A long, losing summer

Sporting News, The, July 30, 2001 by Michael Knisley

I don't know that I've ever seen a man more down than Buddy Bell was about this time of the season five years ago. Bell was a first-year manager back in 1996, and he wanted nothing more than to make good with his first opportunity.

Trouble is, that first opportunity was in Detroit. The Tigers were dreadful. They were so deep into a salary-slashing youth movement that some of the players Bell had to put out on the field back then are just now ready for the majors.

Detroit lost 109 games that season. Bell couldn't sleep. He wasn't eating right. He carried every last one of those losses in the worry creases on his face.

It comes to mind now because the 2001 season is about to enter the dog days, and while we don't know yet who the winners will be come October, we can identify the losers. To lose is a miserable existence, especially this time of year, when the end still is nowhere in sight. You have to feel for the long hot summers that people like the Rangers' Jerry Narron, the Mets' Bobby Valentine, the Devil Rays' Hal McRae and the Reds' Bob Boone, among others, are having.

I went to see Bell again last weekend. I wanted to see how he's holding up during the Rockies' free fall into the basement of the N.L. West. Entering the week, they had lost 24 of their previous 29 games. They hit rock bottom Saturday, losing 22-7 to the Dodgers.

"You just try to figure out what you need to do," Bell says. "You look for the right combinations.... Anytime you go through something like this, there's really no reason why you come out of it. It just kind of happens. The toughest thing to do, but maybe the best thing, is to step back and let it all work out itself. But that's very hard to do."

That's a perspective Bell might not have been able to summon five years ago. The losing still wears on him, of course. He's frustrated, but he hasn't despaired. That's good to see.