Like a man trying to convince himself
Posted: October 13th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 37 Comments »
This is about Royals manager Trey Hillman, but more than that it’s about something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately: I think in sports (and life) you have to be who you are. I’ve been thinking about this a lot because, I’m not sure I mentioned this, I’m writing this book about the 1975 Reds. And what amazes me is how pronounced and distinct those players’ personalities were — Rose was not Bench, Bench was not Morgan, Morgan was not Perez, Perez was not Griffey or Gullett or Nolan or Eastwick. And Sparky was a character deluxe himself. They were out there as players and as men in a way that seems pretty striking now. It’s tougher in today’s media feeding frenzy. But I still think you have to be yourself.
* * *
People often ask me what I think of Royals manager Trey Hillman. I like him. I can give you a bunch of reasons why I like him, but I think it probably boils down to three good ones:
1. He made it to the big leagues the hard way. I have tremendous respect for people who make it even though they don’t have anything handed to them. Trey was not drafted, but he signed with the Cleveland Indians. He was not good enough to move up as a player, so he signed on as a scout. He impressed enough people with his dedication and communication skills that he was hired to be a minor league manager. He was a good enough minor league manager that he slowly moved up the ladder. He was so committed to the game that he traveled to the other side of the world, to Japan, to manage baseball there. He was so successful as a manager there — despite the obvious cultural and language obstacles — that the Kansas City Royals hired him. That’s a good story, and I deeply admire the guy behind it.
2. He strikes me as a good guy. I spent quite a lot of time with him in Japan, during the Japan Series, and it was clear how much he loves baseball, how much he cares about his family, how much he wants to be successful. He seems good people.
3. He seems to strike a pretty decent balance between old and new. I think there are a lot of ways to win baseball games as a manager — all of them beginning with having talented players — but I think a Kansas City manager should have a unique and detailed plan for winning. I, rather pathetically, compare it to rotisserie baseball. If you have less money than the other members of the league, you will not win by using the same fantasy baseball magazines they are using. You need to go your own way. I think Trey is open to that.
There are other reasons I like the guy too. So now, I move to the second part of the equation: There was something about Trey this season that really bothered me. I touched upon some of it in this column but there’s something else that I have had a very hard time getting at. It’s like … well, here’s a small thing. Trey does not have press meetings in his office. Managers throughout baseball history have met with reporters in their offices. The managers sit at their desks, answer questions, shoot the bull, it has been a part of the game for a long time. I suspect that pretty much every successful manager you can name for the last 50 years had done that.
Trey doesn’t do that. He doesn’t want reporters in his office, not at home, not on the road, not ever. When Jon Lester threw his no-hitter against the Royals in Fenway Park, Trey talked to the media outside the clubhouse, in full view, against a brick wall, with fans shouting in the background.
Now, let me be absolutely clear here because I know people purposely will misunderstand: I don’t care that Trey doesn’t open up his office to people. I really don’t. It’s his office and if he wants to make it a private sanctuary, that is absolutely his right and his business. If he wants to keep the media at arm’s length, only answer questions in an official setting, spend his focus on more important things, that’s his business too. His job is to win baseball games. He should go about that in his own way. As I will point out later, I think Trey’s goal should be to care LESS about what people in the media think about him, not more.
But here’s the point: I don’t think the no-office policy fits him. I think he’s doing it because he thinks that’s how a baseball manager should act. I think HIllman is the sort of guy who would LOVE having bull sessions before games. He’s a guy who enjoys the banter, the back and forth talk of the game. He’s a guy who can talk for hours about nothing, about what base a pitcher should cover with runners on first and third and a foul pop-up hit down the first base line. He loves this stuff, loves it. Hillman, to me, seemed like a man arguing with his own character this season, a guy who was acting in the way he perceived a Major League manager should act rather than BEING a Major League manager.
It’s like the Casablanca line: “You know how you sound Monsieur Blaine? Like a man who’s trying to convince himself of something he doesn’t believe in his heart.”
