Giants’ Bruce Bochy is back in World Series, but still under the radar

DETROIT — When the Detroit Tigers hired Jim Leyland as their manager in the fall of 2005, it was widely accepted throughout baseball that they had lured one of the sport’s best minds back from retirement. When the Tigers reached the 2006 World Series to face the St. Louis Cardinals, vats of ink were spilled on the two managers, Leyland and Tony La Russa, tomes written about their attributes, their accomplishments, their acumen.

In the dugout across from Leyland on Saturday night at Comerica Park, managing his team in Game 3 of the World Series, will be someone whose name rarely comes up in such discussions. Bruce Bochy has been a major league manager for 18 consecutive years, the longest current streak in baseball. He has won six division titles, including four of the five in San Diego Padres’ history. He has won three National League pennants, and if the San Francisco Giants — who lead Detroit two games to none — close out the Tigers, he will join Terry Francona, newly hired with Cleveland, as the only active managers with two World Series titles.

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The San Francisco Giants lead the Detroit Tigers two games to zero after Thursday night's 2-0 victory at AT&T Park. The series shifts to Detroit on Saturday night.

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“I mean, wow,” Giants left-hander Barry Zito said. “He gets the credit. He gets a lot of credit. But I think he’s due even more.”

Credit is not Bochy’s thing. But the man with one of the largest craniums the sport has ever seen — his hat size, when he played as a backup catcher, was upwards of 8 — doesn’t always get credit for the brain inside. Perhaps it’s because of the way he speaks, a low grumble that sounds as if he’s gargling a dirt road. Perhaps it’s because he doesn’t rant much. Perhaps it’s because he has spent his entire career on the West Coast, with late-night games in markets that don’t resonate as much back east.

But even within his own sphere, Bochy hasn’t always been appreciated. The Padres won back-to-back division titles in 2005 and ’06, and yet the franchise Bochy once played for allowed and even encouraged him to walk that offseason. The Giants, who frequently battled Bochy’s Padres, watched Felipe Alou retire after 2006, and were sitting there, waiting and smiling.

“I was kind of shocked that he was available,” Giants General Manager Brian Sabean said. “We saw before he got here, they won a lot of times with less payroll and less talent.”

Bochy, 57, was hired as the Padres’ manager when he was all of 39. His second season, they won the division. His fourth, 1998, they went to the World Series. He grew to be, like Hall of Fame outfielder Tony Gwynn, part of the fabric of the franchise and the city.

But as calm as Bochy seems — he will get ejected, but not in a dirt-kicking fashion — he says comfort was never part of his issue in San Diego. He believes, and the Giants back this up, that even as Leyland, La Russa and even contemporaries such as Lou Piniella receive credit for being the game’s deep thinkers, Bochy has worked at his craft.

“Hopefully, you work at it and you get better with each year,” Bochy said. “It’s like a player; I don’t think you ever arrive as a player. I don’t think you ever do as a manager. You keep trying to get better and work on things, whether it’s in-game strategy or managing your players or even dealing with the media or front office — whatever it is.”