Reagins is a GM who minds his manner

I guarantee a title. This year, the Angels stuff the Red Sox.

There’s a new sheriff in town. Watch out world, here I come.

Mike Scioscia? I’m the boss. If he has problems with that, the dude is gone.

If you ever hear Polly Reagins’ youngest child utter anything remotely similar to those three lines, you will know that just around the bend is the apocalypse.

In case you missed it, Polly’s youngest is the Angels’ new general manager. When Bill Stoneman stepped away from that position in October, Tony Reagins went from running the team’s well-regarded minor league system to running everything -- from the big league club on down.

Most baseball GMs are former pros. Tony Reagins isn’t. Most begin their front-office careers dealing with baseball talent, eyes firm on the top job. Reagins got his start as a marketing intern. He was just happy to get a job, and had no idea where it could lead. Throughout history, general managers have almost exclusively been white. Reagins, 40, is African American.

But when you spend any significant time around him, what you notice most is Reagins’ manner. He is no Billy Beane, the new-school GM prototype, who runs the Oakland Athletics like a fiefdom. He is no Whitey Herzog, an old-school baseball lifer, certain there is only one true way to make it to the top. Reagins is as driven as they come, yes, but he’s also methodical, humble and understated.

“I’m not an ego guy,” Reagins told me as we sat for an interview on a recent day. “I’m a family guy. And I treat the Angels like family.”

As he put it, he is simply an extension of his humble upbringing in the low-desert town of Indio -- in particular, an extension of his mother. When Reagins was a toddler, his father died. That left it to Polly, a no-guff single mother who worked as a teacher’s aide and a housecleaner, to provide for her four children.

It is no stretch to say that the Angels will now be run the way Polly Reagins ran her household.

“My mother,” Reagins said, “she encouraged us to express opinions. What you said meant something. What you said was valued. My mother wanted to hear what each of us had to say. The idea was that no one has all the answers, and as soon as you think you have all the answers that is when you are in trouble.”

Well, I wondered, didn’t that lead to its own trouble? You lived in a tiny house with three siblings. All those voices, all those opinions?

“Oh, in the end,” Reagins said, “we all knew who had the final say. My mom liked input, but she was the boss.”

To be certain they would grow up on a straight path, Polly made sure her children had little idle time. When they weren’t in school and when she was at work, her kids invariably were at one of only two places: Second Baptist Church, or the Indio Boys Club.

“Tony was a fixture,” said Dave Ison, then the club’s executive director. “He was a straight arrow.” Loved people. Did things right. Listened. “He was Polly’s son . . . and she was quite a woman.”

A memory came to Ison: Tony Reagins’ closeness with a kid who had a severe disability that left him stooped and bent. Some at the club shied from David Moore, uncomfortable around someone with a disability. Not Tony. Tony looked at David with admiration. He loved the way David insisted on playing the games other boys played -- no excuses, no favors -- loved his heart and grit.

It’s no surprise, then, when you hear Reagins say he has a special affinity for Angels such as Chone Figgins -- all-heart guys who struggle and claw their way through the minor leagues.

The Angels are his to tool with now. What will he do to keep the team winning? What will he do to push them to a title again?

Stoneman, of course, took a beating for failing to make big trades that could have given the offense a boost. Once Reagins took over, he quickly signaled that things would be a bit different.

He signed high-wattage free-agent outfielder Torii Hunter to man center field, and add some sizzle and pop.

Surprisingly, he also traded a superb shortstop, Orlando Cabrera, for an inning-eating pitcher, Jon Garland. The move seemed to have been made with an eye on gathering players for another trade -- one that would have brought a slugger. Reagins has yet to be able to make such a deal, but do not be surprised to see a big trade this season.

Reagins may be more of a gambler than Stoneman -- who wouldn’t be? -- but he is just as circumspect. Like Stoneman, he plays it close to the vest. Actions, his mother taught, trump words.

When I brought up those who say that Mike Scioscia, the Angels’ stubborn, successful manager, will now be the one calling the shots, Reagins calmly shot the notion down.

But what if your manager comes to you, frustrated about the offense, wanting a trade?

“If it makes sense, if it makes economic sense and baseball sense, we’ll have to look at it,” Reagins said.

I pushed for more.

Reagins said he would lean hard on Scioscia’s input, that the two are close and work seamlessly, and he acknowledged that Scioscia would have more power than before. “I’d be a fool not to want Mike to have more input. [But] I’m going to hear as many opinions as I can hear. . . . I’ll make the call, but I believe I can find a consensus.”

He did not squirm and his voice did not crack. There was no sense that his ego could not handle the thought of relying on another man; just a calm confidence, a sense he would find a way to do things right.

Polly Reagins died of breast cancer in 2002. Somewhere in the heavens she must be looking down on her youngest child, and smiling.

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Kurt Streeter can be reached at kurt.streeter@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Streeter, go to latimes.com/streeter.