As Angels’ Victories Mount, Three of Them Mourn Losses

Joe Maddon’s father pitched batting practice to him, in the driveway, with the garage as the backstop and their apartment as the target.

“Every time I broke a window, he thought that was great,” Maddon recalled. “That meant my swing was coming around.”

Ron Roenicke’s father taught him his swing, driving him to the high school field after work, fastening his fingers around the bat, day after day, giant hands over little ones.

“Everything I know about hitting came from my dad,” Roenicke said.

Bud Black’s mother didn’t play baseball, didn’t even drive, but that didn’t matter.

Before every game, she ironed his Little League uniform.

“Have you ever heard of that before?” asked Black. “Somebody ironing a Little League uniform?”

He smiled and dabbed his eyes. These three Angel coaches do that a lot these days, and it’s not because they are blinking away champagne.

While reveling in an accomplishment forged partly with their knowledge, the three coaches are mourning those who helped them gain it.

On April 13, Helen Black died. She was pitching coach Black’s mother.

On April 15, Joe Maddon died. He was bench coach Maddon’s father.

Last Wednesday, Floyd Roenicke died. He was third-base coach Ron’s father.

“My mother always said that bad things come in threes,” noted Maddon, shaking his head.

Tonight, when the Angels begin the American League championship series against the Minnesota Twins, they hope to show that good things also come in threes.

They will scheme. They will shout. They will lead. They will hurt too, but they will do that quietly, so as not to disturb this possible championship in the making.

The players will notice. The effect will be powerful.

“We’re impressed that our coaches are so close, and that they never panic,” said Tim Salmon. “You’d have to think that rubs off on us.”

But the rub has often been raw.

On Saturday, when the Angels defeated the New York Yankees to win the first playoff series in club history, the three coaches mixed grief with their bubbly.

Roenicke, whose aggressiveness has led to countless Angel runs, wandered aimlessly, back and forth from the clubhouse celebration into a quiet back room, his face drawn, his shirt dry.

“I got a little champagne on me but it just didn’t feel right,” he said. “We had played really well and beat the Yankees ... but I know my dad wasn’t there.”

Black, whose calmness has steadied a young pitching staff, waited until he reached his car before breaking down during a phone call to his sister.

“We talked about how proud Mom would have been,” he said.

Maddon, who has bridged the gap between the old and new Angels, found a back room and left a message for his mother.

“I know my father was there,” he said.

This week, in Minneapolis and Anaheim, they will all be there.

In each of the three coaches, one can see the traits passed down by the three parents.

In looking around the Angel clubhouse, one can see how these coaches have passed these traits on to the players.

The Angels love to take chances. Some of that comes from the windmill-imitating Roenicke. All of that came from his father.

Floyd Roenicke was a baseball coach at Covina High who raised two major leaguers, Ron and brother Gary.

Ron said his father’s faith taught him about honor and respect. He said his father’s ballpark blood taught him about sending a runner from second.

“We would talk all the time about how the only way to get players to reach their potential is to let them go,” Roenicke said. “If you make a mistake, well, that happens. You just keep trying.”

Roenicke followed that rule last week when he returned to work only one day after learning of his father’s death.

“I know he would have wanted me there,” Roenicke said. “But it was really hard.”

When Roenicke missed Monday’s workout here to bury his father, the other coaches did what they have done all year.

Alfredo Griffin threw Roenicke’s batting practice. Orlando Mercado hit Roenicke’s fungoes.

Everybody chipped in. Nobody said a word.

“Everybody kind of shares the load around here,” Maddon said.

Understanding that the load is never too much, that is another Angel trait. Some of that comes from Black. All of that came from his mother.

“She was a homemaker; she was home,” Black said.

His father Harry was a former USC athlete and pro hockey player. His mother gave Black a sense of balance that he quietly tries to give to his young pitchers.

“From my mom, I learned that no matter what happened, you should hang in there and keep your head up,” he said. “No matter how I did in Little League, no matter what time I got home, it was always, ‘Can I get you something to eat? What do you need? It’s OK.’ ”

The young Angels also have a certain steadiness that supports that sense of self. Some of that comes from Maddon, and all of that came from his father.

“A simple, patient man,” Maddon said.

His father was a plumber. He lived and died in the apartment above the plumbing and heating company founded by Maddon’s grandfather in northeastern Pennsylvania.

“We were never subscribers to the grass-is-greener theory,” Maddon said. “We believed that no matter where you worked hard, you would get your reward.”

So as his father never left his shop, Maddon never left the Angels. He has 28 years in the organization, 59 games as interim manager.

Most of the players have known him longer than they have known any other coach. They trust him implicitly. He is fiercely loyal to both them and Manager Mike Scioscia. He is, in all ways, his father’s son.

Perhaps that is why, before every game since his father’s death, Maddon looks up into the stands and picks out an empty seat. In that seat, he imagines his father as a 22-year-old man.

“From a picture I once saw,” Maddon said. “Black hair, smiling, happy, no pain. That’s the way he’ll always be.”

Maddon buried his father in an Angel cap. Last week his mother sent him another Angel cap, the one his father wore in the last year of his life.

Between innings of the final three playoff games against the Yankees, the roaming Maddon walked into the clubhouse and touched the cap.

Now, the Twins. Nobody will see the coaches’ grief. Nobody will see anything from these three coaches but the mound visits, the bunt signs, the fungoes.

“It’s the way it works, the way we have to be,” said Black, his smile firm, his uniform pressed.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.