maddon was an intelligent baseball mind and someone the players already trusted.

“I had known Joe’s reputation,” said Scioscia, who is five years younger than Maddon. “Bill Stoneman recommended him and left it up to me. Joe belongs in the major leagues. He’s a wealth of information, a wealth of knowledge.

“There’s a lot of free thinkers here, and that’s important. Joe is progressive. I wouldn’t want someone always thinking along my lines.”

So Maddon will offer opinions to his boss, the rookie manager. He will stand off to the side. If the season goes well, if the Angels play near the leaders in the American League West, Scioscia will receive much of the credit. It is the nature of the game. If not, who knows? The organization does have something of a reputation for its interims.

“Quite frankly, my ego does not need to be fed,” Maddon said. “The only thing that needs to be fed is my family. That means having a job. I don’t know if that’s a unique perspective and I don’t know why it would be. That’s not to say I’m not ambitious. I don’t mean to give you that impression, either. I do have ambition. I do have personal goals. But, if you’re doing your job well, daily, and you pay attention to detail, daily, then eventually somebody will recognize that and it will pay off.”