A Real Project Awaits Boone

Much like the construction on their new ballpark, the Cincinnati Reds are a work in progress. They retain the ability to win the National League Central this year, but basically they remain in a small market mode, pointing toward the opening of the Great American Ballpark in 2003.

New Manager Bob Boone understands the direction and considers it a vast improvement on his experience in Kansas City. He believes he has profited from his three seasons managing the Royals and three more as assistant to Cincinnati General Manager Jim Bowden.

“I wanted to manage again, but I wasn’t obsessed,” Boone said. “This job is a pressure cooker, and it was good therapy to get away for a few years and to get a new perspective in how scouts work, how a general manager works, how difficult it is to put a trade together. I’d be disappointed if I’m not better for the experience. I mean, I’m very secure in who I am and what I know, and my only motivation is to get what I know into my players and make them better.”

During a long career as catcher, coach, manager and front office advisor, the Stanford psychology graduate never has lacked confidence and self-assuredness, but his appointment as successor to the fired Jack McKeon also was something of a work in progress. It was a process that wasn’t completed even when it appeared so, a bizarre page out of the operational manual of former owner Marge Schott.

The comparatively miserly Reds initially pursued Lou Piniella, who remained manager of the Seattle Mariners, and Willie Randolph, who remained third base coach of the New York Yankees. They then gave the job to their own third base coach, Ron Oester, who actually shook hands on it with Bowden and chief operating officer John Allen, pending their ability to talk owner Carl Lindner into improving a two-year, $650,000 offer.

Oester went to sleep on the night of Nov. 2 thinking he had the job only to receive a startling wake-up call from team spokesman Rob Butcher informing him that Boone was about to be introduced at a Cinergy Field news conference as the new manager, having accepted the $650,000 offer to become the lowest-paid manager in the majors.

“One of the last questions I asked was about the salary,” Boone said in reflection. “I wanted the job. I would have signed anything they put in front of me. It just seemed like the smart thing to do. You get your money when you accomplish something. Besides, I still tripled my [front office] salary.”

Oester, who wasn’t concerned about being the lowest-paid manager but wanted something comparable to the three-year, $1.5-million contract rookie Manager Lloyd McClendon got from the small-market Pittsburgh Pirates, expressed shock, accusing Bowden and the organization that has employed him for 27 years of betrayal. In fact, he still does--and still remains the third base coach under Boone, who welcomed Oester as a member of his staff, creating an interesting dynamic.

“Whatever happened between Ron and the organization is none of my business and hasn’t affected our relationship,” Boone said. “We have a great rapport, and he’s an outstanding baseball man, which is why he was considered for the [managing] job in the first place.”

Said Oester: “I was hurt and lied to by the organization, but life goes on. I certainly have nothing against Bob. I told him the second day in camp that I’d leave if he was uncomfortable, but it hasn’t been an issue. My job is to help Bob and this team be successful, and that’s the only thing on my mind.”

Perhaps, but the off-season managerial scenario is a subject likely to receive media review as the Reds travel around the National League. In addition, the outspoken Oester isn’t the type to pull punches. He feels Bowden’s betrayal stemmed from the encouragement he gave Oester to seek more money, telling him at one point, according to Oester, “we don’t have anybody else.” Bowden won’t discuss it, saying it serves no purpose to dredge up the past.

“People still don’t know what happened and never will,” Bowden said, to which Oester said: “It doesn’t matter what anybody else knows. He and I know what happened. I can live with it, but if he’s any kind of man, he can’t.”

The key relationships in the operation of a team are those between manager and general manager, manager and coaches, manager and players.

The Reds probably can survive the Bowden-Oester bitterness, but there are larger questions. They involve:

The quality of the rotation, the overall depth, the hope that Ken Griffey Jr. can find a more relaxed approach in his second season at home and that there is enough offense to complement him, the ability of Boone to escape the perception he tried to micro-manage the team and organization in Kansas City, and the willingness of the Reds to pay for midseason help if they’re in the race.

Last season, they went the other way, virtually conceding in midseason by trading Denny Neagle and Dante Bichette. In economic moves in the off-season, pitchers Ron Villone and Steve Parris, catcher Ed Taubensee and valued utility man Chris Stynes all departed.

The Reds won 96 games in 1999 before losing a wild-card playoff with the New York Mets. They won 85 games last season, finishing 10 games behind St. Louis. The 2001 payroll will be about $43 million, maintaining their average of 26th among the 30 teams over the last three years, a period in which “our won-loss record is the eighth best in baseball,” Bowden said. “We finished second [in the division last year] despite starting our regular lineup only 14 times because of injuries. We had no reason to be ashamed.”

In addition, he said, the priority has been to put the money into development, trade for young pitching, and have the team ready when the new park is. All of that played into the secondary selection of Boone “because he’s on page with the direction. He understands that in a small market you have to cut corners and take risks. We’ll never have a $100-million payroll like the Dodgers, but instead of being $60 million behind, we may be able to reduce it to $40 million or $50 million in the new park.”

For Boone, the situation is a significant improvement on Kansas City, where every night “I knew we were basically outgunned and it was not hard to sit there and wish I was managing the team in the other dugout. I don’t think I’ll feel that way with this team. We’re in it to try and win, with the idea that we’re also trying to get ourselves in real good position for the opening of the new park.”

The Royals, of course, were rebuilding from scratch. If Boone--a Gene Mauch disciple--was accused of too much juggling, he also was trying to protect the psyches and development of young players like Joe Randa and Johnny Damon, put them in the best situations to succeed. If he was accused of trying to micro-manage the entire organization, he also was dealing with a general manager at the time, Herk Robinson, who was from the business side. Inevitably, a frustrated Boone believed there were baseball decisions that weren’t being made.

“I’d never failed at anything in my life and you have to chalk that up as a failure,” he said. “Whether it was my fault or their fault doesn’t matter. I didn’t fit there, and shame on me for not. I mean, you take the job knowing you’re going to be fired, but I don’t think I believed it until it happened. It’s a blow to your ego, but even dealing with that, learning from it, should make me better.”

Boone spent 19 seasons catching in the big leagues, seven with the Angels. He was a manager behind the plate and middle man in a family legacy, the son of former big leaguer Ray Boone and the father of two current big leaguers--Bret Boone, now with Seattle, and Aaron Boone, his third baseman with the Reds.

In Cincinnati, of course, there is another father-son combination: Ken Griffey Sr., the batting coach, and Ken Jr., the center fielder whose first season with the Reds--40 homers, 118 runs batted in and a .281 average--was considered a disappointment when measured against himself.

In his father’s opinion, Griffey was “pulled in all directions last year, put a lot of unnecessary pressure on himself and found sanctuary only during the game.” Said Boone: “I’d have given my left arm to have a year like he had, but it was considered an off year because he’s that good. I mean, here’s a guy who has the potential to be a better hitter than Willie Mays, to hit more home runs than Hank Aaron. I fully expect him to have a better year because guys of that caliber don’t have too many off years.”

If Boone is supposed to be intimidated managing players of the Griffey and Barry Larkin caliber in a clubhouse said to be split by cliques last season, he insists that he’s not, calling it an honor to manage two players who will be elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot and that “it baffled me when I got the job and the reporters asked if I expected to have a difficult time dealing with those two.”

Of course, if Boone was going to be intimidated, would he have agreed to retain 1) a batting coach in Griffey Sr. who many thought would replace McKeon as manager, a bonus for his son agreeing to come to Cincinnati, and 2) a third base coach in Oester who actually had been given the manager’s job before Boone?

Call it a work in progress worth watching.

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