Chicago City Wire

Joe Maddon achieved fame, wealth and overwhelming success on the baseball diamond. But he’s not happy with the current state of the game he has devoted his life to and loves passionately.

Maddon took the previously woeful Tampa Bay Rays to the postseason four times, winning the American League pennant in 2008. Moving to Chicago, he led the Cubs to their first World Series title since 1908, winning a championship in a thrilling seven-game series in 2016.

Witty, relaxed and charming, Maddon was on top of the game. But that has changed, with two teams dismissing him in less than three years and his methods questioned by a new generation of baseball executives.

Baseball has changed, and not always for the better, Maddon says in his new book, “The Book of Joe: Trying Not to Suck at Baseball and Life,” written with acclaimed sportswriter and author Tom Verducci.

Maddon, 68, discussed the book, baseball and his colorful life on and off the field in a wide-ranging interview with Chicago City Wire. He was eloquent, opinionated and optimistic about his return to the field.

Maddon used mottos and mantras to communicate with his players, including: “Do simple better,” “Try not to suck,” “Don’t ever permit the pressure to exceed the pleasure,” “See it with first-time eyes,” and “Tell me what you think, not what you heard.” In the book, he explains what he means with those phrases, and how he tried to convey his message to young, gifted men trying to unlock the secrets of baseball.

Maddon tells readers what he thinks — about baseball, the changes in how front-office executives deal with managers and coaches, what it was like to manage superstars such as Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, how the Cubs snapped a 108-year streak without winning a World Series, and much more in the new book.

He also discusses being cut loose by the Cubs after the 2019 season, and fired by the Los Angeles Angels in the midst of the 2022 season.

Three years ago, Cubs President Theo Epstein and Maddon sat down and, over “several” bottles of wine, agreed to end his time with the team after five seasons. Epstein, who had guided the Red Sox to ending their long championship drought before coming to Chicago, said he loved Maddon and considered him a lifelong friend, but it was time for a change in field leadership.

Epstein has since left the Cubs and is now a “special consultant” to baseball, charged with improving the game and making it more appealing to fans.

Maddon said he holds no grudges against either team. He calls Angels general manager Perry Minasian, who stunned him by firing him, a friend and said he wishes the team success in the future. The Angels are developing some talented young pitchers, Maddon said.

That’s something he saw as a veteran baseball man who had learned how to spot talent and develop players to perform at the highest level. It’s what successful managers have done for more than a century, but things have changed, he said.

“My point is that the manager's role has been diminished to becoming a middle manager,” Maddon said. “There's so much influence from the front office before the game, and I mean before the game, like, right before you go out to the dugout, there's attempted influence. That makes it difficult because the manager's got a tough enough job in order to try to make the decisions during the game.

“And yes, I want information and yes, we want to be possibly made aware of things that we're not aware of at the moment. But it gets to the point where it becomes overbearing and it becomes interfering, and that's the part that needs to go away,” he said. “Like anything else, it's just like the government, there needs to be a separation of power in order for it to run smoothly. Everybody's got a job to do: Your job.”

Will he have a job next season? Does he want to manage again?

Maddon said his agent is in talks with teams to put him back in the dugout in 2023, and he wants to return to a dugout — “if I can find the right dance partner.”

Bicycling and a book

He started working on the book in 2020. Maddon was in his first spring training since he had been hired to manage the Angels, and was living in his RV in an RV park in Mesa, Arizona. Major League Baseball, like much of life, was put on hold by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So I extended my stay and was there for about three months and I would ride my bike around this large RV park. I had a Dictaphone in my pocket with the microphone attached to my shirt, and I would just talk. And that's how I did it,” he said. “I had about 100 hours worth of tapings, whatever you want to call them. And I would send them to Tommy Verducci and (literary agent) David Black and (Twelve Books publisher) Shawn Desmond would come back and they would direct me to get deeper into certain areas. And that's that's how it came about, purely with their direction and me riding a bicycle.”

Maddon thought he had completed the book when the Angels fired him on June 7 with the team mired in a 12-game losing streak.

