Message #353015

[JMUalumni]

The Chiefs are set to begin their season led by their "Accidental Manager"
by Bud Poliquin/The Post-Standard's sports columnist
Thursday April 09, 2009, 12:02 AM

Syracuse, N.Y. -- You know, this new skipper in town, this Tim Foli, has landed among us with quite a resume.

He was the overall No. 1 pick, by the New York Mets, in the 1968 draft. He helped the Pittsburgh Pirates win the World Series in 1979, which was the same season in which he struck out once every 42.4 plate appearances. He led all National League shortstops in fielding percentage in two different years. And he once he even hit for the cycle.

But Foli -- who believes not at all that the older we get, the better we were -- isn't the least bit impressed.

"Who cares what I did?" he asked earlier this week. "I was a survivor, that's all. I survived. I played because I could catch the ball and throw it across the diamond. Nowadays, I don't know if I could even get in a lineup."

Apparently, Foli -- who played nearly 1,700 games across 16 major-league seasons and committed errors back then as often as Howie Mandel now reaches for a comb -- hasn't merely checked his ego at the door. He's bound it, gagged it and locked it away.

And now he's here in our town as the 39th guy over these past 74 years to serve as the manager of the Syracuse Chiefs. Reluctantly, it turns out.

"I wanted to be a major-league manager a long time ago, but now I don't," said Foli. "Don't get me wrong. I like this part of the game, but I really enjoy roving and teaching and working with kids. The people above me, though, feel as the manager of this team I'm in the best position to help the organization. I'm doing this because I was asked."

He is, then, the Accidental Skipper. And his first regular-season shift with the Chiefs is scheduled for this afternoon when his Syracuse club, now the affiliate of the Washington Nationals, hopes to play the Rochester Red Wings at Alliance Bank Stadium beginning at 2 o'clock.

That everybody in the north-side joint will be shivering is a given, of course. This is, after all, Syracuse. And wearing thermal underwear on Opening Day is a local custom that seemed on Tuesday to have been lost on Foli.

"They don't get," he said as he gazed out an ABS window on a ghastly 35-degree afternoon, "the whole global warming thing, do they?"

Oh, we're going to like this dude. And not just because he's honest enough to have evaluated his earlier self -- the one nicknamed, by a Mets coach, "Crazy Horse" thanks to his mad ways -- as follows: "I wasn't fiery. I was a hothead. Yeah, a hothead. And when I was with New York, I wasn't even a hothead then. I was just basically nuts."

All of that misbehavior, however, has been stowed along with the ego. Foli, 58 and the possessor of a legendary batting-practice pitching arm, swears that he's long since calmed down. Which means that he'll likely not choose to rip up a base and toss it into the outfield, Piniella style, as a way of expressing his disagreement with an offending arbiter's call.

Nah, Tim Foli, married for 35 years, a father of five and walking with the Lord, insists "Crazy Horse" is long gone. And in his place has come a more rational fellow who fully comprehends life with one's foot on the top step.

"When I used to want to be a manager," Foli said, "I used to think, 'Boy, I know this and that about the game. So I could take a mediocre team and compete because I'll find the edge.' But the bottom line, and I understand it now, is that talent wins.

"When you put two teams up and they play 162 games, talent is going to win out. That's all there is to it. The players win; not the people who are sitting in the dugout. When you have good players and they execute, you look like a genius. If they don't, you're not a very good manager. Those are just the facts of life."

Now, he has come upon this enlightenment honestly because in addition to those 16 campaigns spent in the majors, Foli has been a coach for four big-league teams (Texas, Milwaukee, Kansas City and Cincinnati) and has managed four minor-league seasons. So, he's been around a lot of baseball savants and knows all that is possible to know about the hit-and-run.

And here he is, Syracuse Manager No. 39, ready to lead by example and not by resume.

"What it comes down to," Foli said, "is this: When I was a player, I always wanted to be an impact player. Well, I wasn't an impact player. I was a role player. I did some little things that were good, but only on a good team. If I saved a run in a 7-2 loss, nobody really cared. But if I saved a run in a 3-2 win, that was special.

"So, when you're on a good team, everybody has to contribute. It takes 20-25 guys over a full season. They all have to be part of it. Even though I wasn't one of the big cogs on that '79 club -- not with Stargell and Parker and Madlock and Garner -- I was a little cog that needed to be there for that engine to keep running. It took me a long time into my career, but I finally understood that."

He'll pass on that wisdom beginning, officially, today. And by doing so, Tim Foli will answer his own question. Who cares what he did? Only those Chiefs on his watch who hope to learn just a little bit more about the game they play.

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(Bud Poliquin's column, his "To The Point" observations and his on-line commentaries appear virtually every day on syracuse.com. Additionally, his work can be regularly found on the pages of The Post-Standard newspaper. E-mail: bpoliquin@syracuse.com.)