Riggleman: Wild Card Cubs were special, but so were the minors | Seminole

SEMINOLE — Jim Riggleman has been the manager of five major league baseball teams, winning 726 games, has been a coach on seven different MLB squads, and led the Chicago Cubs to a Wild Card playoff spot in 1998. Ask him what memories come to mind about his career, however, and he doesn’t hesitate — quickly pivoting to his playing days in the minor leagues.

Originally signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1974 as an infielder and outfielder, Riggleman two years later moved on to the St. Louis Cardinals organization which he played with through 1981, making it as high as Triple-A before he retired as a player.

“The money wasn’t good, the travel was really tough and the playing conditions were sometimes not great,” said Riggleman, a longtime resident of the St. Petersburg area. “We understood that this is minor league baseball. It’s a grind. But I loved it.”

Between sips of coffee at Starbucks in Seminole, Riggleman pauses, and then adds, “Maybe I can remember five or 10 at-bats out of 3,000 plate appearances over parts of eight seasons, but what I really remember is my teammates, the bus rides, the laughing, pranksters, the personalities and the relationships. More than stepping up to hit it was that everybody was pulling for each other even though we all wanted to get to the same place.”

Riggleman, whose son Jon was a member of the 2001 national champion Seminole High School baseball team, was 28 when he acknowledged that his playing days were over.

“I played in an era when guys didn’t play as long as some do now (in the minors),” said Riggleman, who batted from the right side of the plate. “My last full season was in 1980 and I was 27. I was one of the oldest players in the league. The legendary instructor in the Cardinal organization, George Kissell, approached me one day and asked me did I think I’d want to stay in the game when I was done. Not sure if that was a message or not, but I got the feeling after that that it was over for me.”

Still, Riggleman gave it another year working as a player-coach. It didn’t take long for him to see where that was going.

“I was 28 and deflated,” he said. “I wasn’t playing very good and asked myself, ‘What am I doing here.’ I was ready to move on.”

He didn’t have to move on very far. In December the Cardinals asked Riggleman if he wanted to be a coach on their Triple- A team with manager Ken Boyer. Boyer, however, got sick and Joe Frazier took over that team, leaving a managerial opening with the team’s Class-A affiliate in the Florida State League, in St. Petersburg.

“That was a real opportunity for me,” he said. “That was a pretty high level for me to start at.”

As he was already familiar with the area since the Cardinals spring trained here, and with his new role as manager and working with the instructional league, Pinellas County would become Riggleman’s permanent home.

Between Boyer, Jim Fregosi, Whitey Herzog and others in the St. Louis organization, Riggleman got an education that would help him along for years to come.

“The last year I played I started paying more attention and asking the manager a lot of questions,” said the 73-year-old. “When I became a manager it was great being around those guys. A lot of great baseball brains. A lot of great baseball conversations. Whitey was the smartest manager I ever met. He knew how to run a ballgame.”

Riggleman bided his time as a minor league manager and eventually he did make it to the majors as a coach with the Cardinals in 1989. In 1992, Riggleman got his first managing job, with the San Diego Padres. That would be the first of five managerial posts, followed by stints with the Chicago Cubs, Seattle Mariners, Washington Nationals and the Cincinnati Reds. In between he also coached with the Cleveland Indians, Dodgers, Mariners, Nationals, Reds and later on, the New York Mets.

Mostly Riggleman was hired to take over clubs that were struggling, which was challenging. The highlight of his managing career, without a doubt, was his work with the 1998 Chicago Cubs, a team he managed for five years in all. That year the Cubs won 90 games and were a Wild Card entry in the playoffs.

“We had a good year,” said Riggleman, even if the Cubs got swept in the Wild Card series by the Atlanta Braves. That team featured several solid players including Mark Grace, Kerry Wood and power hitting outfielder Sammy Sosa who had a season-long battle against Mark McGwire to see who would break Roger Maris’ home run record of 61 in a season. Ultimately McGwire hit 70 while Sosa finished with 66.

“Sammy won a lot of games for us,” said Riggleman, noting that Sosa in a way took the pressure off the team as a whole. “Internally we never really thought about it (the HR chase). We were just trying to win every game. Sammy had so much personality. He handled the media with ease and with so much attention on him it left the other players to just go about doing their own thing.”

Sosa, of course, along with McGwire and others, would become embroiled in the steroid scandal that shook the baseball world in the coming few years.

Riggleman admits that he was “pretty naive to it and was not on top of it” until later on when he realized the extent of it.

Riggleman enjoyed his time in Chicago and Wrigley Field.

“I really liked it, I loved Chicago,” he said. “They played a lot of day games – at the time there was still a limit on how many night games they would play. The fans there had – and still do – have a great passion for the game.”

While in Chicago he forged a friendship with the renowned announcer Harry Caray. Caray, while on the air, had a reputation for getting on some managers for their play calling. Not so with Riggleman.

“He was soft on me, I think,” said Riggleman. “He befriended me. I enjoyed my time with Harry.”

Riggleman managed major league teams over 13 seasons, but had only one winning season – the 1998 Cubs. Still, he has no regrets and reeled off the names of several players that he enjoyed managing – among them Sosa, Wood, Shawn Dunston, Tony Gwynn, Turk Wendell, Brad Ausmus, Mark Gardner, Andy Ashby and Rod Beck.

“I had the honor of managing in the big leagues,” he said. “I managed against a lot of great managers — Cox, Torre, Leyland, Dusty, Francona and LaRussa. I am proud of what I did even if I came up short a little bit.”

What he didn’t like as a manager was the second-guessing by fans and in particular, sports writers.

“I like to be asked why I did something,” Riggleman said. “Never bothered me as a player. As a manager, though, don’t just question my intelligence without asking why.”

Riggleman spent a lot of time away from home while playing, coaching and managing. Comes with the territory. His son, Jon, understood, and got some benefits from his father’s status.

“It was great but it was tough with him gone 6-7 months every year,” said Jon, who was drafted by the Dodgers but did not sign. “I would visit him when I had time off from school and in the summer. When I was older I would field, hit and shag with some of the players. It was one or those experiences you don’t always get. Being around those guys, especially the Cubs and hanging in the clubhouse. I was learning from the best about baseball. I was a fly on the wall and soaking it all in.”

His father soaked it all in, as well, from playing, coaching and managing. If he could change anything, Riggleman would have loved a few more at-bats.

“I loved managing but playing is where it’s at,” he said with a smile.