On the August 27 version of Baseball Today, they played an interview Mike Wilner did with Joe Maddon who was in town a couple days before as Manager of the Tampa Bay Rays. The interview was all about building a high functioning team which is one of the big themes I saw at Agile.

Here is a transcript (that took way too long to do), slightly cleaned up for text vs. speech.

Mike – I wanted to talk to you about the Johnny Cash trip and the cowboy trip. Is it just the whole psychology of the game? Trying to shake things up? What is the reasoning behind it and tell us about them.

Joe – It is a bunch of different things actually. I want to have some fun. I like having fun. I think sometimes, not sometimes, often during the baseball season everything becomes a little stale and guys keep just going through the same routine on a consistent basis and I think sometimes that can benefit you and sometimes it can work against you. With us, I don’t necessarily have a set dress code that you have to wear a $2000 hugo boss suit to demonstrate how well you dress in front of 25 other guys. I like to mix things up a bit. So the theme trips are primarily for two reasons. One is to take a bit of risk dressing differently than you normally would. And also to build somewhat of a team unity. I like it for those two reasons and obviously the third is that it is a lot of fun. So we had the Whiteout, all white trip to Miami earlier in the season. They all responded great and then we had the urban cowboy trip to Denver which i turned into the Midnight Cowboy trip because the backside was to Shea stadium (or the new Citi Park or whatever they call it). And for the next one, I wanted, getting to the fall, the darker colours we went with all black and then I added Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash) just to spice it up a bit. I have one other idea in mind but its going to take a good month from us for me to really step that far into the wild side.

M – And that will be the end of September, so if you go into the playoffs, is that what we are talking about?

J – I would love to, I have something in mind that utilizes a lot of plaid

M – Alright. Thats very interesting. I cant wait to see it. The purpose, like you said, is to have fun. But when it comes down to is the team unity thing. And that is what the ‘9 = 8’ thing on those shirts last year. How big is that for you as far as running a ball club?

J – It is about as important as having a catcher, a pitcher, a first basemen, etc. I’m a big believer in team chemistry. I’m a big believer that it can be created. It is not just a residue of winning all the time. I think for those people that have never been able to really attempt or try to create a sense of unity or chemistry within a group, the easy answer or excuse is that if you win that will come. But if you have never been there before, how do you just all of a sudden start winning? So I have always believed in creating the unity from within. I believe in really paying attention to the individual. I believe in developing relationships which then in turn allows you to be constructively critical. I believe in all these things. So I think it can be created. You have to pay attention. It is a lot of work. And its the more difficult kind of work because it is mental work. Physical work is easy. You can go out on a daily basis and exhaust yourself physically and its easy to go to bed, easy to get up. But if you exhaust yourself mentally, it can be a lot more difficult.

M – Whenever I hear about team chemistry and team unity and things I think back to the A’s in the early 70s and the Yankees in the late 70s and it seemed like those teams hated each other and they won in spite of it. I guess it is more fun when you like each other, but I guess it can be done when you can’t stand each other.

J – Those teams were so talented and there is always an anomaly in every situation. I mean, you can go back to the old Pirates we-are-family. You could talk about them. You can go back to the dynasties in football with the Steelers or the Celtics in basketball. Those teams were really tight units. A lot of them played together for many years and there was not much turnover at those times. I think the anomaly is the situation where there is chaos in the clubhouse that all of a sudden transforms into good performance only because the players are just so talented and probably so tough-minded mentally. And that is a good thing. And that’s fine, but I don’t think that works all the time. I believe that blows up in your face more than it works.

M – What was it like when you got to Tampa Bay. You were taking over a team that was a perennial 90 game loser. Just the culture of the clubhouse, what was that like?

J – Well thats the whole point. You have to flip it. And how do you flip it? I’ll say it again because I truly believe this, its by building relationships. You’ve got to start there and truly take an interest in the people around you. Once you’ve done that, and once you’ve established the relationship then you can be constructively critical with your program. I mean people don’t accept constructive criticism unless they really know you and trust you. It just doesn’t happen that way. So that was the first thing to be done and once occurred then all of a sudden you have to have short-term wins or victories. You can’t start talking about doing things differently or new and not have any kind of victories occur else no one will believe it. So its a combination, it builds into that. Then all of sudden you have these short term victories, all of a sudden people start to buy in, and eventually as you keep practicing and preaching it. From my perspective it was important that I remain consistent, and if i remained consistent then all these things had a chance to work. Those are my beliefs

M – I remember the old, I think it was Sparky Anderson, line ’10 guys hate me, 10 guys love me I gotta keep the 5 undecided ones away’. When you tried to change that culture and you tried to instill a new attitude, do you pick out certain guys and say ‘these are the guys who are going to help deliver my message to the crew’?

J – The lead bulls. You’ve got to get the lead bulls on your side. James Michener wrote a book in the late 70s called Centennial and in that book he was talking about how the Indians would kill buffalo. They didn’t have the guns or effective enough arrows to kill a buffalo so what they would do? They would find a cliff and they would find the most dominant bull and start leading him toward the cliff and everyone would follow. And when he got to the cliff he would think “I’ve got to put the brakes on” but it would be too late and momentum would carry everyone else over the side. The Indians would stand down at the bottom and kill the buffalo. Gotta get the lead bulls running the right direction.

M – Are those the toughest nuts to crack too?

J – I don’t think so. I think if you just sit them down and tell them what you’re all about. Tell them what your ideas are, what your plans are. and then involve them in the process. I’m really a big believer in involvement. I don’t want to preach and I’m not a control freak, by any means. I like to get everyone involved. So in a baseball sense, and a major league sense (I’m not talking about minor leagues), its different. You’ve got to get the veterans involved and make sure everyone is on the same page. And if you get the lead bulls working along with your program it makes everything else a little easier.

M – The team that came in here before you guys, the manager who was in this office was Mike Scioscia. And the Angels were here and that’s a team you were part of a world series win as well. What was that clubhouse like, what went on in there? And how much, when you are not the manager, even though you a key member of the coaching staff, how much sway can you have over that?

J – Actually, I think the coaching staff can have a greater impact on the clubhouse than the manager can because the players permit you in a little bit more deeply. As a bench coach with the Angels I often times would go out and have a beer with the boys. You know, a lot of the time you get your best work done after the game at night where people are a little bit more honest. You get away from the situation and you can actually solve some problems. So I spent a lot of time both in the clubhouse and off the field talking to a lot of players in an attempt to try and smooth things out or make things work. And I like the same thing here. I think our coaches do a great job with that also. Its not just about the manager. Sometimes the manager gets way too much credit, sometimes he gets too much blame. So I really think that a good major league coaching staff like we have, which we got to the world series last year played a large role in that.

M – I guess the last question is back to the one about the Angels clubhouse. And what the team unity, the same stuff you’ve got going on here. What was it like there when you were there?

J – Very similar in a sense that it was a lot of fun. It was a great exchange. I thought that the players did trust one another, the coaching staff and the manager. There was just great interaction and there was also buy-in to the team philosophy and how to play the game. And when you get a group of guys buying into the same philosophy, working it on a daily basis with sincere interest, not just lip service, sincere interest and belief then all of a sudden you can do as well as you possibly can. So I think the similarities are in those different lights right there, its there a lot of trust going from the coaching staff to the players and vice versa.