Texas’ 69-year-old manager is focused on spring training as he enters the final year of his contract.
Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy responds to a question from reporters during a post season wrap up press conference at Globe Life Field in Arlington, October 1, 2024.manager waxed poetically, or at least as poetically as he gets, about his love for the start of spring training.
Said he hasn’t recently thought about what it would be like to not come to spring training to do what he’s done for most of the last 30 years: Manage a major league team.“Don’t try to read those cards,” Bochy, whose contract expires at the end of this season, five months after his 70th birthday, said with a laugh.To be clear, the decision on Bochy’s future appears to be all his. President of Baseball Operations Chris Young has on more than one occasion indicated he would love for Bochy to return. In the meantime, Bochy, who begins the season eighth on the all-time managerial wins list, will simply bask in the buoyant feeling from the start of camp. “I haven’t lost that feeling of how excited you get to get back on the field, see the guys and just be around them,” he said. “Those fields are so beautiful when you haven’t seen them for a while. Kind of like the first time you saw a major league field and just listened to the sounds and to the guys talking and being around them. It’s an excitement that just doesn’t go away.”“When I came back from retirement after three years, man, I just realized how much I miss it. The gratitude meter shoots way up. I still have that feeling coming in. You’re grateful and realize you are blessed to be doing what you love to do.”Advertisement In 2019, Bochy announced first to his team that he would not return for the 2020 season. He did that during his camp-opening meeting ahead of San Francisco’s first full workout of the spring. It’s worth noting that Bochy’s camp-opening meeting will take place Sunday ahead of the first full-squad workout. With lots of long-term relationships in an organization where he’d managed for 12 years, at the time Bochy said he told the team in spring because he “didn’t want to be a distraction.”“I don’t want to burden them with wondering about my situation,” he said in February, 2019. “I didn’t want any distractions.” It’s also worth noting that Bochy’s circumstances may be a bit different now than at that time. He had a series of health issues, including angioplasty and hip surgery, from 2015-17, but has been in relatively good health with the Rangers. At the time of his retirement, Bochy said health issues were not a factor. Also, the Giants were in the midst of a regime change in the front office, with Farhan Zahidi coming in from the Los Angeles Dodgers. With the Rangers, Chris Young, who played for Bochy and personally recruited him to manage the club, is just starting Bochy was also obviously younger at the time he retired from the Giants. He was 63 heading into the 2019 season. He will turn 70 in April and may want to simply see how he feels at the end of the season. Bochy remains quite close with his predecessor with the Giants, Felipe Alou, who managed through age 71. Alou, who turns 90 in May, has spent nearly 20 years away from the day-to-day grind of the game. “I know that day is going to come when , but I haven’t thought about it,” Bochy said Friday. “I mean, I did try it once, but I missed it.”Four Texas Rangers crack MLB Network’s Top 100 players, led by Corey Seager, Marcus Semien Seager and Semien were nearly a given to make the list given their prowess as Texas’ All-star middle infielders, but who joined them among the league’s best?Bradford showed the Rangers in 2024 that he belongs on the team’s pitching staff, but there is currently a logjam of starting pitching on the roster.Evan has covered the Rangers since 1997. He has twice been named one of the top 10 beat writers in the country by the AP Sports Editors. His passions outside of covering baseball are his wife, Gina, his two step kids, two crazy dogs & barbecue. Let's not discuss the cat. Evan graduated from Georgia State University, but oddly is a Georgia fan.
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