Just a few bonus thoughts/quotes on Jim Riggleman’s hiring as the Nationals’ new manager. I had remembered an interview Riggleman did with MASN during a game last summer where he spoke about his situation in Seattle last fall. Then – as now – he was the interim manager waiting to see if he’d get the gig full time. So during yesterday’s press conference at Nationals Park, I asked how that process – where he didn’t get a job he really wanted – affected his thoughts as decision time came near in Washington. Make no mistake – Riggleman thinks of himself as a manager first and foremost – even if he hasn’t held that title full time in 10 years. If he hadn’t been hired by Mike Rizzo?
“I would have felt that ‘You know what we did everything we could do We left no stone unturned. We worked hard. We addressed issues. We did everything we could do [in Washington]. I hope I get the opportunity to continue.’ But it wouldn’t be as painful as it was the year before. Because I think all of us when we feel like we didn’t really show our best then you don’t want it to end. You want to get it right. And that’s kind of the way I left the year before. So this year, I felt good about the opportunity to come back. I thought I would. I thought I was the right person. However, if it didn’t happen, I wouldn’t feel like it was something that I didn’t do during the course of the work.
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Later, Riggleman was asked if he ever worried he’d never get another shot. A real one. Not just as a caretaker while the front office made other plans. And he made it clear that if he really knew no one would hire him again then he would have simply ended his baseball career.
“I think wondered is the right word. It’s the thing I like to do. There’s nothing better than playing the game. If you can play the game nothing will ever match that. Once you can’t play anymore, managing is the thing that excites me. I enjoy coaching. I’ve never had a stint where I was at where I didn’t enjoy where I was at as far as coaching. I went down to become the field coordinator with the Cardinals and I enjoyed all that. But my feeling was if there was some divine intervention that came upon me that said ‘You will never manage again’ then I would have got out. I wanted to stay in the game because I still wanted to manage. So if I would have strongly doubted it would ever happen I would not have continued. And you had to wonder as the years went by.”
