114-41

What would you think of a rookie manager who managed his team to a 114-41 record?

That's a trick question, because no rookie manager has ever done that. That 114-41 is an amalgam of Buck Showalter's first two seasons as a manager, back in 1985 and 1986.

I ran across Showalter's early successes by accident. Just for kicks, I was tracking the peripatetic managerial career of Johnny Lipon, but it's something of a laborious process because nobody's ever compiled any sort of register for minor-league managers. With the publication of The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball a few years ago, it's a lot easier than it used to be.

Anyway, when getting to 1985 -- Lipon guided the Nashua Pirates to a fifth-place finish in the Eastern League -- I happened to notice that Buck Showalter's Oneonta Yankees ran away with the North Division title in the Class A New York-Pennsylvania League. The Yankees finished 19 games ahead of the second-place Utica Blue Sox ... in a 78-game season.

Showalter's first season was a sign of things to come. He managed Oneonta again the next season, and the Yankees were even better, going 59-18. Showalter (who now works as an ESPN analyst) would manage three more seasons in the minors before joining the major-league coaching staff. In his five seasons as a minor-league manager, Showalter's teams went 360-207, finished better than .500 each season, and won six of seven postseason series. It was an amazing record, quite possibly the best of any minor-league manager of the 1980s.

He didn't do quite as well in the majors, but five winning records in seven seasons ain't too shabby (with one of the losing seasons coming with a first-year expansion team). Showalter has managed professional baseball teams for a dozen seasons, and his teams have won 56 percent of their games.

Bottom line, I think that Buck Showalter's still got a shot at the Hall of Fame. I mean, it's a long shot, but at least it's a shot. No, he hasn't won a World Series, which is pretty much a requirement for a Hall of Famer. But he's only 46 -- actually, he turns 46 next Thursday -- and Tony La Russa didn't win his first (and only) World Series until he was 45, and La Russa's going to wind up in Cooperstown. Tommy Lasorda didn't win a World Series until he was 54, and Casey Stengel didn't win a World Series until he was 59.

But Buck had better get going again soon, because his career already includes two interruptions. After the Yankees fired him after the 1995 playoff loss to the Mariners, he signed on with the Diamondbacks even though that franchise was still two years away from playing its first game. And it's now going on two seasons since he last managed the Diamondbacks. I can envision a scenario in which Showalter could jump-start his career in a hurry, though. And no, it doesn't involve the Kansas City Royals, who just hired Astros coach Tony Pena as their new manager.

But what if Showalter managed the Chicago Cubs? They're in free fall right now, the season almost a lost cause already. And with a variety of great prospects already playing or waiting in the wings, there's no reason the Cubs can't be the team to beat in 2003 or 2004. Add Buck Showalter to the mix, and -- dare I suggest it? -- the Cubs might finally have that World Series combination they've been lacking since World War II.

One more thing ...
That would have been a perfect end to the column (especially if you're a Cubs fan), but there's something else I wanted to mention, if only briefly.

Have you ever noticed that nobody has any idea how to find a good manager? General managers essentially admit this every season when they fire a bunch of guys they just hired a year or two earlier. Nobody may ever figure it out, but one of the striking things I noticed is that nobody seems to pay much attention to the small matter of performance.

Of course, it's likely that Showalter's records in the minors had something to do with his eventual promotion to the big job. But how often do you hear anybody talk about the records of minor-league managers? John Mizerock, the Royals' interim manager until Pena arrives, was supposedly on the short list of candidates for the "permanent" job. When people in Kansas City talk about Mizerock, they talk about his long tenure with the organization and his familiarity with many of the players on the roster, but for some reason nobody mentions his .545 winning percentage over eight seasons as a minor-league manager.

Everybody seems to think that Pena is fine managerial timber, but for some reason nobody mentions his .497 winning percentage over three seasons as a minor-league manager.

And maybe nobody should bother talking about Mizerock's success in the minors, or Pena's lack thereof. Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with anything. But don't you think it's strange that in a business where all that matters are wins and losses, nobody seems to care much about wins and losses?