GaryMrMets
08-03-2004, 01:15 AM
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/9298463.htm
Posted on Mon, Aug. 02, 2004
Other Voices
Bowa should have tackled different job
By Robert W. Keidel
Larry Bowa seems like a decent, hardworking man who scraps for everything he gets: A real Philly kind of guy whom I loved to watch at shortstop. The problem now is that he is miscast.
Personality-wise, Bowa would be better off managing a football team. Put simply, baseball is an individualistic game in which the player is the star. The manager's job is to fill out (and revise) the lineup card and then get out of the way - physically, mentally and emotionally. Managers belong in the dugout, below ground and below the players, and the game itself.
Football, by contrast, is a hierarchical game in which the star is the coach, and his surrogate on the field, the quarterback. The coaches - both those who stand along the sideline and those in the press box - are physically above the crouched players and the field. (Recall Bear Bryant's tower?)
The head coach's primary task is to prepare a game plan and tweak it if necessary, usually at halftime. Kansas City Chiefs president Carl Peterson, formerly with the Eagles and the Philadelphia Stars, has estimated that managing a pro football game is 75 percent preparation and only 25 percent adjustment.
As former NFL head coach Bum Phillips once said of his more successful contemporary Don Shula, "He can take his'n and beat your'n, or he can take your'n and beat his'n."
Now, consider the season in each sport: 162 games in baseball, 16 in the NFL. Almost a perfect 10-1 ratio. So, losing a football game is the equivalent of a 10-game losing streak in baseball. It's no wonder that NFL coaches are control freaks. Our own Andy Reid is perfectly cast.
But trying to program a baseball game is bound to fail. The sport simply features too much player-based initiative and randomness. Pete Palmer, co-author of The Hidden Game of Baseball, calculated that in any given contest, skill accounts for a one-run difference while luck accounts for a four-run difference.
Moreover, after you score in football, you play defense; in baseball, a team can continue to score until it has used up an inning's three outs. That's why great baseball managers, such as the Orioles' Earl Weaver, have almost always disdained the sacrifice bunt and regard all 27 of a game's outs as precious.
Given talented players, managers in baseball are likely to fail for one of two reasons: they either micromanage or overinvest emotionally. Gene Mauch exemplified the first tendency; Larry Bowa exemplifies the second.
Indeed, the Phillies' current futility against the Marlins (14 straight losses in Florida's Pro Player Stadium) evokes the bitter memory of the Phillies' season-ending collapse under Mauch in 1964.
Bowa becomes so emotionally wrapped up in a game that he seems to paralyze the team - or, at a minimum, rob the players of the spontaneity so critical to baseball success. Bowa constrictor.
Granted, emotionally charged managers can sometimes be effective - for a short while. Thus, Dallas Green's aggressiveness worked for the 1980 World Series champion Phillies. But in-your-face management is not a viable long-term style in baseball. Over time, the players tune out and turn off. With two months left this season, the Phillies are playing as if they're running out the string. Relief pitcher Rheal Cormier said the other day that the atmosphere in the clubhouse is "just brutal. Pins and needles."
Baseball managers who try to do too much or who care too much unwittingly do more harm than good. Like Wall Street investment banks and Hollywood studios, the design of baseball favors player autonomy.
By contrast, the structure of football more closely parallels highly controlled auto assembly lines and McDonald's franchises. Unless things somehow turn around quickly, better luck in the NFL, Larry.
Posted on Mon, Aug. 02, 2004
Other Voices
Bowa should have tackled different job
By Robert W. Keidel
Larry Bowa seems like a decent, hardworking man who scraps for everything he gets: A real Philly kind of guy whom I loved to watch at shortstop. The problem now is that he is miscast.
Personality-wise, Bowa would be better off managing a football team. Put simply, baseball is an individualistic game in which the player is the star. The manager's job is to fill out (and revise) the lineup card and then get out of the way - physically, mentally and emotionally. Managers belong in the dugout, below ground and below the players, and the game itself.
Football, by contrast, is a hierarchical game in which the star is the coach, and his surrogate on the field, the quarterback. The coaches - both those who stand along the sideline and those in the press box - are physically above the crouched players and the field. (Recall Bear Bryant's tower?)
The head coach's primary task is to prepare a game plan and tweak it if necessary, usually at halftime. Kansas City Chiefs president Carl Peterson, formerly with the Eagles and the Philadelphia Stars, has estimated that managing a pro football game is 75 percent preparation and only 25 percent adjustment.
As former NFL head coach Bum Phillips once said of his more successful contemporary Don Shula, "He can take his'n and beat your'n, or he can take your'n and beat his'n."
Now, consider the season in each sport: 162 games in baseball, 16 in the NFL. Almost a perfect 10-1 ratio. So, losing a football game is the equivalent of a 10-game losing streak in baseball. It's no wonder that NFL coaches are control freaks. Our own Andy Reid is perfectly cast.
But trying to program a baseball game is bound to fail. The sport simply features too much player-based initiative and randomness. Pete Palmer, co-author of The Hidden Game of Baseball, calculated that in any given contest, skill accounts for a one-run difference while luck accounts for a four-run difference.
Moreover, after you score in football, you play defense; in baseball, a team can continue to score until it has used up an inning's three outs. That's why great baseball managers, such as the Orioles' Earl Weaver, have almost always disdained the sacrifice bunt and regard all 27 of a game's outs as precious.
Given talented players, managers in baseball are likely to fail for one of two reasons: they either micromanage or overinvest emotionally. Gene Mauch exemplified the first tendency; Larry Bowa exemplifies the second.
Indeed, the Phillies' current futility against the Marlins (14 straight losses in Florida's Pro Player Stadium) evokes the bitter memory of the Phillies' season-ending collapse under Mauch in 1964.
Bowa becomes so emotionally wrapped up in a game that he seems to paralyze the team - or, at a minimum, rob the players of the spontaneity so critical to baseball success. Bowa constrictor.
Granted, emotionally charged managers can sometimes be effective - for a short while. Thus, Dallas Green's aggressiveness worked for the 1980 World Series champion Phillies. But in-your-face management is not a viable long-term style in baseball. Over time, the players tune out and turn off. With two months left this season, the Phillies are playing as if they're running out the string. Relief pitcher Rheal Cormier said the other day that the atmosphere in the clubhouse is "just brutal. Pins and needles."
Baseball managers who try to do too much or who care too much unwittingly do more harm than good. Like Wall Street investment banks and Hollywood studios, the design of baseball favors player autonomy.
By contrast, the structure of football more closely parallels highly controlled auto assembly lines and McDonald's franchises. Unless things somehow turn around quickly, better luck in the NFL, Larry.