Stengel, Alston, Lopez et al

 What makes a good coach or manager?  Part of the answer, I fear, is doing everything the opposite of Robin Ventura.  (Wake up, Robin, your team is 0-3).

But there has to be more.  I wonder because Clare is in the dugout now with a whole new role to play; what counts is how well she motivates and evaluates players while employing tactics to strategy.  In other words, she’s learning to play chess with human pieces.  And Bobby Fischer never had to worry about a wet field or a sore hamstring.

It’s still early, but I’m detecting evidence of a fair but tough approach from my only child.  Clare always worked hard as a player.  In high school, it was grounder after grounder for practice at second base; at Elmhurst, Clare wanted her coaches to rain down fly balls at her in right field.  And she never showed off circling the bases on one of her homers.  So, she’d expect the same from her players, all hard work and head down.  That may or may not qualify her as a “players’ coach.”

Moreover, there are issues on the college level Casey Stengel and his buddies never had to worry about.  Casey went ballistic over a harmonica on the bus.  What would he do about iPad, iPhone or ITunes?  A girlfriend/boyfriend suddenly deployed to the Middle East?  Temptations in the next dorm room scary enough to turn Billy Martin into Billy Sunday?  No, coaching these days is a 21^st century challenge, and we’ll just have to see how my daughter handles it.