New Blue Jays skipper John Gibbons endorsed by former antagonist Shea Hillenbrand
Of all the people who might be happy about John Gibbons’ reunion with the Blue Jays, you’d think Shea Hillenbrand wouldn’t be among them.
The Jays’ former corner infielder, who played a season and a half in Toronto in 2005-06, had a well-documented confrontation with Gibbons in July 2006, an incident that marked a precipitous decline in Hillenbrand’s career.
After Hillenbrand wrote “play for yourself” and “the ship is sinking” on a clubhouse bulletin board, Gibbons called a team meeting and, in front of the other players and coaches, challenged Hillenbrand to a fight. Gibbons later told the Jays’ front office he would quit if Hillenbrand wasn’t cut.
Then-GM J.P. Ricciardi sided with Gibbons, said the team was better off without Hillenbrand and sent the former all-star packing to San Francisco.
Hillenbrand’s career lasted just one more season, which was spent with three different teams.
So if anyone might hold a grudge against Gibbons, it would be Hillenbrand.
And yet, over the phone from his home in Phoenix, the 37-year-old sounded thrilled by news of Gibbons’ hiring.
“That’s awesome,” he said. “He’s a great guy.”
Hillenbrand, who has been out of baseball for four years, said the highly publicized conflict was his doing.
“I think he handled the situation that we had very professionally and I didn’t handle it professionally at all,” said the father of three, who owns a ranch in Arizona and devotes most of his time these days to a foundation that uses baseball and animals to teach life lessons to at-risk youth.
“All I know is that during my time with him he was a really good manager and I think he did a really good job with what he had.”
Ironically, what Hillenbrand said made Gibbons such a great manager was how approachable and accessible he was. “I think John’s going to be a great addition to that ball club and he’s a great guy.”
Hillenbrand’s reaction befits a Jays team that has been full of surprises of late, with Gibbons’ redux hiring just the latest unexpected move from GM Alex Anthopoulos.
The decision to bring back Gibbons, who managed the Jays over four seasons from 2004-08, even caught team president Paul Beeston off guard.
“Are you serious?” Beeston asked Anthopoulos when the young GM first mentioned Gibbons’ name as a potential replacement for John Farrell.
Many Jays fans may have echoed Beeston on Tuesday morning, when news of the hiring first broke.
Anthopoulos himself said he was aware that bringing back a past manager, one who has never managed any other big-league club, might make for bad publicity and kill the team’s off-season buzz.
But the 35-year-old, beginning his fourth year as GM, said of all the decisions he’s made in his tenure, the only ones he regrets are when he has favoured public perception over his own instincts.
“From my standpoint, I don’t have any stronger belief that this is the right guy to lead this team,” Anthopoulos said. “I’ve got more conviction in this hire, in this move, than with any transaction we’ve made here. I’m thrilled to have him.”
The hiring was as much a surprise to the man himself.
“It really came out of nowhere,” said Gibbons, who was first hired by Ricciardi in 2002 to be the Jays’ bullpen catcher. Gibbons said he “never would have guessed” he was in the running to return to Toronto and acknowledged the club was going “out on a limb” by tapping him to lead its revamped, big-budget lineup. “It’s really a thrill and honour to be back here.”
Although the hiring happened quickly — Anthopoulos asked for permission to speak to Gibbons on Thursday or Friday, and the deal was sealed at a face-to-face dinner on Sunday night — Anthopoulos said he has long thought of Gibbons as someone he’d like to bring back to the organization in some capacity.
“Players love playing for him. They’d go through a wall for him. They respect him. At the same time, if he needed to put his foot down to let someone know where they stood he wasn’t afraid to do that either. You combine all those things and the added layer is that he connected very well with the front office.”
Despite being the last Jays manager to lead the team to a second-place finish, Gibbons is probably best remembered for his clashes with Hillenbrand and pitcher Ted Lilly in 2006.
“Yeah, I had some dust-ups,” Gibbons conceded, before saying he regretted the incidents. “That was really a black eye for me. The organization didn’t look real well after that. Plus I’m too old to be getting physical anyways. But in all seriousness, I wish it didn’t happen.”
Anthopoulos, however, said he had no problem with the incidents.
“I actually looked at it as a strong point,” he said. “What happened with Shea Hillenbrand, he better be confronted. Sometimes I think it needs to be done in front of his teammates. . . . I think it’s a strong suit that you know he’s a great guy and he’s easy to play for, but if you push, he’ll react.”
Ultimately, Gibbons said, he will be judged by how the Jays perform on the field.
“What’s happened here the last few weeks, the trades, the signings, the front office has put together a legitimate contending-type team,” he said. “Now it’s the manager’s job and the coaches’ job to pull it together as a team and get the most out of these guys. That’s our No. 1 job. Get the most out of these guys and then get out of the way.”
As the replacement for John Farrell, who twice asked to be released from his three-year contract with the Jays to pursue his “dream job” in Boston, many fans may also be wondering if this is Gibbons’ dream job.
Gibbons said he had his dream job last year, managing in his hometown of San Antonio, Texas.
“But I left that job for this one, so that ought to tell you something.”
The Jays also used Tuesday’s media event to officially announce their 12-player trade with the Miami Marlins — which was finally approved by commissioner Bud Selig on Tuesday — and last week’s signing of left fielder Melky Cabrera.
But Gibbons was the only one of the new Jays who was on hand in person.
Anthopoulos praised Gibbons’ bullpen management, ability to hold players accountable and his relationship with management.
Beeston said he bought into the choice of Gibbons when he realized the kind of relationship he would have with Anthopoulos, who was assistant GM under J.P. Ricciardi when Gibbons was last at the Jays’ helm.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it is absolutely, 100 per cent essential that the manager and the general manager are on the same wavelength and they’re hand in glove,” Beeston said.
Gibbons said he’s a passionate competitor who believes everybody on a team needs to be pulling in the same direction.
“You can have all the talent in the world, but if you don’t come together as a team” you aren’t going to win, he said.
Anthopoulos said that in baseball and in life, he’s a “big believer” in the axiom that everything happens for a reason.
“I remember a lot of times I talked to our staff during the summer saying, ‘Why is everything that could go wrong going wrong, even when it comes to the roof? One after the other. But I do believe everything happens for a reason, it’s why we’re sitting here today and things, we feel, are starting to fall into place.”
http://www.thestar.com/sports/baseb...lue-jays-hire-john-gibbons-as-manager-reports
