Managers face long days, make big impact

Hardworking players are often praised by their teammates and by front-office staff as being "the first guy at the ballpark." In most cases, though, the first person in uniform at the ballpark is actually the manager, and during home games, he is almost always the last to leave for the night.

Ask J.R. House, who led the Class A Short Season Hillsboro Hops to a Northwest League championship last year in his first season as a manager.

"By the time it's all said and done, it's after midnight," House said. "It's usually around 12:30 or 1:00 by the time you're done."

Summer workdays are so long for Minor League managers in part because of how many jobs, large and small, their role involves. Some of these duties are easily observable to fans, and others go largely unnoticed by anybody outside the organization.

The D-backs bumped House up to full-season ball this season, and he's slated to helm the Visalia Rawhide in the Class A Advanced California League. From Spring Training in Scottsdale, Arizona, House covered the many components of the job of a Minor League manager and described in detail his typical gameday at the park.

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• On the blog, House discusses discipline and maturity issues »

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For a 7:05 p.m. home game, House arrives at the stadium at 11 a.m. and makes sure everything is order for his team to have a productive day. Part of that involves putting together a lineup early, so that he can think about it without distractions and still have plenty of time to make any necessary adjustments as the afternoon wears on.

"It may have to be rearranged due to injuries, so you want to check in with your trainer and make sure you and your trainer are on the same page. You want to make sure all your stuff is in line," he said. "[Then] you want to talk to the grounds crew and make sure the field is ready for when the guys start to show up around noon."

House goes beyond checking on the condition of the playing surface, though. He reviews everything -- right down to the playlists that will be piped into the park over the loudspeakers throughout the afternoon, making sure the music fits his players' tastes. "Some of them are particular," he said.

When the team has arrived, the real preparation begins.

"You get some defensive work in earlier, and you get some offensive work in on the field and in the cage as well," House said. "But you want to do some defensive group work with your infielders, your outfielders, your catchers, broken up in that way. That takes about 30 minutes each.

"That usually takes you almost up to stretch time, and then comes batting practice and you want to make sure everything is aligned properly," he added.

"When the visiting team takes BP, you want to get something to eat and wait around until it's over. That's the time when you want to check again on any kind of injuries and make sure your lineup is set to be posted for the other managers and coaches and the umpires."

Seeing as House and his hitting coach have typically already overseen individualized offensive work by that point in the day, House views his own team's batting practice as "mainly for scouts, and also for the players, to get their quick-twitch muscles going before the game, to get out there and start stretching and doing their pregame stuff."

Then, of course, it's game time. House played pro ball for 12 seasons and pieces of five seasons in the Major Leagues, and last year he discovered that games are far more action-packed and fun for managers than he ever would have guessed.

"I liked [being a hitting coach] as well, but [becoming a manager] was night and day in terms of the competitiveness," he said. "It's almost like being a player again. You're coaching third, writing lineups, making pitching changes, all kinds of decisions. And that's the best part about it, being involved in everything and being competitive."

After the game is over, even after he's addressed his team or had private conversations with individual players and spoken to the media, a crucial part of the Minor League manager's job hasn't even begun.

The Minor Leagues, after all, exist in order to develop talent. The manager's main responsibility is making sure his players are progressing toward the next level. Every other part of his job -- creating a comfortable atmosphere by paying attention to what music plays in the park, fostering an environment conducive to winning, giving group or individual instruction and attention -- is all to serve that one purpose.

"You can help so many people in their careers," House said. "That's what makes it a really good opportunity all around."

There are often position coordinators or roving instructors or other player development personnel in town from the big league affiliate, and the manager will have a postgame powwow with them.

"You're going to sit down with them and talk about the game," House said, "what we did well, what we could have done a little differently, what we didn't do well at all."

Then, when almost everybody else has gone home for the night, the manager files a comprehensive report for the Major League front office. Often a manager knows that there are one or two specific players the player development staff wants to know about in great detail, and there are also inevitably a number of other mental notes the manager has made about other players over the course of the long day.

"It's all of that. The reports usually take 40-45 minutes, depending on the game," House said. "You describe the game and exactly how we played, with the score, whether we won or lost, and if an opposing team did something impressive or one of their guys really stood out, or if it was a big night for one of our guys. All that stuff is going in the report.

"With the D-backs, we have our own database that we all utilize at all the different levels. It's a template, and there are different parts to describe different things."

When the report has been submitted, House can think about getting ready to leave the ballpark for the night, 13 or 14 hours after he showed up in the morning and 10 or 11 hours before he has to come back the next day. But even when he's at home, his work has usually followed him. Sometimes he can't fall asleep even though he knows he's very tired.

"That depends on how the game went," he said. "[D-backs chief baseball officer] Tony La Russa is at Spring Training, and I was fortunate to go to the big league camp for a little while and hear him speak. He was saying that … the one who's continually thinking about his players and what's happening with his players is the manager. He's thinking about them at dinner, he's thinking about them when he goes to bed, he's thinking about them at breakfast.

"That's true for me, and my wife has reminded me of that several times. You try to put it aside when you're away from the ballpark, but it's very difficult to do that. And I think it's very difficult for all the good ones to put that aside. You're just continually thinking about your players."