We had an enjoyable interview the other day with Toby Gardenhire, son of Twins manager Ron Gardenhire. Toby is making the transition from ballplayer -- he was in the Twins minor league organization from 2005-2011 and thought he was close to a callup at Class AAA Rochester last year -- to head baseball coach after taking the reins at Wisconsin-Stout last month. We wrote about the transition and how Gardenhire's first game as a coach will be at 9:45 p.m. tonight against Hamline at the Metrodome -- his dad's old stomping ground -- for today's paper. But we had a fun line of questioning about Ron Gardenhire's ejections that just couldn't find its way into print because of space constraints, so here are a few of those leftovers:
On whether he will have the same managerial style as his dad: "I don't know if I'm going to get thrown out of every other game, but pitching and defense are going to be the most important things for us."
On whether he is amused, embarrassed or something else when his dad is out there arguing with umpires: "I think it's funny. I laugh when I see it. Most of the times, I can tell when he's going to get thrown out before it even happens. I see the play happen on TV, and I think, 'He's going to get thrown out.' I can tell when it's going to happen."
Is it a particular type of play that sets Ron Gardenhire off? "Not really. When an umpire is wrong, and you know they aren't going to be able to do anything to change it – it was just a bad judgment type of call -- I know what he's going to ask. And I have a pretty good idea of what [the umpire's] defense is going to be. I just know he's not going to like that defense. I've seen it a million times."
Will Toby have the same style on the field? (Ron Gardenhire) is not the personality off the field at all -- not the type of guy you would imagine going up and yelling in an umpire's face all day long. But he gets on the field, and things are different in the middle of a baseball game. So I can't really tell you what I'm going to be like."
In case you were curious, here is an example of what Toby was talking about. There were various other examples on YouTube.
