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When the Twins fired Ron Gardenhire following the 2014 season, he stated publicly that he still wanted to manage in the big leagues. He interviewed with several different teams, but no offers seemed to materialize. Some Twins fans started to speculate that maybe the Twins were the only team that ever truly valued him, and some of us sort of chuckled at his “funemployment”. When Gardy came crawling back to the organization last spring, taking a job as a special instructor, it seemed to confirm what fans had thought.
Turns out, however, we were wrong.
Earlier today the DBacks announced that they have hired Ron Gardenhire to serve as their new major league bench coach.
If that caught you off guard, you’re not alone. “I was pretty comfortable being retired. Really I hadn’t been searching out a lot and I had no clue where it came from when Torey called me,” Gardy told reporters during a teleconference earlier today. “ That’s what is pretty cool about it. He said he had thought about me and thought it would be interesting.”
The Torey that Gardy is referring to is the Dbacks’ newly hired manager, Torey Lovullo. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because he was one of the finalists to take over as manager of the Twins after they fired Gardy. Lovullo is a new head manager, as he spent the past four years as bench coach for the Red Sox.
Life is strange sometimes.