A moment with Maddon ’76
By Michael Kelley ’14 and Ben Brown ’14
Photo Courtesy of Jennifer Huber and Keith Allison
Under the leadership of Joe Maddon ’76, the Rays have had four consecutive winning seasons.
Two division titles. An American League pennant. And two AL Manager of the Year Awards. Baseball is a numbers game, and these are the numbers Tampa Bay Rays’ manager Joe Maddon ‘76 plays by.
Taking the reins of the then-named Devil Rays in 2006, Maddon turned the once-dismal franchise into a perennial playoff contender. In their first ten years, the Rays recorded nine last place finishes in the AL East. In 2008, however, they went from worst to first, winning the division for the first time in franchise history.
It all started with patience and trust. “The old thing is you can’t turn a battle ship on a dime,” Maddon said in an interview with The Lafayette. “Its an assessment type of thing first and that takes time. There has to be buy-ins and there has to be trust established.”
Maddon emphasizes conversation and the importance of a working relationship. “You cannot walk away from conversations,” Maddonsaid. “You have to be a good listener. When you do that, there comes trust right around the corner.”
Once this trust is established, “things start to happen and that’s when you start teaching.” After four consecutive winning seasons, it is safe to say things have been happening.
Even through his successes, Maddon still makes time for his alma mater. During Rays Spring Training in Port Charlotte, Fla. this year,Maddon met with the Lafayette baseball team.
“It’s very cool for me. This is a very small giving-back kind of situation,” Maddon said. “For me personally, it was great to interact with Coach [Joe] Kinney and the staff and the players and be able to walk them around.”
Maddon looks forward to Lafayette baseball players visiting every year and has been impressed by the attitude of the players. “I know that our guys from Lafayette are going to really handle themselves in a very high-end, classy manner and I know they are going to represent the school well and I want our guys to see that.”
The lessons Maddon has learned on the field can apply to much bigger concepts. “If they’re going to get better at what they do and become leaders in their field at some point, which they will outside of baseball, I just think it’s good common leadership sense to become aware of those ideals,” Maddon said.
Maddon also valued his time in the Zeta Psi fraternity, and in addition to baseball, credited his interactions with his brothers as essential to his personal development. “Living at the home daily and going through the intellectual interaction with people that I did perceive to be much better than me helped me grow,” Maddon said. “I hope that it doesn’t become a dinosaur because it really was all of that.”
As Maddon enters his seventh season at the helm, Rays fans are hoping for yet another season of 9=8, the mathematically impossible motto of the team from 2008. Confused? Nine players playing hard for nine innings equals one of eight playoff spots (now ten spots due to the new playoff format). It’s simple math. It’s Maddon math.
