Photograph by sghmom56 via Flickr
It was a surprise until, very suddenly, it wasn't—after looking at long-time in-house candidate Jose Oquendo and the surprisingly available high-profile option, former Red Sox manager Terry Francona, the St. Louis Cardinals have announced that Mike Matheny, their starting catcher between 2000 and 2004, will become the team's next manager. For a team that saw the very best of Tony La Russa's work, the profile's somewhat familiar—an intense, hard-working, well-spoken, light-hitting ex-player who's somewhat young (41) for such a high-profile job.
After that—well, it's hard to say. Matheny was enormously popular with managers, players, and fans in his 12 years in baseball, and was consistently given credit for his work with the pitching staff and in the clubhouse. The skills he lacked—most anything related to swinging a bat—are the ones he'll thankfully leave to others in this gig.
But few managers arrive fully formed, and fewer still can be evaluated before they've actually managed. We were spoiled by Tony La Russa, by how easy it was to caricature him—he was so easy to sketch in a few broad strokes, his intensity and his awkwardness and his intense love of relief pitchers, because we'd had so much time to understand his complex managerial style.
Few managers are ever so there, and we won't know for a while just how present Matheny will be—how much he'll come to stand for the Cardinals as a whole like La Russa did. All we can do for now is be reminded of the brilliant years Matheny represents—and hope he has some kind of handle on how they got to be so brilliant.
