Jerry Manuel Defines Class, Respect While Always Staying the Course

NEW YORK -- Managing the Mets requires facilitating mental makeovers as much as maximizing physical talent. With the ubiquitous Yankees nearby, with recent late-season Mets collapses still fresh, in a season where their first 85 games rolled onward without colossal cornerstone and injured center fielder Carlos Beltran, Mets manager Jerry Manuel daily performs a master massage.

Keep the critics, the doubters, those that seek to rip him and his team apart at bay. Compress and unite his Mets.

Teach them all.

Touch them all.

Every day.

The Mets and Manuel are still building that. But what Manuel seeks to avoid creeping in from the outside is already inside. There are players in his clubhouse who question his leadership style, his confidence, his baseball decisions, his communication with the bottom of his roster. None would speak on these subjects for attribution, but they insisted that this feeling is more prevalent across the club than realized.

Several Mets players, however, swung hard in defense of their manager and called those thoughts "silly" and "the rants of underachievers."

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"Win. That is what Jerry's style of managing is. Everything positive. He is the leader of this team and we will follow him.''
-- Francisco rodriguez Of course, on the outside, critics offered that Manuel should have been fired even before the season began. When the Mets started 2-6, the howling for that peaked.

But here they are with 47 victories. Only three National League teams -- Atlanta with 50 and Cincinnati and San Diego with 49 apiece -- have earned more. In comes Atlanta for a three-game series here beginning on Friday night where the Mets, with a sweep, would share first place in the National League East with the Braves. They have a chance after this Braves series, during the All-Star break that follows and with Beltran returning soon afterward, to put their team, to put Manuel in a place they passionately desire -- more respected, rejuvenated and veritable championship contenders.

"It is refreshing to come to the park and not have to answer questions about the manager's job status," Mets third baseman David Wright said. "Jerry is strong and even-keeled. Leadership is not something that you come in and announce. You have to earn that right. Managers, they get a little head start just from the position. But leadership you have to earn it and give it in mutual respect. It's managing personalities.

"We've got 25 guys in here. We battle for our manager. Guys here and there don't agree with the manager. But we are all together for six or seven months of the year. We have each other. We are family. I have three brothers. We had our fights. It's a team, a family and we come back together. Family, sometimes, they are dysfunctional. Jerry gets a lot of the blame when things go bad. And he gives us the credit when we play well."




Mets second-baseman Alex Cora said that is Manuel's wish and his design.

"I think our manager, and I'd bet my check on this, he would rather have it that way where he gets the blame and we get the credit," Cora said. "We have ups and downs off the field and he tries to get a hold of that. This is more than a baseball team. Up and down and arguments and disagreements and family. Jerry is like the 400-meter hurdler. He keeps his stride. If there are 13 steps between each hurdle, you can't get off stride. It's 13 steps every time. He knows what this is about. He has a lot of situations on this team. Over 162 games, you better do it that way. Stay consistent. Jerry is very consistent. Calm."

Mets outfielder Jason Bay joined the team this season from Boston and has watched Manuel. He has grown to understand him. And appreciate him.

He remembers during his start being inundated with questions about Manuel's Mets future. He said players sometimes do not fully grasp their manager's role.

"This city is one of the few places and one of the few jobs that takes a different beat," Bay said. "People don't see all that goes on with a manager. Some guys have no clue of what he goes through. Some guys think it is so easy to manage. They think, 'I mean, what's so hard about it?' It takes a strong person. Someone who is steadfast. Someone who believes in what he believes in but knows how to tweak it when it needs to be done.

"His job was on the line even in spring training, it seemed. But he was the same manager all along. Highs and lows can reveal a team. They can reveal a manager. His calmness. I respect that. He is one of the most positive people and managers I have ever met. No matter if it is the highest high or the lowest low, and that goes a long way in this game."

The Mets are 29-14 at home and 18-24 on the road.

They are 4-6 in their last 10 games but an 18-8 overall record in June and 9-5 road record in that month infused their season.

Now it is all about what lies ahead, not behind, pitcher Johan Santana stressed.

"I think Jerry is a manager who doesn't always show his enthusiasm," Santana said. "He is very quiet. He has a lot of knowledge. He is a very detailed person. He wants things done the right way on and off the field."

Santana is not happy with players who criticize their manager in secret. He was especially unhappy with those who questioned his manager's confidence.

"I don't know that," Santana said of those thoughts. "I can't speak on that. I cannot agree or disagree with what other people say. I think in this game it takes a lot of confidence to win ballgames. Whether he has it or not, I don't know. You always have to be aware of what is going on and always reach for the top. You take 25 guys, you try to put them on the same page. Where we are now, we can't fall asleep. We have teams on the other side chasing us that are hungry. We are doing the chasing, too. It's still a long way to go. Every game means something. One or two games has often been the difference for this team in recent years. The team disagrees sometimes. You have to get to be one.

"There is a time when you have to attack the opponent. Do not let people jump ahead of you. That is what we are starting to do now. It's what we are getting better at. Our manager and the whole coaching staff is building that positive feeling."

