SEATTLE – When the Mariners were in Cincinnati in early July, Reds manager Dusty Baker told Robby Thompson he thought he was ready to manage.
The two have been close since Baker was Thompson’s hitting coach, and later his manager, with the Giants. Thompson, in fact, began his coaching career on Baker’s San Francisco staff in 2000 and 2001. Baker told Thompson in July he would be happy to help spread his name around the game as a managerial candidate.
Thompson, who had been Eric Wedge’s bench coach in Seattle since his hiring in 2011, told Baker to hold off, for the time being.
“I want to make sure I’m 100 percent in,” Thompson told Baker. “I don’t know how or when I’m going to know that, but I want to make sure I’m like you and Eric: All in.”