Throw Away the Book (One Sixty-Two: Day 55)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Fifty-Five: John Jaso, Tampa Bay Rays

I was leaving a local library yesterday when I passed a display of old books for sale. The last thing our house needs is another book. But of course I stopped.

And I almost walked away. But then an old hardcover caught my eye: How to Steal a Pennant, by Maury Wills with Don Freeman. I knew that Wills was an infielder and base-stealing master with the Los Angeles Dodgers back in the 1960s and ‘70s. I also had a faint recollection of Wills managing the Seattle Mariners for a while in the early ‘80s. But as I looked at the book, I realized that it consisted of Wills’ philosophy on managing – before he ever had the chance to do so. Published in 1976, How to Steal a Pennant featured a retired ballplayer’s ideas on how to manage baseball better than the men he’d been watching in the dugouts while working as a TV analyst.

Wills’ No. 1 advice for managers was simple: Throw away “the book” that tells you how you’re supposed to manage a game. Instead, Wills advised, think outside the box – er, book. If you’re losing a game by four runs, Wills wrote, don’t wait for the grand slam. Chip away – bunt a runner over, scrape for runs here and there, and claw your way back into the game. Don’t hesitate to steal bases, don’t hesitate to let a lefty reliever throw to a righty hitter, and don’t hesitate to throw a strike on an 0-2 count.

I’m sure that when he watches ballgames today, Maury Wills admires the work of Joe Maddon, manager of the Tampa Bay Rays. There is no “book” in the Maddon managerial code. This is a man who starts a catcher in the leadoff spot, even though that catcher – rookie John Jaso – has just one stolen base. So why does Jaso lead off? The reason is simple: Because he gets on base 40 percent of the time. To Maddon, getting on first is more important than one’s ability to steal second.

But that doesn’t mean Maddon hesitates to let his runners steal bases. Not at all. Outfielders Carl Crawford and B.J. Upton both have more than 20 steals already this year, and slugging third baseman Evan Longoria has swiped 10 bases. The Rays lead their league in stolen bases by far this year.

And thinking different doesn’t stop there for the Rays – while Maddon has a bona fide closer this year, he hasn’t hesitated in the past to use a closer-by-committee approach to finishing games. Rather than put the game in one man’s hands, Maddon has let the best matchup determine who finishes the game. Just go with what works.

This time of year, we hear a lot of graduation speeches encouraging young people to take the road not taken. Maury Wills was encouraging that nearly a quarter-century ago. I found his book, and heard his advice to throw away “the book.” Joe Maddon hears this advice, too. And he follows it. Maybe that’s why no team in baseball has a better record this year than the Rays.