66ers manager Chad Tracy on the fast track - with an assist from his father

SAN BERNARDINO - Chad Tracy is just 30 years old and not even two years removed from the end of his playing career.

He is in his second season as a manager, still learning the minute details of the job and what it means to be in charge of 25 professional ballplayers at any given time.

But whenever the Inland Empire 66ers manager has a question or needs advice, he has a pretty good resource at his disposal: his father Jim, the former manager of the Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates and Colorado Rockies.

"Since I was a little kid and my dad was a minor league manager, he'd come home and talk about the game that night and teach me about the ins-and-outs of the game and the decisions he made and why he made them," Tracy said. "We'd get into strategy, but more so about communication with players. He taught me about that early on."

Tracy is the youngest manager at any of the Angels' full-season affiliates by 14 years and appears on a fast-track up the system. At 29 he managed Class-A Burlington last season, and earned a promotion to Inland Empire for this season.

Despite his youth, he has quickly earned the respect of his players.

"I love having him. He's a great manager and great guy off the field. I wouldn't want anything else," said 66ers third baseman Zach Houchins, who also played for Tracy at Burlington last season. "He's not afraid to take risks and make things happen on the field. Hit and runs, stolen bases, he's extremely aggressive. It's fun to play that way and that's how we like it."

It is all a product of what Tracy learned as a teenager from his father. Tracy was 16 years old when his dad was hired as the Dodgers manager in 2001.

Every day he could, Tracy accompanied his father on the 45-minute drive from their Claremont home to Dodger Stadium, and joined his father in the clubhouse as he ran the club day-to-day.

For Tracy, those years in the Dodgers' clubhouse were formative.

"I was able to get to Dodger Stadium quite a bit and spend a lot of time around there and absolutely loved it," Tracy said. "The biggest piece of advice my dad ever gave me and probably ever will give me is 'Be honest with your players.'" That's what I saw him do and kind of the mantra I live by. The one thing you want from your manager or whoever is running the team is for them to look you in the eye and be honest with you."

The knowledge Tracy gained in those years was compounded with his own playing experience. He starred as a catcher at Claremont High and Pepperdine, where he was chosen the West Coast Conference Player of the Year as a sophomore in 2005, and was drafted in the third round by the Texas Rangers in 2006.

Tracy played nine seasons in the minors, including four years Triple-A, before retiring in 2014 at age 28.

While his goal of reaching the majors never materialized, Tracy picked up on what players need from their managers in his time in the minors. He found what his dad said about honesty to be true - "I'll always be honest with them, tell them where they stand, keep them informed because it's their career, it's their life, so you don't want to not be honest somebody when it's their life," Tracy said - and parlayed his experiences into his current job.

"He understands what we go through, how baseball works, and I'd say he definitely goes about handling the locker room the right way," Houchins said. "He doesn't sit and call you out in front of the team. He pulls you aside and speaks to you like a man."

Tracy still speaks with his father, now retired, every few days. Their relationship in baseball stretches back as far as Tracy's first memories, and has been a constant through both of their lives.

With his dad's lessons in mind, Tracy is on his way up the minors. If he maintains the pace he's on, he may just carry on the family name as a major league manager.