The Orioles held a noon media conference to introduce Buck Showalter, who was announced Thursday as the new permanent manager. Showalter and Andy MacPhail answered questions for 40 minutes and shed some light on what their relationship will be like, but Showalter remained a bit guarded about what he expects to happen over the next few months.
Here's Andy's opening statement:
"Every time you guys have asked me about a manager I have gone on and talked about how I think it has to be a custom fit. Different things work in different places. There are probably, conservatively four, maybe more, potential Hall of Fame managers out there that share one thing in common: That they have been let go and replaced prior to where they are and they have found the right niche and the right franchise, more importantly, found them.
"What we have currently in our franchise is we have a young core of players that are struggling, taking a step backwards, they haven't been exposed to winning type environments. We for the last couple of months have been trying to find somebody that has had some experience in creating that environment. That has been exposed to young rosters before and knows how to prepare young players to be as good as they possibly can be.
"We were looking for somebody that had some experience at that. Some success in that. We just didn't feel like this was a circumstance where we could bring somebody in that had never managed at the major league level before. I am sure there are a lot of good candidates out there but it was essential, in our view, that we bring somebody in that has been there and done that before."
Here's some of Buck's opening statement:
"I know a lot of people have asked, 'Why, Why Baltimore?' I've had some people kick the tires and other things the last couple years, but I think what you miss is you miss the exhilarating feeling of competing for a common cause with a group of men and women. You miss that team where you put yourself every night for a common cause. As a group, as an organization and I think, in this case, more importantly, the fans. Knowing the percentage of people who watch the baseball games on MASN and knowing the percentage of people who come out to the stadium, they're there. We just have to put a product on the field that they want to be a part of. I think a lot of times we confuse change for a lack of respect for tradition. And that obviously won't be the case here."
Associated Press photo