Cecil Cooper and third-base coach Ed Romero paid a morning visit to commissioner Bud Selig’s office Friday in downtown Milwaukee. They talked about “the state of baseball” .
Cooper said. “I don’t know if you know, but three weeks or so ago he called me and left a message and said, ‘You don’t need to be worried too much in April and May because you got a long season to go.’ ”
“So it was right after that that I got kicked out two or three games. He kind of reminded me a little bit to just kind of relax and enjoy the moment and have fun with it too.”
Link
La Russa
“A lot of times, you look on the other side and you don’t really care for the guy himself,” Cooper said (But) “One character that I like about Tony is that “most of the time he puts his guys in the best position to be successful.”
Cooper wishes he would have had better timing on at least four occasions when he let a pitcher face one batter too many.
“When I have decided that I’m going to stay with a guy a little longer — I’m sitting there talking to Dewey about it all the time,” Cooper said. “We say, ‘We’ll give him one more hitter.’ We’ve done it four or five times. Each time, the guy’s gotten a hit. It’s almost like the kiss of death.”
“You always think, ‘One more hitter.’ The good managers know exactly when to do it. They always seem to do it one [hitter] before.
Link
Link
So what is Cooper learning? Games early in the season don’t count, and it’s the manager, the puppet master, that puts players in position to succeed. Don’t trust your players to play. And, just generally, why is the Commissioner calling the Astros’ manager? Is that normal?