Bench coaches provide wisdom for managers

Don Zimmer doesn't even know exactly how the job of bench coach originated.

"There was always a coach sitting on the bench who never had a title," said the Rays' senior adviser and baseball man of 62 years. "And all of a sudden, somebody came up with 'bench coach.' "

Historians have traced the title of "assistant manager" as far back as 1877, but bench coach is a relatively new term. Zimmer, who spent nearly a decade imparting his wisdom to Yankees manager Joe Torre through 2003, was the first famous one.

Rays manager Joe Maddon redefined the role during his nearly 10 seasons as a bench coach with the Angels, and, over the past three seasons, he has delegated those responsibilities to his own right-hand man, Dave Martinez.

"For me, a really good bench coach is basically another manager," said Maddon, whose club opens a three-game series against the Braves tonight at Turner Field.

"He needs to come to the ballpark on a daily basis as though he's going to manage - whether that's thinking about lineups, setting up defenses, or what he would do if he were running the game that day."

While the exact role varies from team to team, the bench coach is generally a second-in-command, a second set of eyes and ears for the manager. He is a liaison between the manager and the players, an adviser and a sounding board.

When the manager has to miss a game or gets ejected, it's usually the bench coach who steps in as interim manager.

Maddon, as a bench coach for Marcel Lachemann and then Mike Scioscia, expanded the role to include setting up defenses, coaching the running game and breaking down the opposing team's running game.

"There was no handbook on how to be a bench coach," Maddon said. "It was kind of an ill-defined or non-defined role. So I set out to define it, and it has morphed into a lot of other things, where it's not just sitting there whispering into the manager's ear."

Martinez, in addition to the typical duties of a bench coach, oversees the Rays' base running. He works with players as a teacher, and then, during games, often advises when to bunt, when not to bunt and when to pinch-run.

He's literally Maddon's second set of eyes, because when the two are peering out from the dugout, they're splitting the field in half.

"He's looking at one thing, and I'll look at another," Martinez said. "All of sudden, he'll say, 'Did you see that?' Or I'll say, 'Hey, did you see what's going on here?' So we'll kind of put both (observations) together."

Not all of the conversation at the dugout railing is about the game in progress. Maddon and Martinez are good friends, if not necessarily kindred spirits, who have common interests and share a mutual respect.

"I'd say it's about 50-50 as the game is just being played," Maddon said of serious baseball talk versus idle chatter. "As the game gets deeper - as you get into the sixth, seventh, eighth innings - it pretty much becomes all baseball."

Maddon doesn't merely delegate; he encourages dissenting views, entrusts and conveys confidence. And that has made him popular with all of his coaches.

Martinez learned how much faith the manager had in him the first time Maddon got kicked out of a game.

As a major-league player for 16 years, Martinez often had seen booted managers relay instructions to the dugout. So the first time he faced a critical decision, Martinez sent reserve outfielder Eric Hinske to the clubhouse to get a decision from Maddon.

"Hinske comes back and says, 'Joe's having a glass of wine,' " Martinez said. "He said, 'You're on your own.' I said, 'All right, sweet.'"

Other managers are less willing to relinquish control. Zimmer says that while he got along famously with Torre, there are other managers "I wouldn't want to name" he couldn't have been a bench coach for.

Outfielder Gabe Kapler, who has played for six teams, said the bench coach "was hugely important" everywhere he has been, but that managers gave them different levels of responsibility.

"Davey plays an important role on this team, and he's impactful in many ways," Kapler said. "He has the ability to, and is involved in, a lot of aspects of what we do around here."

Maddon believes the bench coach role is the optimal training ground for a manager.

"It should be," he said. "Now I've seen bench coaches (for whom) it's a training ground for going out and having a beer after the game. Then there are others who are really preparing themselves to become a manager. For me, it's like any job. It's what you put into it. I think the original concept was to whisper into the manager's ear. But I think it's morphed into a lot more than that over the last several years."

Martinez, 45, said he's merely trying to soak up as much knowledge about the game as he can and is not thinking too much beyond that.

"People always ask me about managing, and I always tell them I take it one day at a time and try not to look ahead," he said. "I'm just trying to live in the moment, trying to win the game we have at hand. If it ever happens, it happens."

Notes

The Rays are playing the Braves for the first time since 2006, when Atlanta took two of three, and they're playing at Turner Field for the first time since 2001. ... LHP David Price can reach 10 wins tonight earlier than any pitcher in Rays history. Rolando Arrojo got his 10th win in 1998 on June 27. ... SS Jason Bartlett went 2-for-3 with a double for Triple-A Durham on Monday in the first game of a two-game rehab assignment.