Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life In the Minor Leagues of Baseball by John Feinstein

name that has come up when teams are talking about hiring a manager. Still, he’s a realist: the guy in front of him in Tampa isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Maddon is only fifty-eight and considered one of the game’s best managers.
    That means another organization is going to have to go looking for someone and think, “Hey, that guy in Triple-A with no major-league experience might be the answer.” Montoyo knows his best shot to make it to the majors is the Ron Johnson route—as a coach. One reason that most Triple-A managers coach third base is to prepare themselves for possibly being a base coach in the major leagues. Even so, Montoyo doesn’t give “the jump,” as it is called in Triple-A, much thought—especially once spring training is over and he heads back to Durham.
    “When I was a player, there were guys who became obsessed with why they weren’t in the big leagues,” he said. “They would sit around and wonder why someone else got called up instead of them or what needed to happen to get them up to the majors.
    “The same is true when you’re managing. It doesn’t do any good to sit around and wonder, ‘When is my chance going to come? Is my chance
ever
going to come?’ Some guys get it when they least expect it. Some guys never get it.
    “All I know right now is I have a job and I like my job. I get paid okay, and I like going to work every day. I don’t even look at the standings during the season. Believe me, I know when we’re winning and when we’re losing, and our local media guys always let me know where we are in the standings. In the past, when we’ve been closing in on clinching the division, our radio guy always lets me know, ‘Five more games to clinch, four, three,’ so I know what’s going on. But I never go out of my way to find out.
    “Getting a big-league job often has as much to do with being in the right place at the right time as it does with doing your job well. Just like playing. I always tell my players if they don’t get discouragedbecause they’re here and keep giving everything they have every day, their chance will come. I tell myself the exact same thing.
    “I have one goal in life right now: take care of my family. That hasn’t been easy since Alexander was born. As long as I can do that, I’m fine.”

    Of the fourteen men managing in the International League in 2012, two had been managers at the major-league level: Dave Miley, who was in his seventh season managing the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, had managed the Cincinnati Reds from late in 2003 until midway through 2005 and had been fired after compiling a 125-164 record. Joel Skinner, in his first season managing the Charlotte Knights—the White Sox’ Triple-A team—had been an interim manager in Cleveland in 2002, going 35-41. That record was good enough to get him interviewed for the job at season’s end but not good enough to get him hired.
    Every manager in the league hoped his time would come—or come again—when he would be in the majors.
    Seven of the fourteen had played in the majors, ranging from Montoyo’s twenty-two days as a .400 hitter to Lehigh Valley manager Ryne Sandberg, who was in the Hall of Fame. If anyone in the group was considered a lock to manage in the majors someday, it was Sandberg.
    “First of all, the guy’s really good,” said Pawtucket’s Arnie Beyeler. “Second of all, the back of the bubble gum card matters.”
    Among the facts on the back of Sandberg’s bubble gum card were sixteen major-league seasons, almost all of them with the Chicago Cubs; ten trips to the All-Star game; nine Gold Gloves as the National League’s best defensive second baseman; seven Silver Slugger awards as the best hitter at his position; and the 1984 National League MVP. Most important of course was the last notation: inducted into the Hall of Fame, 2005.
    Sandberg had already been mentioned as a future Cubs managerand had been interviewed prior to the 2012 season for the