This came into focus for me again when I was reading an Internet Chat Hillman did with fans on MLB.com a week ago. I am not going to dissect this chat Fire Joe Morgan style, but I want to point out something with just a few of the questions.
jarret223: Trey, what are your expectations for this upcoming season?
Hillman: Same as every year. As a manager, we want to show marked improvement on what we showed in 2008. If we do that, we should improve our overall standings and increase our fanbase.
OK, this is a wide open question — you can say anything. Trey says nothing. We want to show marked improvement and if we do that we should win more games and draw more fans.
gerg76: Good afternoon. It’s great to get a chance to talk to you. As a fan, I truly appreciate the value you place on baseball fundamentals. Do you feel that your passion for playing the game the right way is sinking in with the younger guys on the team?
Hillman: Yes, the majority of the time, but we still need improvement in consistency of production and consistency of focus in all areas that affect the outcome of a game.
Consistency of production? Consistency of focus? These are like Dilbert phrases.
gerg76: Can you tell us the top two or three areas that you focus on to prep for Spring Training?
Hillman: More consistency in the quality of our starting pitching, because it impacts the game more than any other area. The continuation of shoring up the fundamentals of the game. I don’t think we can work on it any more than in 2008, but we will try to improve our implementation during 2009 Spring Training, so our performance ratio is much more efficient, i.e., sacrifice bunts, stolen bases and unforced physical defensive errors.
Trey Hillman is a well-spoken guy. He’s from Texas. He can shoot straight. But I have no idea what he’s talking about here. Improve implementation so performance ratio is more efficient? By the way, how many questions does gerg76 get here?
kilsey: What do you think of Ryan Shealy’s late-season performance? Do you think he’s ready to come up to the Major League level full-time?
Hillman: Ryan had an outstanding month of September, both in production and helping us win ballgames. He has certainly accelerated his value in being a strong consideration for a Major League team in 2009.
Ryan had a good September. Also, he had a good September.
Slayor09: What was your biggest challenge managing your first season in the big leagues?
Hillman: The biggest challenge, because you are around your own personnel every day, was learning the actual personalities and mannerisms that point to positive days and trying days for your own personnel. I believe my job is to enhance, as great as I can, any individual player’s skills on a day when they may not have things going the way they would like.
Whew.
labsorhors: Did you watch the American League Division Series games, and if so, what was your take?
Hillman: I did watch them — not every pitch of every game, but most of them. I think the same thing continues to play out — the teams that pitch the best in the playoffs will continue to win most of the games.
Now, let me be clear again … I’m not knocking what Trey is saying here. Well, OK, yeah I’m poking a little bit of fun*. But my real point here is that I think he’s fighting with himself.
*Come on, he said the teams that pitch the best will win most of the time. That’s a presidential election answer. More on this coming up.
I think he’s trying very hard to say the right thing, avoid pitfalls, spare feelings. I think he’s being secretive and close-mouthed … and I just don’t think that’s him. I think Trey is more real than that, more fun than that. more outspoken than that, more passionate than that, more alive than that …
jarret223: Trey, what are your expectations for this upcoming season?
Hillman redux: I think we’re going to be a darn good baseball team. I thought we showed signs of that in September, and with our young pitching — how about Zack Greinke this year? — and with some of our young hitters coming around, I’m really optimistic. It’s not easy, you know that, but I feel really good about where we’re going with the Royals. I’m excited. I hope the fans are excited too. We’re on the right track, I know that.
That doesn’t say a whole lot more, but that’s real, that’s hopeful, that would be more like the Trey Hillman I got to know in Japan, a guy who was enthusiastic and confident and in charge.
Trey says all the time that he does not read the papers, does not listen to talk radio, does not worry about what other people think about him. But, honestly: I don’t believe him. I think he reads and listens.* I think he does worry about it. I think he worries way too much about it.
*I believe I’ve expressed this journalistic rule, but just to reiterate: “The amount of time and effort sports figures spend reading the papers and Internet and listening to talk radio is in direct correlation with how fervently they insist they do not read or listen to any of it.”
