“He expects you to play hard, he expects you to play the game the right way.” “He expects a lot out of his players,” Teixeira says. Showalter promptly sent him back to the clubhouse to retrieve it. When Tex was a rookie in spring training, he strolled out to the plate for batting practice without a helmet. “He can see how the game is unfolding and make adjustments as it goes on.”Īs Teixeira quickly learned, Showalter treats the baseball field as a temple. “He’s great at in-game decisions,” says Yankees slugger Mark Teixeira, a Severna Park native who played for Showalter in Texas. One fan wore a custom-made shirt declaring “In Buck We Trust.” Another sported antlers. Showalter prods his players to be aggressive, think through their individual battles, and, most importantly, he demands that they respect the game. He’s been known to scout umpires, or change his signs mid-inning.
A young player all of a sudden maybe is going to give a little more attention to detail.”įor starters, Showalter-managed teams are among the most prepared in baseball. Legendary O’s pitcher and broadcaster Jim Palmer has his own theory: “ made everyone accountable, from the coaches to the players. No magic formula, but maybe just a good shift in gears for us.” “It’s not a coincidence we’ve turned it around since Buck showed up,” pitcher Jeremy Guthrie told reporters in mid-August. “It all kind of came together and snowballed, and I was fortunate to be here at the right time.” “I think our guys had got to the point where they were just fed up,” he says, noting that his arrival corresponded with the return of key players Brian Roberts and Koji Uehara from the disabled list.
On a team long bereft of national stars, Showalter has become the face of the franchise.īut with his trademark small-town twang and humility, he swats away much of the credit for the team’s stunning revival. In August and September, Orioles’ broadcasts on MASN averaged 100,000 viewers per night, a 45 percent increase over the previous three-year average for the same months. The Buck Effect reverberated beyond the park as well.
#BUCK REC CENTER LOCKER ROOM SERIES#
The O’s won that night, clinching their fourth straight series win, a feat they hadn’t pulled off since 2004. No matter-one fan wore a custom-made shirt declaring “In Buck We Trust.” Another sported antlers. Minutes after the first pitch on his September 14 T-shirt Tuesday giveaway, the team ran out of Showalter number 26s. Indeed, Showalter’s biggest victory may very well have been returning the Orioles to relevancy. And for the first time since Cal Ripken was punishing pitchers (not pitching Comcast), it was fun to be an O’s fan again. For the first time since 1900, a manager who took over a team in August won more games (34) than the team had won in the previous four months combined. Shockingly, in Baltimore his winning percentage improved. His 916 career wins place him in the top 10 percent of baseball managers for all time.
Throughout his wildly successful yet turbulent managerial career, Showalter’s obsession with baseball’s minutiae has served his teams well. He would always raise questions: Why a third baseman was playing a foot off the line, why an outfielder was shaded one way, why a manager was sitting next to a particular person in the dugout.” “I’ve been doing this for 17 years now, and watching games with Buck was like watching games with nobody else. “He is hyperobservant,” says Karl Ravech, anchor of Baseball Tonight, a show on which Showalter worked two stints as an on-air analyst. “It means he’s fully developed and won’t grow any more.”
#BUCK REC CENTER LOCKER ROOM FULL#
“Never draft an 18-year-old with a full beard,” he once told ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian, a former Sun reporter. The new skipper’s eye for detail is legendary. “The bases were loaded and we were getting hammered,” Showalter says. Where others might just see a pretty photo, Showalter senses trouble.
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