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Hail to the new Chiefs chief: Q&A with Syracuse Chiefs new manager Tony Beasley

March 2012 URBAN smallOn his first day in town, Syracuse Chiefs new manager Tony Beasley sat for an early morning chat about the state of baseball, especially the local minor league brand. He grew up watching his dad and uncles playing sandlot ball in Bowling Green, Virginia, always wanting to play in the major leagues. He played at the collegiate level at Lewisberg JC in North Carolina and Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Drafted in the 19th round by the Orioles, he played with Baltimore until 2006, coached three years for Pittsburg and last year with Syracuse’s parent club, the Washington Nationals.

“I’m an open guy,” he introduced himself, “pretty straight forward. I’ll give respect and hopefully get it back. I’m passionate about what I do. I’m usually media friendly. I’m a Christian guy, I won’t shy away from my faith at all. What you see with me is usually what you get. I don’t have any agendas.” Asked if he aspired to manage in the majors, he responded, “Definitely. As with any job, you should aspire to be at the top. Not at the expense of anyone else, but when an opportunity presents itself I would love to be prepared, and be the guy who steps in.”

He was quick to add, “But that’s down the road. I’m very content to be where I am right now. Very happy. Very pleased.”

The irony of minor league baseball is that everyone on your team wants to be somewhere else. How does that affect the coaching dynamic?

That’s probably the greatest challenge that you will face at this level. Double-A guys are usually on the upswing, so they’re very happy to be there, and below as well. But for some reason at this level, mostly the team is not etched in stone until probably two days before the end of spring training. A large number of those players spend the whole spring in major league camp. So whether it’s a false hope, or false sense of security, or whatever it may be, when they’re sent down, it’s a blow, and it takes a little time for that player to accept that and get in his mind that ‘I’m not at the major league level.’

Mostly the players in Triple-A don’t want to be in Triple-A, they want to be at the major leagues, which is a good thing, because that’s incentive to play well. On the flip side of it, somewhat it’s demoralizing because a lot of times in their minds they believe that they should be there. You have to hear them out. You have to let them know that you understand, you care. ‘I feel your pain.’ But the bottom line is we have to play baseball, and you have to make up your mind what you want to do. If you want to pout and complain, then you’re not going to play well, you won’t get there.

The flip side is that you’ve having a really good season and heading for the playoffs, and the parent club grabs two key players. What does that do to your psyche?

You just have to go into it knowing that that’s the structure of baseball. You want players at your level that can go up and contribute at the next level. That’s true at any level. When a guy is going from Triple-A to the major leagues you want the guy to contribute, be a ‘piece of’ because everything is gauged on how the major league team does. That’s the challenge of it. You know your roster is going to change. It’s inevitable. You’re not going to carry the same 25 that you start the season with. You’ve just got to be flexible. You’ve got to prepare for that. That’s why it’s important to get everyone involved. That guy that you think you may not need, you’re going to need.

What role does the community play in the dynamic of minor league baseball?

It’s important that you get involved in the community, at any level. Players need to get out and be involved. You have to let the fans know we are more than just baseball players. A lot of these guys have a lot to offer as far as life is concerned. A lot of them are very educated. It’s good for them to get out and mingle, visit hospitals, visit kids, to go inner-city. It’s important for them to be visible, to be out in the community and be giving back, because the game of baseball has been good to them.

The local community of color has not responded significantly to the existence of the team.

You’ve got to promote the game of baseball. A lot of times in the African-American community basketball and football have become predominant sports. And baseball is really a better opportunity than those two. We’ve been through a history of having the Negro leagues and not being able to play in the major leagues. Now through Jackie Robinson-and Moses Fleetwood Walker (the actual first African-American to play major league baseball, in 1884, who played for Syracuse in the International League in 1888 and 1889)-the doors have opened, but you’re seeing less and less of minorities in the game.

If you visit an inner-city playground and ask young males their aspirations, most will say the NBA. How do you get them thinking about baseball?

You look at the playgrounds, the first thing you see is a basketball court. You don’t even see a baseball field. So there’s no initial thought or presentation to the kid of ‘let’s play baseball.’ It’s become cultural, and appeals to a different type of audience now. Everything has become costly. You have to be financially stable and secure to keep a kid involved with baseball and, with travel, to showcase him. It’s sad, because it’s a door that needs to be open to everyone. If you build a baseball field, and put a little incentive there for kids to play, and you give them leadership and guidance and teach them how to play, I think you’ll find there are a lot of kids will fall in love with it.

America’s always been chauvinistic about baseball, calling the major league championship the World Series. What is the state of baseball in the world, and how does American baseball stack up?

We still stack up elite. For Dominican kids baseball is a way of life. They grow up playing baseball, and most don’t even go to school. They play baseball in the streets and see it as an opportunity to get out of poverty. If they can somehow get to America and become a professional, they see that as success. It’s putting all their eggs in one basket. When you talk about Japan, Japan is a work related society. With Japanese teams and Korean teams, it’s like being in the military. It’s an all day and sometimes nightly job as far as the regimen.

But when you talk about America, there’s more of a feel for how to play the game. There’s a natural feel of how to play. For some reason we get that. It may be something spiritual. But for some reason we do have more of a natural understanding of the game. It’s not the end of the road for us. It’s not everything. But it’s something that we play because we’re passionate about it and we have a deep love for it. That’s what makes us good at it, but I think we were much better at it when society at large was participating.

We have to get back to that somehow. There’s been a gap, and we have to find a way to bridge that gap, particularly with kids in the inner-city.

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