CHICAGO (AP) -Dale Sveum answered the phone and in a matter of seconds his baseball life changed dramatically. He was suddenly and suprisingly the interim manager of the Milwaukee Brewers after Ned Yost was fired with 12 games to go.
“It’s no mystery something like this hasn’t really happened too often in the history of baseball, so obviously my emotions have been as good as my emotions ever get,” Sveum said Tuesday night before his debut against the Chicago Cubs.
“There has been a lot of anxiety obviously leading up to tonight. … there is nervousness, there is no doubt about it. I’d be lying if I said if I wasn’t a little amped up right now.”
a four-game sweep by the Phillies over the weekend, prompted the move.
Sveum went to work right away Tuesday night, altering the Brewers’ batting order by moving veteran Mike Cameron to the leadoff spot with another veteran, Ray Durham, batting second.
Milwaukee has batted just .207 during it recent slide, one that landed the Brewers in a tie for the NL wild card before facing the Cubs. The Brewers led the wild card by 5 1/2 games entering September.
Last season they were on top in the NL Central by 8 1/2 games in late June before they were overtaken by the Cubs. And now with a magic number of six, Chicago can clinch the division again by sweeping the three-game series at Wrigley Field.
But Sveum and the Brewers have other ideas for the final 12 games of the season.
“I’m not going to sit here and say I can make any difference. They have to obviously perform,” Sveum said.
“What I’m going to do is try to bring an ease to them and let them go play and let them have fun. It’s the time of their life right now. If March 31st when we started opening day right here in this ball park if you’d say `Hey, would you take being tied for a playoff berth at game 151?’ Everyone in that clubhouse would say `Heck yeah.”’ … So game 151, we’re tied and we got 12 left, so win more games than the other team.”
was fired, bench coach Ted Simmons was reassigned. So Sveum immediately called his friend and former teammate Robin Yount, the Brewers’ Hall of Famer, to come back and be his bench coach. Yount had served the same role for Yost in 2006.
“I’m doing this for the organization I love and the manager,” said Yount, who’s been following the Brewers on TV, radio and the internet, admitting that’s not like being there on a daily basis.
“Sometimes new faces in the clubhouse can spark somebody or change a mindset or whatever and that’s hopefully what happens here,” Yount added.
Left fielder Ryan Braun said Sveum was a sound choice to run the team. Sveum managed three years at Double-A in the Pirates’ organization from 2001-03.
“We’re obviously very familiar with him and we have a lot of respect and just comfort level with him,” Braun said, adding that the Brewers’ play over the last two weeks was responsible for Yost getting fired.
“Nobody quit on him (Yost) by any means. We believed in him, we believed in his strategy, we believed in him as a person and as a manager,” Braun said. “Ultimately I think the manager gets too much credit when a team has success and ultimately gets too much fault when a team struggles.”
h 12 games left, it could also serve as an audition for Sveum, who began his 12-year major league playing career with the Brewers in 1986.
“He’s definitely a different manager than Ned,” right fielder Corey Hart said. “He’s a more upbeat guy and different manager. Everybody is going to see that.
“It’s depressing because Ned was good to all of us. But at the same time, it could be a good change. … They think Dale being there the last two weeks might get us over the hump.”
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