Trembley believes Orioles headed in right direction

SARASOTA, Fla. — Carthage native Dave Trembley is making no predictions for his Baltimore Orioles this season, but he is encouraged at what he sees as he begins his fourth season leading a team that has been mired at the bottom of the American League East division.

"We have endured a lot of pain," Trembley said after watching his team's first full squad workout here. "Now it's time to turn the corner. I think we will be fine. Our time is coming."

He delighted while watching his young catcher, Matt Wieters, connect in the batting cage with the offerings of Jeff Datz, his bench coach and a former Watertown Indians manager.

"He's a future all-star," Trembley said of Wieters. "He is a clone of Joe Mauer," the Minnesota Twins all-star catcher.

And Trembley marveled at what he believes the skills and experience of Kevin Millwood, an off-season trade acquisition, will bring to his young pitching staff, the core of the Orioles game.

Finally, he pointed to veteran slick-fielding shortstop Cesar Izturis, who he described as the epitome of a team player, an athlete who he said will do anything to help the team win.

That "team over self," said Trembley, is what he will expect from all his players. And that is what he told them during a clubhouse meeting on Feb. 23.

"I told them I've got to do things better, and I asked them to cooperate," he said. "My bread and butter in baseball has been fundamentals. When things are not done correctly, there is no place to hide, and I take it really personal. So it's the little things we have got to do to win. We have to brush up on what didn't work last year."

To meet that end, "I am trying to change attitudes and basics here," he said.

Appointed Orioles field boss on June 18, 2007, Trembley was rumored last fall to be on the chopping block. Instead, the organization exercised the option on his contract to retain him for the 2010 season.

Insisting he took the rumors in stride, Trembley said he likes the advice he received as a minor league manager when he met Braves manager Bobby Cox in Syracuse.

"He told me three things to survive — don't read newspapers, don't listen to sports talk shows, and don't read blogs on the Internet. Just come to the ballpark happy every day," Trembley said.

He added, "the easiest part of the job is when the game starts."

A catcher in youth and school leagues in Carthage, Trembley traces his success in baseball to his hometown upbringing, "the influence of my parents, and the work ethic that was ingrained in all of us, that's where it started."

He stepped into professional baseball in 1985 after he says scouts brought him to the attention of Dallas Green, then general manager of the Chicago Cubs. Trembley left his coaching position at Antelope Junior College, Los Angeles, to eventually become a minor league manager who, moving around in the Cubs, Pirates, Padres and Orioles organizations, could boast of 1,400 wins over a span of about 20 seasons. His road to Baltimore began in 2003 when he took the helm of an Orioles AA team.

Trembley has always fancied himself as a teacher, and claims late Yankees manager Ralph Houk as his model. "He had a good ability to establish a rapport with super stars, and yet be firm," he said.

Three active managers, Jim Leyland, Tony La Russa and Joe Torre have also been influences, he said. Leyland in particular, "took me under his wing," he said.

"I think he saw me in himself, because I had worked all those years in the minors."

Becoming a major league manager without the major league playing experience has not been a handicap when dealing with the high-priced athletes in today's game, he said.

"You earn your respect," he said. "Players want to know if you are in the game for them or for yourself. My strengths are being a very good communicator, organized, fair, disciplined, and treating people the way they want to be treated.

"The game is not about me. It is about the players. They make the game."

Dave Shampine was in Sarasota last month shadowing Dave Trembley as he patrolled four different diamonds at the Orioles spring training facility, monitoring pitching and hitting practice sessions. In their youth, the future reporter and the future manager were neighbors on South Clinton Street in Carthage.