Bench coaches: more than just a side job: manager's trusted confidant has evolved as an aide who holds many duties including being a second set of eyes and ears for his field boss

Baseball Digest, July, 2008 by Gordon Edes

FIRST BENCH COACH? JOHNNY Pesky said it could have been him.

When Ted Williams was named manager of the Washington Senators before the 1969 season, one of the first calls he placed was to Pesky.

"I was doing radio and TV for the Red Sox," the 88-year-old Pesky said. "A week earlier, I would have been with Ted. My wife Ruthie and her mother were in the kitchen when he called. He said, 'I need you. Can you come down?'

"I wanted to do it and break my contract. But the general manager of the station said it was too late. They had me reading football scores in the winter to work on my voice, and they had done all this PR stuff for me."

Williams instead hired a buddy, Joe Camacho, a former minor leaguer and grammar school principal who was on the staff of his baseball academy in Lakeville, Massachusetts. There was little doubt, judging from this story Leigh Montville tells in his splendid biography of Williams, that Ted could have used the help.

This was early in spring training. "Camacho and (Nellie) Fox were in the infield discussing various options for third-base cutoff plays," Montville writes. "Each coach had an opinion. They went back and forth. Williams listened in on this for a couple of minutes, then said, '(Expletive) it, let's hit.' Hitting practice began."

First bench coach? Bill Francis, a researcher for the Hall of Fame, noted that in 1877, the Chicago Tribune reported that Joe Simmon was the "assistant manager" of the Rochester team, while Hall of Fame pitcher Christy Mathewson, who never regained his health after being gassed during World War I, served as assistant manager to Hall of Famer John McGraw of the Giants from 1919-21.

The number of coaches used by big league teams has evolved over the years. Base coaches often double up as infield, outfield, and base-running instructors. There is also the pitching coach, hitting coach, and bullpen coach, who often oversees the catchers, too. And now you have the bench coach, which usually can be divided among those whose decades of experience--often as former managers-make them invaluable, and those who are managers-in-training.

Joe Torre believes the first bench coach was longtime manager Don Zimmer, who for a decade sat Yoda-like next to Torre on the Yankees bench.

"It started with me and Zim," Torre said. "(Red) Schoendienst was the closest I had in St. Louis. He'd come up to me and remind me of something from time to time. When I sat with Zim, he sort of brought me along. I was a little bit more on the conservative side and he was more on the aggressive side. We met somewhere in the middle.

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"You know what's great about a bench coach? The fact you can bounce stuff off somebody instead of laying in bed at night, second-guessing what you did."

You know what's great about a bench coach, Zimmer once told Esquire Magazine? Not much.

"I'm a bench coach," Zimmer told the magazine. "Thirty years ago, there was no such thing--you were a coach. Now they got a title for a bench coach, which is a joke. People say, 'What is the job of a bench coach?' I say, 'Very simple--I sit next to Torre on the bench. When he plays a hit-and-run that works, I say, 'Nice goin' Skipper,' and if it doesn't work, I go down to the other end of the bench, get a drink, and get out of his way. We only got one manager. I don't want no credit for doin' anything. I sit next to Joe like a bump on a log--that's the way I leave it."

First bench coach? Bob Schaefer, the former Red Sox director of player development who is Torre's bench coach with the Dodgers, has been a bench coach for three teams--the Royals, Athletics, and now the Dodgers--and for six managers. The first time was in 1991, with John Wathan in Kansas City, before Zimmer and Torte hooked up.

"There's so much stuff a manager has to do now," said Schaefer, who had never met Torre but was recommended for the job by Don Mattingly and won over Torre when he mentioned that he had come up in the Cardinals' system and had been mentored by the legendary George Kissell. "He needs somebody else to do all that stuff."

Brad Mills is the Red Sox' bench coach. He was Terry Francona's first base coach with the Phillies, and was Frank Robinson's bench coach in Montreal before reuniting with Francona in Boston. Among other things, Mills organizes and runs spring training for the Sox manager.

"Managers don't coordinate spring training anymore," said Francona, who was bench coach for Jerry Narron in Texas (2002) and Ken Macha in Oakland ('03). "There is so much media, so many other things. You get pulled in so many ways today, you don't get to do a lot of coaching as manager. You'd better have good coaches, because what is being said to those players is important. If it's not right, it's on me. I'm the one who's responsible."

You want to know, Sox catcher Jason Varitek says, why Francona is such a good manager?

"As a manager, you're as good as the people you've surrounded yourself with, and he's surrounded himself with pretty doggone good coaches," Varitek said. "We got the best bench coach (Mills), the best catching coach (Gary Tuck), the best pitching coach (John Farrell). He's been able to surround himself with very significant people, and that makes you a great manager right there."