And I think he’s should stop worrying about what anyone else thinks*. I have seen more managers and coaches ruined by trying to please people than anything else — it’s like the alcohol of our new media time. I remember when Tony Muser was managing the Royals, and it was expressed to him through various sources that he needed to look more positive, be more positive; Tony’s a terrific baseball man but he exuded this sort of sad-sack Charlie Brown quality that didn’t play well.
*And that obviously includes me.
Tony unofficially announced that he would smile a lot more. And so the Royals had a chart in the clubhouse, and they would put a smiley face on the days that Tony smiled, and a frowny face on days he did not. When something is that transparent, that obvious, it has no chance of working. And it did not work; Tony was fired that year. You have to be yourself in this game, there’s no other way. Nobody can PRETEND to be a good baseball manager — or a good football coach or a good player or a good anything. Not for long. Nobody can ACT like a success. No, it seems to me that you have to be who you are and believe that will be good enough.
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Romeo Crennel is acting like himself (a corpse), and sadly, it isn’t working. I think you should amend your thesis to be “Everyone but Romeo Crennel should be who they are”
Oh man, did Joe just FJM a Hillman chat? pretty interesting
You’re obviously close to the situation, and I am not. But for what it’s worth, he sounds a lot like a guy we like pretty well up here in New England. If his record were more like Hillman’s, I couldn’t say that about him. But having defined himself as a winner, when he unloads those non-answers, there is a segment of us who smile and note that what Belichick said was, in fact, true, if not overly cooperative.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Belichick’s ‘adversary’ in his press conferences is, at times, Shaughnessy.
Editor’s note: This is a great point, but exactly my point. I think Belichick, for whatever else, is being himself. I think that’s who he is. My sense is — and you bet, I could be wrong — is that Trey is not being himself.
Lack of evidence.
I am not sure what to make of this post. I’m not a KC guy. I don’t know much about Hillman at all. But I see what you have written here, and it read to me as providing evidence of the opposite of your claim.
Perhaps THIS is the real guy, and the other stuff is him trying to be what he is not.
How do you know which is the real one, and which is effort?
You’ve quoted one of my sports-related pet peeves. Misuse of consistency.
For example, a guard who has never been a good long range shoorter saying, “I need to hit the 3 more consistently.” No, you’ve been at 18-20% every year for five years. You have great consistency. You need to hit it MORE. Period.
We need to hit more consistently? You, you need to hit more. Period. If you alway suck, you are perfectly consistent. If you are always mediocre, you are perfectly consistent.
Consistently is not about the level, it is about the variation. It is about predictability. What do I know about the Royals? I think that the franchise has been consistent for a long time.
I moved from the KC area last October and missed attending Royals games for the first time in 38 years. I followed the team through MLB and cable and of course the web site. I can’t say that I totally agree with you on your assessment of Trey Hillman, but you have put some light on areas for improvement that he could bring to his skill set. (Is my response sounding a bit “Hillmanish”?) I will say this. Drayton finds Trey a power hitting 1st baseman and a SOLID #3 starter and we may not have to worry about Trey convincing anyone….
I tend to think that Casablanca is the best written movie of all time. Evah!
What I do mean by this? Well, I mean a lot of things. The one I want to focus on here is quotability. Casablanca has more great quotable lines than any other movie.
What do I mean by this? Well, there’s a lot of things that I don’t mean. I don’t simply mean funny. Or surreal. Or lines that epitomize the movie. Or lines that are a joy to people who love the movie. Or even memorable.
I mean great lines that really say something larger.
I owe Bob Ryan for this. How many times did I hear him say “I am shocked. Shocked!” before I realized where the line came from? And this is a great line! It says so much, so concisely. (In case you don’t know, this is feigned shock. Outrage for the camera, when everyone around you knows that you are not outraged.)
I am not going to give a list of all the great lines from this movie. But I am going to suggest a poll or two.
1) What makes a quotable movie line quotable?
2) What is the most quotable movie? Or sports movie?
My thoughts- Hillman speaks like a man (1) speaking through a translator, and (2) doing his utmost to be respectful to all parties… In fact, I think if you put normal, everyday baseball phrases through google translator a couple times, you would end up with “Hillman-speak”… let’s try:
Original – We just need to go out and play one day at a time, be consistent, and do the little things correctly.
