The baseball journey of Twins coach Bill Evers winds its way to an end

Long before Joe Maddon won a World Series, well before he became one of the winningest and most celebrated managers in the majors, he was just a rookie in the Tampa Bay dugout, trying to run a team on his own.

And one day, Bill Evers decided he should speak up.

"It must have happened a few times, unknowingly, but I did not always go over and greet a pitcher after taking him out of the game," Maddon said of that 2006 Devil Rays season, his first as a big-league manager. "And [Evers] moseyed up to me one day and told me that when I take a pitcher out, I should go over and shake his hand after he's cooled down. I've not missed one since. And that was because of him."

Respect the game, respect the players — it's been the dominant theme of Evers' life for the past 46 years. And like a farmer turning a bag of seeds into a field of plenty, Evers has reaped the respect he's given many times over.

"There are managers all over the league, he has had a major impact on who we are as people and why we're managing in the big leagues," said Pirates manager Derek Shelton, who played for Evers at Class A Greensboro in 1993, and later served with him in the Rays' organization for nearly a decade. "Charlie [Montoyo, who runs the Blue Jays] and Rocco [Baldelli, the Twins' manager] and Kevin [Cash, in charge of the Rays] would tell you — we would not be in the major leagues today if not for his mentorship."

The 67-year-old former catcher, for three years a coach on Baldelli's staff, has reached his final month in baseball, however. Baldelli's chief sounding board decided last winter that the 2021 Twins season would be his last, that it's time to give up all the ballparks and hotels and airports for something much less glamorous and much more appealing: Home.

"Being home last year made me realize how much my wife [Patty] has to deal with when I'm not there," said Evers, who worked away from the team in 2020 due to the risk the pandemic posed. "We'll be married 40 years at the end of September, and in reality it's more like 20, because I'm gone so much. It's time to give back. It's time to be with her, and our [two] kids and our [five] grandkids."

Bill and Patricia Evers will return to the home he and his son built in Tampa suburb of Palm Harbor as an International League Hall of Famer, inducted in 2012 as the winningest manager in Durham Bulls history, and at the time in the Rays' organization as well. He'll depart having experienced only three losing seasons in 19 years as a manager, none in his last nine years. He'll give it up having won five minor-league championships, two in the International League with Triple-A Durham (2002 and 2003), one in the Florida State League with Class A St. Petersburg (1997), and two in the Texas League with Class AA Shreveport (1990 and 1991).

Evers tutored all those future big league managers, even managed the A's Bob Melvin for a year. And the players? While in the Yankees' system, he managed Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, and a starting pitcher named Mariano Rivera. When the Yankees held a retirement ceremony for Jorge Posada in 2012, the five-time All-Star thanked Evers "for teaching me how to be a catcher" while at Albany in 1993.

"That's the most rewarding thing that can happen to you as a coach," Evers said.

"He has an unbelievable baseball mind," Shelton said. "He's the only guy I've ever seen where everybody calls him 'Skip' even when he's not the manager."

Evers even has something in common with Kevin Costner: Durham retired his No. 20 a decade ago. As fans enter the Bulls' stadium, they see the display of Evers' number alongside those of Hall of Fame second basemen Joe Morgan and Jackie Robinson, third baseman Chipper Jones, Bulls managers Evers and Montoyo — and Crash Davis, Costner's character in the 1988 movie "Bull Durham."

"He's absolutely, and I mean this with all the respect due, a lifer. He's lived, breathed everything about the game," said Maddon, now manager of the Angels. "He's a tough guy from New York and a really, really good baseball instructor. Players love him."

Shelton recalled the day that Evers called "this really bad A-ball bullpen catcher" — Shelton — into his office to break some news. "He said, 'The bad news is, you're going on the [disabled list].' Well, I was not hurt," the Pirates manager and former Twins coach said. " 'The good news is, we're not releasing you. You still get a uniform, you still get to come to the ballpark and work every day.'"

Just as Evers has. He's been fired five times, yet he's never been unemployed long enough to miss a paycheck. Not bad for a minor-league catcher who dreamed of a major-league career, but hurt his throwing arm in the Cubs' organization and never rose above Triple-A.

Near the end of his playing days, Cubs General Manager Bob Kennedy saw him preparing for a game in Wichita and asked him if he had any plans for the future. "He said, 'You'd make a great manager,' " Evers recalls, and backed it up by hiring him as a catching instructor.

A year later, the Yankees hired him as a minor-league coach, and when they let him go after five seasons, Kennedy hired him again for the Giants. By 1987, he was managing in Clinton, Iowa, and embarking on a tour of America, earning $8 a day in meal money, half that if the team could bus home after a game.

"My first 10 years, my wife and I moved 31 times," said Evers, who spent 23 years working for the Rays as a manager, coach, and field coordinator. "I loved it, but it's definitely not easy. Everybody thinks it's a glamorous life, but there's a lot of things to overcome. All the travel, a game every day. Things you miss with your children. I'm happy I did it, but I'm ready to go."

Well, he has one more task ahead: Managing the Twins.

Evers will take over for a few days when Baldelli takes paternity leave following the birth of his first child, due later this month. He managed a 6-3 win in Anaheim in May when Baldelli served a one-game suspension, and also subbed for Maddon twice in 2007, winning both games.

"I've been preparing, thinking about what guys [to use] for certain situations," Evers said. "I'm excited. I've been doing this for 46 years, but it's still exciting to show up and try to win a ballgame."