Red Barons Skipper Makes 1500 Club
Manager Marc Bombard Knows What It Takes To Drive Excellence. Will Anyone Looking To Win in the Majors Take Notice in an Age of Celeb Skips?

Al Doyle
Minor League News
 
After 20-plus seasons as a minor league manager, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons skipper Marc Bombard picked up his 1500th victory May 1 in a 6-2 game against the Ottawa Lynx.  That’s a lot of long nights in buses while living on minor league meal money.

AAA ball is the high life: There you only have to make economy-priced flights at odd hours.

"It can be tough mentally, but you have to make adjustments," Bombard said.  "Baseball is a game of adjustments.”

Back in the day, the AAA skipper’s seat was where many a major league manager was groomed.  Often a winning AAA team was called up and their championship skipper would come along to tend to his flock. No more.  This is the age of celebrity skippers in the majors, many of whom are as interchangeable as Legos and as disposable as Kleenex.

Don't expect to hear any complaints from "Bomby,” the former left-handed pitcher who never played above Class AA

“The majors ought to be everyone's aspiration, but I'm fortunate to come to the ballpark and do something I like every day.  A lot of people have to do jobs they hate to have an income and a roof over their heads."
 
Stability is a Bombard trademark.  He spent 22 years in the Reds organization as a player, roving pitching instructor and manager from 1971 to 1988, then again from 1993 to 1996. That final year was a special one, as Bombard spent his only full season in the majors as Cincinnati's bench coach.
 
Juggling Characters Under the Bigtop

Managing at the AAA level may rank as one of the biggest challenges in baseball because of the cast of characters with careers going every which way.

There are the high flyers, the touted young prospects dancing on the wire, impatient to get their call to the Show; Role players bounce high in the air, just scraping the bigs, who come back down to Earth a little harder every time they land on the AAA bench; The hospital set, on rehab and worried that the guy covering their downtime may send them down; The guys holding on to the last days of their careers and those for whom AAA will be their closest inner orbit to the big leagues. 

The potential for an epidemic of bad attitudes is always present.

"At this level, guys can be frustrated about not getting called up, but they can't take it out on the field," Bombard said.  "If the Phillies can't use them, there are 29 other teams who could.  Someone is always watching."

Bombard Pilots Barons Over Long Haul

Now in his eighth year with the Red Barons, Bombard's long stint with one team is unusual in the minors, where job security is an unknown concept. Only Bill Evers of the Durham Bulls has pulled more time on AAA benches with one club.

"You'll have to ask someone else why the Phillies have kept me so long," Bombard laughed.  "It's a rare thing.  We have to contribute to the success of the big league club.  The minors are for developing talent, but development and winning go hand in hand."

In 1995, the Indianapolis Indians finished with an 88-56 (.611) record under Bombard.

Bombard has managed 11 first and second-place teams. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre has had a winning record every year since 1999.

His best season was 2002, when the Red Barons set team records with a 91-53 season and a .632 winning percentage. Bombard leads all active minor league managers in career victories.

It’s Enough to Make A Skipper Blush Philly Red…

Phillies assistant general manager Mike Arbuckle hopes Bombard will remain with the franchise.

"We had some movement at Scranton before Bomby," he remarked.  "With him, there's a degree of security in an industry that has a lot of changes.  We're comfortable with Bomby.  He's helped us as an organization."
Arbuckle described Bombard as being an ideal manager to deal with AAA players.

"You've got to be a good psychologist," Arbuckle said.  "That's the key for a AAA manager.  That's one of Bomby's strengths.  He does a good job dealing with different personalities.  I don't know if I've ever run across anyone who played for Bomby who doesn't like him.  He's a positive guy with lots of energy."

That energy generates a lot of positive team play. Red Barons fans may have a better chance to see fundamentally sound baseball than is sometimes the case at AAA.

"Bomby takes players at a level that is normally very individually oriented and makes them team-oriented," Arbuckle said.

"He knows how to jell people together," said Fresno Grizzlies second baseman and former Phillies infielder Dave Doster.  "Some guys will run through a brick wall for Bomby.  He loves his players.  To have 25 guys with 25 different attitudes playing as a team is amazing.  He knows how to handle egos at the AAA level."

Un-Vince-able

Bombard's "less is more" approach to managing goes light on Lombardi-like rah-rah speeches or Knight-esque temper tantrums.

"We'd have one or two team meetings a year," Doster recalls.  "He'd let the older guys police the younger players.  Guys had the green light to steal.  Bomby trusted you to know the situation.  He wanted us to know how to play the game ourselves.  We'd sometimes put on the hit and run on our own.  He never overmanaged.  Bomby would you let know if you played badly, but he wouldn't say anything if you played well and lost.”

Doster continued, "Bomby just lets you go play.  He just wants you to show up on time and play hard.  He's a great people person."

Bombard doesn’t sit on the bench.  Like a few skippers, including Tracy Woodson, he coaches third base.

"Even though he was a pitcher, Bomby knows every aspect of the game,” Doster said  “That's why he's such a great manager.”

These days in the skipper game, ex-big league is big name.  Put in a great at the skipper’s helm. Someone that ESPN heads can say “Yeah” and smile about. Keep the fans happy.  Yet Doster says his former manager's low profile outside minor league circles shouldn't be an issue.

"He goes out and does a good job every year, and he keeps getting passed over for the majors," Doster said.  "If a guy gets the job done, I don't care what his name is.  There's no reason why Bomby shouldn't have a big league job somewhere."

In time, if Bombard keeps up his winning ways in the minors, he might manage long enough to see one of his prodigies hit a GM’s office.  Future leaders of baseball take note: The stock Bomby put into you needs to pay a few choice dividends.