From Booth to Dugout

PHOENIX —  Baseball analyst--what a dream job.

From the safety of the broadcast booth, they can second-guess managers, criticize players and talk about how a team should be run.

This season, Bob Brenly and Buck Martinez are putting put their money where their microphone was.

Brenly, former analyst for Arizona and Fox Sports telecasts, is the new manager for the Diamondbacks. Martinez gave up his job at ESPN to manage the Toronto Blue Jays.

They join Larry Dierker of the Houston Astros as those who left the comfort of the broadcast booth for the pressurized job of managing a big-league baseball team.

All are former players, although that was news to some of the younger Blue Jays.

“So many of them have no idea that I played,” Martinez said, “that I played 17 years. They only know me as a broadcaster.”

In this age of fabulously wealthy .250 hitters and .500 pitchers--sometimes with egos to match their bank accounts--the career switch makes sense. Brenly, Martinez and Dierker were paid to communicate with millions; now they must do it with millionaires.

“It’s a different generation of ballplayer that we’re dealing with now,” Martinez said. “The communication aspect is probably more important than the Xs and Os.”

Communication skills are important in many phases of a modern manager’s duties.

“Dealing with the media is a big part of this job,” Brenly said. “Hopefully, I’ve a little bit of a handle on that. It’s helped dealing with the players, too. Interviewing them as a broadcaster is one thing, pulling them aside as a manager and talking to them about their careers and what they’re doing is another.

“But communicating is communicating, and any experience you get is going to help you.”

Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo had his eye on Brenly as a possible replacement for Buck Showalter long before Brenly expressed interest in the job.

The idea was to bring in someone who was knowledgeable, yet relaxed and easy to talk to. Brenly played nine seasons in the majors, all but a half-season with the San Francisco Giants. He was always a team leader, and always an approachable, go-to guy for reporters.

After retiring as a player, he went to Chicago to work with Thom Brennaman and Harry Caray on WGN broadcasts of Cubs games. In 1992, he returned to the Giants as manager Roger Craig’s bullpen coach, then was on Dusty Baker’s staff as a coach for three more seasons.

Brennaman coaxed him to Fox in 1996, and the two began broadcasting the Diamondbacks games when the expansion franchise began play in 1998.

“With Bob, he was a player, then he was a coach, then a broadcaster,” Arizona general manager Joe Garagiola Jr. said. “It’s not like this is his first job in baseball. If he doesn’t become a broadcaster and just coaches, it’s no story.”

Brenly believes his time watching from upstairs will help him put the game into perspective. Those involved on the field, he said, sometimes make baseball more complicated than it needs to be.

“As a player and a coach in the past, I know how hard the game can be. It’s not an easy game to play successfully. But being in the booth, it looks so easy from up there,” Brenly said. “I think there are times that we people on the field make the game harder than it has to be.”

Watching every day, Brenly said he knows everyone makes mistakes, everyone has bad days.

“Hopefully watching from upstairs and seeing how easy it looks can temper a little bit of the difficulty of the game down on the field,” he said.