America will get to know Joe Maddon over the next week now that the Major League Baseball playoffs are down to a pair of series and now that the Tampa Bay Rays will be playing the Boston Red Sox every night on national TV.
The TBS announcers and analysts will rave about Maddon's unique approach, the quotes on the clubhouse wall (including one from Albert Camus), the Hugo Boss glasses, the Mohawk.
The Rays' third-year manager will be portrayed as a renaissance man, someone who, perhaps, has found a different way to manage a game of baseball.
Don't believe all of it.
Yes, he uses quotes not often found in major league clubhouse, and yes, he joined his players in getting a Mohawk, but Maddon is as old school as Casey Stengel.
Nine players playing hard for nine innings is a major reason why Stengel's New York Yankees teams won all those World Series titles.
"Casey probably thought it," Maddon said. "He just didn't have a T-shirt made up about it."
When asked Wednesday to describe himself, Maddon used one word: "Simple."
"I'd like to believe in fundamentals and simplicity, I really do," he added.
Cliff Floyd used the phrase "old school" to describe his manager.
"He doesn't take a lot of credit, but he deserves all of it," Floyd said.
Trever Miller agrees with Floyd.
"You saw how it went with Lou Piniella here," Miller said. "A fiery manager. It didn't go so well. So you have to give Joe a lot of credit for understanding the ballclub that he had and what he had to do to get here. I know he doesn't take credit. We know differently. He's a big a part of this team as anyone in this clubhouse."
Maddon preached patience during his first two seasons in Tampa Bay. The Rays finished with the worst record in baseball each year, but Maddon gave his players the opportunity to learn the game at the major league level.
This year, Maddon was a little stricter. Players were taken to task more often - some privately, and some publicly, like B.J. Upton, who was twice benched for lack of hustle.
There was some unorthodox in-game strategy along the way to the 97-win regular season and the American League East title.
Maddon walked Josh Hamilton with the bases loaded rather than risk a game-winning grand slam. He moved Upton from center field and had him play directly behind second base to give the Rays five infielders in a game at Seattle when the Mariners had the bases loaded and one out in the 10th inning. He put three infielders on the right side of the infield when David Ortiz and Jim Thome were batting.
"He took over a team that was perpetually in last place with a bunch of young guys. Maybe he is daring in that regard," Miller said. "It was daring to take this job, and that's how he manages on the field."
The fact is, Maddon wasn't the first manager to intentionally walk a batter with the bases loaded or move the center fielder to the infield or dramatically shift the defense against a left-handed slugger.
And he wasn't the first manager to hang quotes in the clubhouse or print messages on T-shirts.
The difference, Miller said, is Maddon does those things with conviction.
"He doesn't put anything on the walls or T-shirts that he doesn't believe in 100 percent," Miller said. "You can feel that. I've been in clubhouses with things on the walls and managers printing T-shirts, but I don't think they brought it into."
Maddon may sound different, but the message is the same: keep the game simple.
"That's the no-regurgitation policy. Tell me what you think, not what you've heard. I really truly believe we're about as basic as any team in the big leagues right now, I really do," Maddon said. "The things we do, every once in a while we'll do something a little bit different in regards to five infielders, a different shift, but when you break us down we're as basic as anybody, maybe more so. Going into next spring training I want us to be more fundamentally sound."
That, Maddon said, is the key to sustaining the success.
Not the clubhouse quotes or the Mohawks, though those do play a role.
"We are so simple," Maddon said, "it's disgusting."
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