Manuel, 56, a man associated with Major League Baseball for the last 35 years as a player, scout, manager and more, hears these things and smiles.

There are reasons he is often called "The Sage."

"I think that is to be expected," Manuel said of some of his players' private doubts of him. "I try to teach them all. And touch them all every day."

Humble Beginnings

Manuel is African-American and was born in Hahira, Ga., but moved with his family to Texas when he was 8 and to California when he was 14.

"People think I have a Spanish name and a Spanish look, but I guess that is because my mother has deep Cherokee Indian heritage," he said. "My mother, Mildred, is 87. My father, Lorenzo, died in 1997."

His father served in the Air Force, said Manuel, and that is why his family moved often when he was a child. Manuel was a bench coach for the Florida Marlins in 1997 when they won the World Series. Soon afterward, his father died.

Highs and lows.

Manuel has lived them beyond baseball.

"My father taught me how to treat people," he said. "He had a great deal of respect for people that did not have much of anything. No matter what level you were at, he said don't step on people that are often stepped on. Mildred is a fighter. My mom has had a lot of illness. We thought she might not make it. She has fought through. My competitive spirit comes from her, though my dad did pitch a little bit in his time and was pretty competitive."

Much of Manuel's baseball philosophy was groomed in the Montreal Expos organization as a player, scout and coach. He played mostly second base from 1975 through 1982, a total of 96 big-league games for the Expos, Tigers and Padres.

He said he realized he did not have to be an accomplished player to become an accomplished teacher. He was a student of the game while playing. The intricacies of the game have always intrigued him, he said. He played for manager Felipe Alou and described him as "a very cerebral manager, a tremendous guy to learn from. Very strong. Very innate. Very instrumental in my development."

He has been married to Renette for 37 years. They have two sons and two daughters.

Two experiences in his life perfectly prepared him for his role as Mets manager.

He was 29 in 1983 and with the Cubs in spring training. He was restless.

"I was always reaching for something," Manuel said. "I always wanted more peace and to move man and work for splendor in life. Each one of the guys I studied -- King, Gandhi -- they had that foundation of peace and spirituality. That interested me. That overtook me. I went to Bible study with a teammate. And then one of the players there got released. And he was at such peace with it. And I thought, 'What you got, I need.'"

Dusty Baker, the Cincinnati Reds' manager, has known Manuel since their childhood days in California.

"I know his family," Baker said. "He knows mine. He is a very spiritual and very intelligent man. A very patient man. He gets his message across in a very melodic way. That is conducive to being a good leader. He knows what he says and he means it. He believes in it. In many ways he reminds me of Tony Dungy in that respect. His teams? They are going to play you for 27 outs."

Baker sees in the Mets what he sees in his Reds: A group building toward a mentality that does not simply pick each other up, but one that says, "I got you."

The second experience for Manuel that colors his work today was his time as Chicago White Sox manager from 1998-2003. In 2000 he was the American League manager of the year but throughout his Sox tenure, pressure and criticism mounted.

"I think I learned there," said Manuel, "that there would be critics and that I have to take criticism and I have to decipher the truth in it."

He does this now, he says. That is why he can absorb what his players say, what reporters dish, what fans dole. His team is not fashioned in his image, he says. His approach is that his team, his players, be the best they can be. That simple.

Pitch. Play defense. Smart base-running. Be smart players. Manuel has ground that four-pronged message into the Mets since the first day of spring training. Those are the ingredients this team must stress each inning, each game, he said. That is this team's key to success, he said. It is their particular blueprint.

He replaced Willie Randolph as Mets manager on June 17, 2008. He is asked what is his current relationship with Randolph?

"I have not talked to him in a while," Manuel said. "I left Willie a message when he lost his father earlier this year. He responded back. My social skills are not the best. I'm more of a loner. It's part of leadership. You don't see eagles flying together. You see them flying alone. But no matter who you are, I am going to try to treat you well."

Play the Right Way, and Your Time Will Come

Jerry Manuel is secure in his approach. He handles reporters' queries with honesty and humor. He fights for his players as much as they fight for him. He handles his team with a gloves-on, gloves-off approach that requires them to figure some things out for themselves. To be bigger big-leaguers. He wants their fire to burn.

But he will not let any particular fire burn down the house.

He leads his team to water.

He will not grab them by the neck and force them to drink.

That wouldn't last. Anything valuable achieved by a team requires personal responsibility from each player. It takes time. The Mets have that. Their season is not quite half done.

Manuel has plenty more massaging to do. His Mets players will have every chance to absorb this season that the final spot upon which they land, they will have earned. Sometimes the Mets players look like they have not grasped that they control their own destiny. Manuel believes that will come.

Maybe additions will arrive via trades that help. Maybe Beltran can be an ultimate, second half-spurring catalyst.

Manuel knows the competition in the division and beyond is real. So, too, is his method to teach them all. Touch them all.

Every day.

"The Braves?" Manuel asked. "That's good. When you are behind a team, you want to play them. When you are ahead, you don't want to play them. We're the team behind right now. We want to play."