Expectations Aside, Maddon Hasn't Changed

PORT CHARLOTTE - Normally when a manager is going into the final year of his contract, you might think lame duck. Only these are the blossoming Rays, this is Joe Maddon and everything is just plain ducky.

No. 70 is standing against the dugout rail before a spring training game, telling anyone who'll listen - and everyone does after last season - about some of the Red Sox fans he has met this spring. Maddon says he has worked them. He's convinced a few might start pulling for the Rays a little, too.

"When you start turning them like that, that's James Bond kind of stuff right there." Maddon said..

0070 is on the job.

The Rays and the baseball world they nearly conquered last season have caught up with the man's vibe.

Now meet the new idea.

"Everybody wants to know who's going to be this year's Rays," Maddon said. "I'm looking forward to the Rays being this year's Rays."

This year's Maddon is going to be last year's Maddon. His life hasn't changed, he insists. Yes, he got married, and there was the World Series and American League Manager of the Year and dinner at the White House ...

"People recognize me more," Maddon said. "It's very complimentary. Even at traffic lights. That's it. I go to the same places. I don't shy away from anything. I haven't bought anything new. I don't want anything new. My ego doesn't need that. If I even think of getting outside my own dermal layer, I'll be brought back pretty fast."

The job he did last season screams for a new contract. Maddon doesn't. Loads of managers got loads of money after last season. Phillies manager Charlie Manuel, Maddon's counterpart in last October's Series (and this weekend's exhibitions at Citizens Bank Park) received an extension worth millions. Then there is Maddon, whose salary is around $750,000.

"I trust this organization. There's a lot of trust," Maddon said. "I've had one-year deals my whole time in baseball, OK, a couple of two-year deals, you know, back in 1981, for $12,000 ..."

He added, "The moment I start focusing on a contract and how much money I'm going to make, my ability to do what I do well will be affected. I'm already being paid to do the job I'm supposed to do this year."

Do you love this guy or what?

The job this year is to recreate last year, easier said than done in the beastly AL East, where the Red Sox and Yankees never sit still.

"The moment I start being concerned with the money that they've spent or the people they're bringing in, then I'm denigrating our group," Maddon said. "... I mean this very sincerely. I like our names. I like our lineup. I like our starters. I like our bullpen. I like our coaching staff."

The problem this season is the problem any team faces when it tastes success for the first time. "How do you recapture?" Maddon said. He thinks you do it with humility and gratitude.

"We had to figure out a way to inspire, put last season in perspective and move forward, knowing we have to build a different road, knowing it's not going to break the same way it did last year, knowing we have to remain as hungry. Everybody talks about the slippery slope. Well, what's the grease on the slippery slope? I think it's a lack of humility and a lack of gratitude.

"We're much more scrutinized this time. I think this is the right group to handle it. But I've worked with players in the past I thought would never lose their humility, but they did. You can't predict it. You don't know what lurks."

Joe Maddon, 0070, will be ready for anything. It's another sunny day in Port Charlotte. After the game, the last of the Rays' first spring here, he took a microphone and thanked fans for coming. He'll never change.

"It's unlimited as to what we can do," Maddon said. "It's up to our imagination."

Again.