“It was finished. After we had left the Angels, they came back to me and asked me if I would do something there. And I said, ‘Of course,’” he said. “So that didn't take long. That was maybe a week's work.”

Was that rough to write about?

“No, it's not difficult at all. I was never angry at anybody. I was just upset,” Maddon said. “I was happy that the coaches weren't let go and I was. Just getting over the initial shock because I was really not expecting that at all. But when Perry told me that, we had a really nice conversation, talked about a lot of things and that was it. So I've since talked to Perry, still consider him a friend. But I mean, leaving the organization was not easy because that's where I was pretty much baseball-born.”

Maddon coached and managed the Angels from 1994-2005, serving as a scout, camp director, first base coach, bench coach, and, on three occasions, interim manager.

In the book, he examines how the role of managers has evolved, looking at legendary field generals including Earl Weaver, who won four pennants and one World Series while keeping the Baltimore Orioles at the top of baseball for more than a decade, and Billy Martin, the fiery and often-fired baseball genius who won wherever he went, but soon wore out his welcome and was dismissed.

Maddon offers special praise for Gene Mauch, considered a legend by other managers and many baseball people for his incredible knowledge of the game. Mauch managed the Phillies, Expos, Twins and Angels but never won a league pennant or managed in a World Series.

“God, when he spoke, it was just like, so sure,” Maddon said. “You just knew and believed everything that came out of his mouth to you was thought about, was dissected, was experienced, it was felt, it was all of those things. And you just believed whatever he said to you was accurate.”

Back in the dugout?

Maddon’s track record — 1,382 wins vs 1,216 losses, a .532 winning percentage with eight playoff berths, two pennants and the World Series title — makes him a leading candidate for many teams in search of a savior who also is a media and fan favorite.

“I've had, through my agent, different feelers,” he said. “I've had many conversations, but there's nothing substantial because the season is not over. When the season is over, that's when I expect people will reach out.

“And part of the timing of the book coming out is that people know exactly how I feel about the game and where it's going and how I'd like to be able to help influence it, get it back to where it had been, if given the opportunity,” he said. “So yeah, I'm totally interested. I need the right dance partner. We have to be philosophically aligned and baseball has to come first and math becomes secondary again. If that were the case, I'd love to work somewhere.”

Maddon was celebrated for embracing modern baseball methods when he was hired by Tampa Bay. He said he still is attuned to improved ways to understand the game, but insists the traditional approach has great value as well.

“I want to make clear. I'm still interested and I want this information — and it's information. I know it's called analytics. It's info, it's intel, it's scouting,” he said. “Where it's gotten out of control is that at that point when it first began, it was accumulated. They were trying to take a lot of the load off the coaches. In other words, coaches were doing a lot of this research on their own. And then the concern was that they would not have enough time to then work with the players.

“So these analytical staffs have grown, grown and grown and grown to the point where there are so many of them,” Maddon said. “And now there's so much emphasis among presidents and front offices or general managers that they're hiring these large groups. And so they're asking them to develop information or analytics to present to the group.

“And now they've actually become more powerful than coaches. Coaches are now the inferior in this relationship,” he said. “And the analytical dudes are the people that are in charge. And that needs to stop because baseball right now is answering to analytics. Analytics needs to be part of the game. Absolutely. Coaches need to reestablish their pecking order of power within the clubhouse.”

He said once the information is handed over to the field staff, the analysts need to get out of the way.

“And then the analyst goes back upstairs and prepares for tomorrow or the next series,” Maddon said. “That's what I believe. And that’s gotten totally backwards.”

Any team that wants to hire him has to accept that.

“Yeah. That would be a part of it. I would definitely need to have coaches to be empowered. And of course, the manager empowered, the coaches empowered, a pecking order set up,” he said. “We're absolutely having the best analytical department that money can buy, but that's what they are. They're not there to coach. They're not there to give information or present information to the players unless the coach asks for it. But the coach makes that decision or the manager makes that decision, not the GM or the president.”