Gabe Kapler<\/a>\u2019s staff in San Francisco and then Stephen Vogt\u2019s in Cleveland. As a bench coach and then associate manager, he was in on every meeting and decision making process, so his leap was not quite as great as Butera\u2019s or Vitello\u2019s. But even he is running into circumstances he\u2019s never been in before.<\/p>\n\u201cEvery day, there is a new problem to solve, so you just have to have an open mind,\u201d Albernaz said. \u201cYou don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen, and the only thing you can do is get all the information you can, then make the best informed decision you can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vitello has a wealth of experience around him to help, including bench coach Jayce Tingler (who managed the Padres in 2020-21), and Ron Washington (who managed the Rangers and Angels for a combined 10 seasons). Washington said it really is just a matter of presenting options that might be helpful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI give Tony advice when he asks for it\u00a0\u2014 he\u2019s been in the trenches, he knows what he\u2019s doing,\u201d Washington said. \u201cI\u2019ll suggest something, maybe he takes it, maybe not. I don\u2019t guide him. But when you make decisions, you want to have a lot of choices.\u201d<\/p>\n
Managers also seemingly never stop talking all day, which makes natural chatterers like Vitello, Albernaz and Butera well suited for the role. But it can be never-ending.<\/p>\n
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\u201cNavigating the day means conversations all day, and a variety of them: with players, the front office, the medical staff, the strength coaches, PR and media,\u201d Albernaz said.<\/p>\n
Media demands might be the most unexpected part for many new managers. There are reporter sessions pregame and postgame. TV and radio rights holders have their own regular times, too. National TV and the MLB Network, local radio talk shows, all of them frequently want hits with managers.<\/p>\n
Albernaz has calendar invites and alerts set to remind him of all them. \u201cYou\u2019re trying to plan the day, you\u2019re talking to someone and. Buzz! \u2018Oh, sorry, I\u2019ve got to go do that,\u2019\u201d he said, almost right as his phone whirred to tell him he had a meeting with Apple TV broadcasters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
When it comes to that Vitello might be a little ahead of the curve; Tennessee is a high-profile college program that drew loads of interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m comfortable doing it. I enjoyed it with those people,\u201d Vitello said of the Knoxville media. \u201cIt\u2019s a part of a routine, which doesn\u2019t bother me, so probably my prior days help, to an extent.\u201d<\/p>\n
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There is much more negative coverage, though, than there typically might be in a college town\u00a0\u2014 bigger fan bases, higher prices, unaffiliated media, huge social media followings. All of that can be wearing if things aren\u2019t going well.<\/p>\n
Bruce Bochy started out managing before social media, but quickly found out how tough MLB coverage and fans can be. \u201cThe first game I managed (for the Padres, in 1995) was against Houston and we got boat-raced,\u201d Bochy said. \u201cSo I\u2019m driving home, I turn on a sports-talk show and, oh, man, they were killing me, just ripping me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just what you have to deal with as a manager. You have to develop thick skin right away because no matter what you do, half the fans will like you and half the fans won\u2019t, and you get it\u00a0\u2014 they live and die with every game. If you\u2019re not having a great year, you have to be able to handle that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cincinnati Reds manager Terry Francona, like Bochy a future Hall of Famer, said he occasionally missed his exit driving home as a young manager in Philadelphia because he was being thoroughly bashed on sports radio. That\u2019s an especially tough fan base: His tires were slashed at the ballpark. On Fan Appreciation Day, no less.<\/p>\n
Just dealing with the losing can be an adjustment. Playing 162 games inevitably means there are going to be more losses; the college regular season is just 56 games. Someone who takes every loss to heart will find it a tough road. Equilibrium is a necessity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been very difficult, and it\u2019s something that I was warned about by some of my friends,\u201d Vitello said. \u201cYou have to deal with it the right way, otherwise it\u2019ll sink you. If you get too high off a win or too low off a loss in this league in particular, you\u2019re going to out black and blue, and it\u2019s not going to work. Sure, it\u2019s been hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coming out of the gate hot would have been preferable, but that\u2019s not what happened. \u201cIt\u2019s been new. It\u2019s been difficult,\u201d Vitello said. \u201cI don\u2019t have a magic formula yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
So much else is new, it\u2019s tough for Vitello to enumerate. He loves a challenge and hates monotony. He\u2019s embracing the novelty of each new experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe differences are really, really small,\u201d he said, \u201cbut they pop up every day and it\u2019s impossible to put them in any one category. It\u2019s just a lot of subtle differences.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he might not be checking in with the other fresh faces around the league, it\u2019s nice to know they\u2019re there, Vitello said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a little bit of it is comforting, that feeling of asking, \u2018How\u2019s it going?\u2019 And knowing the answer isn\u2019t what Bruce\u00a0Bochy or Aaron Boone would answer,\u201d Vitello said. \u201cit\u2019s more like, \u2018I had this come up last week in a particular situation. What did you do?\u2019 Or, \u2018Did you hear about this?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t feel like you\u2019re walking the halls in high school and you\u2019re the only kid that moved from Tennessee to California. There are other people going through what you are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Francisco Giants manager Tony Vitello is one of five first-year managers in MLB this year, but is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,4820,103,102,104,106,105,127,10892],"class_list":{"0":"post-278607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-san-francisco","9":"tag-san-francisco-giants","10":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","11":"tag-san-francisco-news","12":"tag-sf","13":"tag-sf-headlines","14":"tag-sf-news","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-tony-vitello"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}