NEW YORK — Kirk Gibson took a tough-guy approach. So much so, he brought three Navy SEALs to spring training.
The SEALs wrote D, W and I on a board. The letters stood for a sense of purpose, not a traffic offense: “Deal With It.”
“They bought into it,” said Gibson, voted the NL manager of the year Wednesday after the guiding the Arizona Diamondbacks to a worst-to-first finish.
Joe Maddon took a different tact. After the Tampa Bay Rays lost their first six games, he proclaimed with a great flourish that this team was the best 0-6 club in baseball history.
“I think a lot of people are into the Rays’ style,” he said after being chosen the AL manager of the year.
Gibson was a clear choice for guiding the Diamondbacks to a runaway NL West title. A former MVP as a rough- and-tumble outfielder, he was honored in his first full season as a big-league manager.
“I certainly had a vision,” Gibson said, adding, “It’s certainly not all because of me.”
Maddon won the AL award for the second time. He was an easy pick after helping the Rays overcame a nine-game deficit to beat out the Boston Red Sox for the wild-card spot on the last day. It was the biggest rally any team had made in September to claim a playoff berth.
“I like to think of it as a validation of the Rays’ way of doing things,” Maddon said.
The Associated Press
