Ape Parade

The Biscuits have only been in Montgomery - and known as the Biscuits - since 2004, when they decamped from Orlando after a 30-year stint bringing middling lower-tier baseball to the apathetic citizens of Central Florida in the friendly confines of the delightful Tinker Field. But it's Montgomery Riverwalk Stadium at the corner of Coosa and Tallapoosa Street where I will be introduced today as the man in charge of the Montgomery Biscuits. 

It’s a fine park. The first base side is a converted old train shed that dates back to 1898, low-hung with white stucco and exposed dark wood beams. The current train station is just two blocks away, and you can see trains passing back and forth on the tracks from the outfield concourse. Over the first base line, you used to be able to see the Alabama state Capitol building in the distance, before the stadium expansion project was started: an extra 15,000 seats are being added behind home plate, on the first base side, and in right field, which used to be a spring-training-style grassy berm, bringing the total capacity to 22,000.

Before the press conference at noon, I take a walking tour of the park’s innards with my coaching staff. Josh Foss, the incumbent pitching coach, a solid man and a former flamethrower in his day, is still blessed with a square jawline and a rippling chest, though he must be pushing sixty. Mike North, our hitting coach, an extraordinarily beefy North Dakotan and former coal miner about whose past before joining the Biscuits last season no one will say much. Juan Uriarte, the trainer, could be the gem of the bunch. An ancient Dominican who barely speaks English, they call him “The Elbow Whisperer.” And Romulo Chaumond, my assistant GM, shuffles behind the group, wearing, as always, his signature linen suit and smelling of hair pomade and cigar smoke. 

In front of this motley pack, walking next to me, is the man I’ve already chosen as my confidant, our scouting director Juan Pinto. 30 years old, Pinto looks exactly like the MBA-pedigreed former McKinsey consultant he is. He has a relentless energy and inherent brightness that I find compelling. And you have to love a guy who leaves a six-figure consulting gig at the age of 28 to work in the front office of a AA baseball team in central Alabama. He’s giving me a steady stream of explanations and context as we march through the locker rooms, tunnels, and concourses underneath the stands. 

When we reach the home dugout, I finally take a look at the field. 401 feet to straightaway center, 314' to the left field pole, and 332' to right. Glad to have a relatively short porch in left will all the righties in our lineup. Should play close to normal or a little above in terms of runs. The main distinguishing feature is a round protrusion from the right field fence jutting a few feet into the field - I’m told this is because a fiber-obtic cable trunk line was too expensive to be moved when the park was built. All the better for our park to have a little character!

The media room is packed for my introductory press conference. All seven Montgomery TV stations have shown up, as well as two reporters from the Montgomery Advertiser and one each from The Birmingham News, The Selma Times-Journal, and The Tuscaloosa News. And the national guys are here too: Sports Illustrated, ESPN, CBS, and NBC. It’s safe to say there have never been this many human bodies in this closet of a room. As for my performance: there’s not much more to say than the usual introductory cliches. I’ll give them good copy once something interesting has happened on the field. 

Back at the team offices, just around the corner from the stadium on Coosa Street, we’re holding interviews for the vacant Bench Coach position - my right-hand man in the dugout during games. After hearing from Jim West, a classic “just one of the guys” type without much between the ears, and Yukinaga Watanabe, a 10-year veteran of the Japanese minor leagues, a man named Randy Unknown walks in. 

I have to admit, I was intrigued by the name. This guy comes in with zero managerial experience, no past career as a baseball player, and says he wants the bench coach job with the Montgomery Biscuits. Now, we’re not the New York Yankees, and Mr. Heitzman is no damn George Steinbrenner, but I can’t help but feel a little annoyed here. Randy comes in spouting off all kinds of entry-level sabermetric stuff - we should bat the pitcher 8th, four-man outfields, and so on - real annoying Joe Maddon-level insights. It’s not that I disagree, necessarily. I’ve read Tom Tango too. But having that knowledge doesn’t qualify you to be a baseball coach, and his presumption that it would is what offends me. 

I was starting to get a little down when our fourth candidate walked in. A crazy looking Australian guy named Angus Adderly. Now we’re talking! This old bastard looked like he somehow walked straight into Alabama from the Outback. He’s wearing all khaki, and there’s something faintly royal about him, even if the dingo-bashing Ozzie redneck in him is much louder. Deeply sunburned and already pretty sweaty - it can’t be more than 65 degrees out. He was a hitting coach for the Melbourne Aces for a couple years after what he says was a decent amateur career got cut short by a leg injury. After a few years working a desk job at a port logistics company and his stint with the Aces he’s here. He doesn’t seem to be up on any sort of baseball trends - he had no idea what launch angle was and had never heard of WRC+ - but that only makes me like him more. 

I offered him the job right then and there. And the old codger has the gall to stand up, smooth down his shirt, and tells me he has to think about it and that he’d call me in the next couple days. Well, at least I know I found my man. He better hurry up and accept. We’re two days out from Opening Day.