Defending Charlie, the winner’s manual

The Phorum recently had our weekly pow-wow at a local watering hole and happened to overhear a relatively familiar conversation. Charlie Bashing. Surprisingly, still a popular topic. Same old chorus line; he don't sound good, he looks kinda frumpy and every argument that baseball managers don't need to wear the uniform should begin with a video of Charlie waddling out to the mound. There are a number of head-scratcher moves during the regular season that may or may not have cost the team the game. He was a middling Major League player. The teams in Cleveland were stacked and he never won the big one out there. Too laid back and too loyal to his players, doesn't subscribe to certain modern standards of the game – pitch count, the whole lefty-righty matchup thing, sabermetrics, yada, yada, etc.

As fans of the Phillies and just baseball in general, we felt obligated to revisit the Charlie's career and share our findings here.

Charlie Just Wins

Aside from the long list of baseball accomplishments and anecdotes, we discovered a common thread going all the way back to Manuel's playing days. Simply, Charlie is a winner. He wins. And wins and wins. And on the way, he has nurtured talent and potential into All-stars and All-stars in MVP's. He's resurrected careers (when possible) and gotten more out of his no-name bench and bullpen players (remember Eric Brunlett, Clay Condrey) than any manager Philadelphia has seen in thirty years. Maybe ever
Go back to the mid-80's, Charlie had returned to the States after effectively being forced out of the Nippon League, his playing days over (he was nailed in the face to prevent him from setting a Japanese HR record – more on Charlie's Japanball career later) and was snapped up by the Minnesota Twins. In only his second year of managing, he took a truly dreadful AA level team, the Orlando Twins, to the playoffs. (The Twins only had one future major leaguer on the roster, Mark Portugal).

In 1990, Charlie replaced Bob Molinaro midseason as the manager of the Cleveland Indians Triple A affiliate, the Colorado Springs Sky Sox. He led the Sox to a playoff berth that season and a year and half later in '92, managed the Sox to a Pacific League Championship. The following year, Manuel managed Cleveland's International League team to a championship, garnering Manager of the Year Honors along the way. So potent were Charlie's offenses during this stretch that a local beat writer coined the phrase "Charlie Ball". And if you're thinking that those minor league teams were stacked with major league talent, you might want to check again. The '92 team featured Beau Allred, Wayne Kirby and Nelson Liriano. While the '93 team did include Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez and Sandy Alomar there wasn't much else in terms of Major League Talent.


Charlie was promoted to the Bigs in '94 for his second stint as the Indians hitting instructor. His career minor league line, 610-588 in about 9 years. 5 playoff appearances, 2 championships, and one manager of the year award. Looks like a winner to me.


Charlie's exploits as a hitting coach over the next half decade are well chronicled, however, it is worth noting that in '97, the Indians set a club homerun record (220) and in '99, the Indians scored an astounding 1009 runs. It is also worth noting that Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Albert Belle, and Roberto Alomar among others attribute their success to Manuel.

In 2000, Manuel took the reins and led the Indians to the playoffs in '01 before being unceremoniously dumped at the all-star break in '02. The Indians had begun a rebuilding process and were unsure if Manuel was the man to mold a high-potential farm system into high-producing big leaguers. Manuel felt he was the man for the job and demanded an extension essentially sealing his fate. The Indians promoted Eric Wedge, who with the exception of the '07 season, was utterly underwhelming for the next six and half years. Oops.


I'm assuming we all remember when Charlie took over for the Phils in '05. How close they had been under fan favorite, uber high-strung, club-house polarizing Larry Bowa. I'm assuming we all remember that both the fans and local media crucified Ed Wade for the hire; especially in light of Jim Leyland interviewing. Local knucklehead Howard Eskin was especially vitriolic, skewering Wade and then over the next few years Manuel; challenging everything from Manuel's in game moves to Charlie's manhood. One of the Phorum's favorite Charlie moments occurred in early '07, when Manuel appeared to have had enough of Eskin and challenged the shock jock to a fight.


I'm going to gloss over Manuel's stellar record here in Philly for the most part and just point out a few key statistics. The Phils missed the playoffs in 05 and 06, but Charlie set a Phillies manager record for wins in his first two seasons – 173. Beginning in 07, when the Phils began their run of division titles, the Fightin's have been clutch, going a MLB best 177-109 (a winning % of.618). Even more impressive, they have a September record of 72 – 40 (a winning % of .643). Finally, Charlie has more post-season wins (25) than all other managers in Phillies franchise history combined (22).


 
Charlie Ball – winning the right way


If you watch enough of Manuel's sparse press conferences, you'll notice he talks a lot about winning the right way. Winning with toughness and swinging with confidence. But maybe because Manuel's clubhouses are typically light-hearted and loose some are lead to believe Uncle Cholly is too soft. 

The way his words twang. Might be too easy-going.


Hardly, going back to his playing days in Japan, Manuel's nickname was Aka-Oni, or the "Red Devil". I don't imagine a moniker like that comes from being rolley-poley. According to Manuel, while he has mellowed over the years, (he's quoted as saying he'd "jacked up" players when they "didn't do the right thing" during his stint with the Twins in the mid-80s. Manuel doesn't jack his players anymore, but he still on occasion will give them a talkin-to. Chuck Finely, who pitched for Manuel's Cleveland team once said of Charlie, "Friend or not, he's going to walk up and stomp on you if you don't do the right thing". Jimmy Rollins was famously benched for being a few minutes late to a game in '08. So much for easy going.


You want to talk tough? Manual's about as rough and tumble as they come. Although some thought the idea of the 60 + year old man challenging a much younger Howard Eskin to a fight was a) kinda funny, and b) a bit out of character, the truth is that Charlie throughout his career has always been a bit of livewire. Perhaps the most famous incident came during his playing days in Japan when Manuel and two other American players were involved in a barfight with half the East German Hockey team (the Americans got their butts whooped).


Or how about in '79. Playing for the the Kintetsu Buffaloes of the Nippon League Manuel had hit 25 homeruns in the first eight weeks of the season, and was on pace to break a League record for Homeruns in a month (16) when he was beaned in the face. The Japanese pitcher later acknowledged, he'd hit Charlie on purpose. That the Japanese didn't want an American to hold a Japanese record. The pitch broke Manuel's jaw in six places. Doctor's had to use metal plates and screws to hold the bones together. Six weeks later, Charlie was back on the field, wearing a face mask bolted to his batting helmet. He also put the screws from his jaw into a small bottle and wore it around his neck. (He led his the Buffaloes to their franchise's first pennant and Japan Series appearance and won regular season MVP honors.)

 

Players need to be tough to play "Charlie Ball". Running out ground balls at full speed, getting as close as you can to the plate, subsequently getting hit, focus, and swinging at good pitches. A pitcher who's going well might be allowed to ring up 120 pitches if the game is close. The set-up man and the closer might pitch four days in a row. You run into fences and guard the lines in Charlie Ball. It's an old school philosophy and Charlie plays his lineup at times like a gambler at the horse track. Has had a lot of hunches pay off big over the years.


 
All star appearances: Player 7 (1A, 3 AAA '69, '74-'75, 3 Nippon League '78-'80), Manager (3, 1 AAA, 2MLB)

MVP's: Player (2, 1 Nippon League '79, 1 AAA '75) Manager (3 AAA, 2 MLB)

Manager of the Year: 3 '84, '93-'94