To Japanese, and then Back to English – We go out and play once a day, little things consistently and correctly need to do.
Okay, that did NOT work as well as I’d hoped!
The Royals should trade for Fukudome.
In the off season Hillman works for the Department of Redundancy Department.
@Drewfuss:
Do you think that could be a Japanese influence of some sort? It’s a bit of a silly stretch on my part to try to connect these things, but aren’t those two descriptions ones you can also apply to most of the Japanese ballplayers in the States?
I think you missed out on one big part in that chat, the part where one commenter started off by saying “Trey, great job managing this year!”
Trey may have done many things this year, but managing “great” or even “well” or even “marginally mediocre” was not one of them.
Can somebody please buy http://www.treychat.com for Joe?
Thank you.
Really, though. I can see Trey kind of gritting his teeth thru a chat like this. You know, asking himself why the hell he had to roll out of bed to answer stupid quesions. What’s the matter with him giving half-hearted answers to half-assed questions?
…REALLY??? That’s the best you could do jarrett223??
I got the chance to ask Tony LaRussa a question once, and when I mentioned how he had been batting Renteria ahead of Edmonds, and he went off for five minutes about Edmonds nursing an injury to a body part I thought only women had. That was fun.
Chris Farley could ask better questions than the ones asked in that TreyChat.
Farley: “Umm…d’you, uh…remember when, um, Derek Jeter hit the, um, homerun after midnight to win that game?”
Trey: “Yes. I was actually managing the Yankees minor league team at the time.”
Farley: “Yeah, cuz…that wuzawesome! D’you, um, remember, um, when you lost the Japan Series when that guy, um, almost threw that perfect game against you guys?”
Trey: “Yeah, well I’d actually like to forget about that.”
Farley: “DAMNITT!!”
Trey: “It’s alright, it’s alright.”
Farley: “Really? Um…What are your expectations for the upcoming season?”
I don’t blame Trey at all.
In your book be sure to show how the big red machine was like the Rolling Stones and Tommy Lasorda’s Dodgers were like the Beatles – darkness vs light.
Trey sounds like a man trying to please (read: emulate) his boss–the man that finally gave him a shot at the major leagues. Dayton rarely ’says’ anything to reporters either; it’s all GM speak. Moore’s just better at it and we expect that kind of talk out of the front office. But the manager is generally a man ‘from the ranks’ and sounds like it–less politically correct, less delicate, and less full
of BS. Trey should be that good old Texas boy that says what he thinks, does what he knows, and damn the consequences. Managers who are sycophants and toadies not only are bad managers, they don’t command the respect of their players, and don’t last too long.
Did we really just sign Seitzer as our new hitting coach? I don’t know what to think about that.
We also signed former Toronto manager John Gibbons as bench coach. I feel good about this one, and I think Seitzer could be good but Arizona hacks like we do, apparently he didn’t work much magic there.
Discuss.
“…I feel good about this one, and I think Seitzer could be good but Arizona hacks like we do, apparently he didn’t work much magic there.
Discuss.”
Fun statistic….In 8,864 combined career plate appearances, the Royals’ primary outfield this year (Teahen, DeJesus, Guillen) has walked 677 times, precisely 8 more walks than Kevin Seitzer amassed in 2,800 fewer career plate appearances. Put another way, Jose Guillen would have to reach base in his next 458 plate appearances to match Seitzer’s career on base percentage of .375.
In short, the introduction of anyone who will preach plate discipline to these guys must be considered a welcome addition.
Nice stat Paul. I’m on board.
The Royals need personality. I can name four players that have personality and one of them is medicate to keep it on the down low.
Soria is awesome. Olivo and Guillen spout off, charge the mound and fans, and at least have something interesting to say. I know that Grienke is winning now, but it was fun when he was crazy.
Teahan boring. Gload boring. Dejesus boring. Grudz boring. Butler boring, Gordon boring.
I can handle boring if we win, but obviously we don’t.
