They put on a uniform -- one leg at a time -- before every game, yet they never play. They come in two basic shapes: potbellied pinups for prepackaged diet plans and tightly wound, taut-skinned, tanned Marlboro men. Their first names usually end with that boyish diminutive, the letter y, as in Casey, Whitey, Sparky, Tommy and Buddy. We are, of course, talking about big-league baseball managers, one of the strangest breeds in pro sports.
Managers talk funny, often spitting tobacco to punctuate their sentences. For public consumption, they lapse into the inspirational language of after- dinner speeches. Listen to Los...
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