Farm System Kept Padres Manageable

If you only reap what you sow, then the San Diego Padres have a follow-up question:

Sow what?

The pitchers and hitters and glove men they planted for years in Spokane - when the Indians were still a part of the Padres farm system - have mostly bloomed elsewhere.

If player development truly is the lifeline of a major league team, the Padres should be drowning.

Yet there they are, surfing atop the National League West - a franchise that hasn’t done diddly in a decade enjoying an April renaissance which may well be fleeting but is nonetheless fun. And a few links to Spokane still cling to life on the 25-man roster - Bryce Florie, Scott Sanders, Luis Lopez.

That makes three - or exactly as many ex-Indians managers there are in the Padres’ dugout.

“Yeah, three of us,” said Padres manager Bruce Bochy, “and the other two aren’t worth a damn.”

He was joking. Padres management isn’t.

If they’ve let some of the home-grown talent get away over the years, the Padres have deemed it prudent to hang on to the men who helped develop that talent.

There’s Rob Piccolo, who managed Spokane in 1986 and ‘87 and has been on the Padres’ coaching staff since 1990, the last four as bench coach. There’s Tim Flannery, Spokane’s skipper in 1993 and now San Diego’s third-base coach.

And then there’s the boss.

If it was a surprise to the rest of baseball a year ago when the Padres hired Bochy - mild-mannered to the point of no pulse - as their manager, it seemed like a slam dunk to Piccolo.

“Bruce is a great manager - you could see when he was in Spokane it was just a matter of time until he was going to be a big-league manager,” Piccolo said.

“I’ve always thought ex-catchers make the best managers because they’re accustomed to seeing the whole field and dealing with pitchers, which is 80 percent of the game. But Bruce just has a great feel for players and situations.”

How much that has to do with San Diego being baseball’s most improved team in 1995, and with the club’s fast start this spring, is debatable. But it was obvious early on that Bochy knew something about this managing dodge. As a rookie manager in 1989, he carried on the string of four consecutive Northwest League championships Piccolo started in Spokane - and won again with many of the same players in the California League two years later.

“Starting in Spokane almost spoils you,” said Bochy, at 40 the big leagues’ youngest active manager. “It’s a nice city, a great ballpark and the support is special. That’s where I fell in love with managing.

“What’s great about managing is that you’re still competitive - and that things you couldn’t do as a player, you can do as a manager. I couldn’t run a lick, but now I can steal a base and hit and run and all those things.”

Bochy learned all that in Spokane. Piccolo, on the other hand, learned that he probably didn’t want to manage.

“My personality is probably best suited for coaching - being a buffer between the players and the manager, teaching,” he said. “That’s my first love, anyway.”

And Flannery? Well, he’s the one everyone expects will manage.

Indeed, observers of the club assume he was brought up from Triple-A Las Vegas as the heir apparent - an assumption that riles him a little.

“Everyone thinks I’m next in line and all that,” he protested. “I have no aspirations to manage this club. I’m not saying I’m never going to manage, but I’m here for Bruce.

“I played five years with him. We’re like an old married couple - we yell and holler at each other, but we care about one another and are very close friends. In this business, you lay it on the line as a manager and you need people to go to war for you - people who are loyal. And I’m very loyal to Bruce.”

It’s remarkable enough for three ex-Indians managers to wind up on the same big-league staff, but Spokane’s job placement record is downright amazing.

Steve Lubratich, who succeeded Piccolo in the Spokane dugout, is now assistant general manager of the Detroit Tigers after filling the same job in San Diego. Gene Glynn, who won the last of Spokane’s NWL titles in 1990, is Don Baylor’s third-base coach with the Colorado Rockies. Ed Romero, the ‘92 skipper, manages at Double-A Memphis.

And Kevin Towers, the Tribe’s pitching coach under Bochy, was promoted to senior vice president and general manager of the Padres this past November.

“Hope I treated him right back in Spokane,” Bochy said.

Maybe the old-boy network has just kicked into overdrive, but don’t underestimate comfort and security - and loyalty - when you’re trying to get it done in the major leagues.

“These guys know what I’m about and vice versa,” Bochy said of his coaches. “We ask total effort from our players and I think they ask the same from us - and they’re going to get it from these guys because I know them. These guys played the game hard and played it right and that’s the way they’re going to teach it here.

“I know that’s the way they taught it in Spokane.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review