[y66]

By Alan Schwarz in the Sunday New York Times

That bike. Of all the items that teammates would watch Joe Maddon lug on trips with the Angels — books without pictures, wine magazines, an iPod pulsing with Springsteen and Green Day and Pavarotti — none made them smile and shake their heads more than his beloved mountain bike.

The Angels’ bench coach from 1996 to 2005, Maddon would, before most every trip, take it apart — wheels, chains, from seat to nuts — so that he could pop it on the plane. Upon arrival, he would lay the pieces out on his hotel room floor and, quite happily, put it all back together again. Then bike to the ballpark.

“I can still see him doing that,” Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said. “He just loved that bicycle.”

Maddon has retired his wrenches because he now can afford to rent bikes on the road for his 80 or so miles of weekly riding. But he still loves to put machines together. Perhaps you have heard of one — the first-place Tampa Bay Rays.

The Rays’ third-year manager, known as one of baseball’s more purely intelligent men in uniform, Maddon has helped transform what had been a laughably disjointed bunch of rookies and castoffs into a vibrant collection of up-and-arriving talent that has made the Boston Red Sox and the Yankees look brittle and worn.

... rest of story.

I love the idea that guys like Maddon are coaching in major league baseball today ... and winning!