Corky: ‘Winders’ Hale closing in on big-league job
by Corky Simpson on Sep. 23, 2006, under SportsChip Hale is back where he belongs, in the major leagues.
The Pacific Coast League’s manager of the year was called up this week from the Tucson Sidewinders to finish out the season as a coach with the parent Arizona Diamondbacks.
“Most clubs at this time of the year have coaches from their minor league staff come up and kind of rotate around,” Hale said Friday after driving up the freeway from San Diego, where the Diamondbacks finished one series, to Los Angeles to begin another.
“Jack Howell (another former Wildcat and the Diamondbacks’ minor league field coordinator) and Bill Plummer (Class-AA Tennessee Smokies manager) were here while the Sidewinders were still playing, and I get to finish up here,” Hale said.
“Basically, I just help in batting practice, help get the guys ready. It’s a chance for me to learn as much as I can. It’s a reward for me, and I appreciate it.”
Chip’s minor league contract runs through October, at which time he’ll find out what the organization has in mind for him next season.
One of these days soon, what some lucky major league club will have in mind for Walter William Hale is the managerial position he yearns for.
“As soon as I started playing pro ball, I knew that eventually I wanted to manage,” Hale said. “Even as a player, I felt that I knew the game as well as anybody. I thought I could compete – I knew I could hit the ball – even though I wasn’t as athletically gifted as a lot of guys.
“But what excited me was learning about the game, every day. It still does.”
Chip guided the Sidewinders, top farm club of the Diamondbacks, to 91 regular-season victories and the PCL championship this season. Then he took the team to Oklahoma City, where it beat the Toledo Mud Hens 5-2 Tuesday night in a one-game “Bricktown Showdown.”
Including a 7-1 record in the playoffs, the Sidewinders finished with 98 wins.
“It was fun. When you’re winning, it’s always fun,” Hale said. “That’s the way it is in any sport. When people talk about player development, I have found it’s much easier to develop in a winning atmosphere. Players are more likely to buy into what you’re teaching when they’re winning ballgames.”
Hale played four years at the University of Arizona under coaches Jerry Kindall, Jim Wing and Jerry Stitt. He credits much of his baseball knowledge to those men and to his first professional manager, Don Leppert.
“Tom Kelly (Minnesota Twins manager from 1986-2001) was a huge influence on me, too,” Hale said. “He’s a good guy, and he knows as much about baseball as anybody.”
Chip was selected by the Twins in the 17th round of the 1987 amateur draft, made it to the big club two years later and played seven seasons in the major leagues, most of them under Kelly.
I never expected to see again in this lifetime the kind of fire to become a big league player that burned inside Hale as an Arizona Wildcats second baseman.
Now I see it in the same guy, to become a big league manager.
When the season finally ends, Chip hopes to be able to see his son Jack play football at Catalina Foothills High School. Jack is a freshman cornerback/wide receiver. He plays the outfield in baseball.
Contact Corky Simpson at csimpson@tucsoncitizen.com.