I wonder if the political speak is something he picked up in Japan. I was confused about a lot of things Trey did this year. He seemed to go against his own plans a lot. Fundamentals were preached, but I can’t tell you how many times players ran into or almost ran into each other trying to catch pop flies. The thing I hated most about Buddy Bell was he never looked like he cared no matter what was going on on the field, and I get a little of that from Trey. I would like to see a little more fire or drive out of him.
I think managers should be themselves, but I do think they should smile more. And they should stand in front of the stadium & greet the fans with enthusiasm & their big smile. And they should wear a name tag saying, “Hi, My Name is ______.” And they should rename the baseball park “Wal-Mart.”
But they definitely should be themselves.
I love it! Those responses are so FJM style, that if I saw them on FJM itself, I wouldn’t even do a double take. You even hit on the over/incorrect use of the word ” consistency!” That being said, there are so few coaches or athletes that are even tolerable to listen to, or read because they give non answers and speak in cliches. Anytime an athlete or coach is being interviewed on the radio, with very few exceptions, I change the station so I don’t fall asleep at the wheel. Trey needs to show more of who he is, I think he will win over some of the fans that are on the fence about him if they can see his true personality more.
I think Trey coached like a guy who doesn’t want to give his boss a reason to fire him. Always a recipe for failure.
I think the Royals need better players.
I’d like to see It’s like the Casablanca line: “You know how you sound Monsieur Blaine? Like a man who’s trying to convince himself of something he doesn’t believe in his heart†lose the “It’s like the Casablanca line” intro.
Then I could post “Nice Casablanca reference” — unless Alex beats me.
Trey Hillman doesn’t stick his neck out for nobody.
“I remember every detail. The Yankees wore gray, you wore blue.”
To help get over the off-season blues, I listened to the Royals game archive for May 1st. It was shocking to hear how much looser Trey Hillman sounded in the pregame interview with Bob Davis than I remember him being at the end of this season.
Seitzer, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Sadly, hiring John Gibbons as your bench coach drastically reduces the chances that anyone, anywhere, will ever intentionally walk Tony Pena, Jr. again.
That saddens me a little.
You know, I’ve always wondered about the logistics of how the Royals do those online chats. As in, does the manager or player sit there at a computer and actually type in his responses? I doubt it, but I could be wrong.
I suspect that the manager/player sits there while a PR type reads him the question from the fan, then types in a response. If that’s the case, do we not have the opportunity for the PR guy to do a bit of massaging and/or “translating” of the response?
I say this because I’ve read several of those sessions, and they all seem a bit contrived and don’t sound to me like there’s any change in personality from one to the next.
Joe,
I love your work. You know this. I’ve been reading your work for years and years. But… …this column sounds whiny reporterish. I don’t think you meant it, but you seem upset that he’s simply not giving you enough material to write about.
Plus, and this is bigger, what you saw in Japan was Successful Trey. Here you’ve seen six months of Unsuccessful Trey. Six months of losing with a bad ball club that wasn’t built with your interests in mind would do this (i.e. the online chat minimalism) to any one of us. We’ll get a better, truer read on Trey next season—provided it’s not as bad as this one—I don’t think it will be—seriously.
- TL
I’d have to question your judgment of Trey Hillman. I understand that you saw him in Japan and all that. He must have made a great impression over there. Because, I thought he was stand offish all year. His answers were shorter than the answers Herm had today about Tony Gonzalez.
One more thing, pretty unrelated.
When are you going to gloat about the Rays? I’m guessing you have 5,000 words saved up and you are just waiting to hit the “publish” button. Correct?
Joe,
I’m a huge Reds fan and also a fan of the blog. When can we expect to see your new book?
Does Trey have any of his “own” guys? I think this may be the main draw back to him being out of MLB. It seems Seitzer and Trey aren’t even really that familiar with each other. Gibbons sounds a little better, at least they knew each other. Maybe Seitzer and Gibbons will become “his” guys.
I am fine with Trey being the manager of the Royals. I think he will be a good mananger, it just might not happen this year. I really hope the Royals get some better players this offseason.
This is really why I like to see that Ozzie Guillen is still managing – he doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks.