Clint Hurdle, always quick to defer credit to his players for his team's success, can't pass the buck on this one.
The Pirates skipper has been selected 2013 National League Manager of the Year, an overwhelming choice in voting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Dodgers manager Don Mattingly finished second, with the Braves' Fredi Gonzalez coming in third.
Time for the passionate music aficionado to cue up Earth, Wind & Fire's "Celebrate" on his exhaustive mobile playlist.
The first Pirates manager chosen for the award since Jim Leyland in 1992, Hurdle finally gets to take the bow for reviving the dormant franchise he was so reluctant to accept during a 94-win season that jolted Pittsburgh back to baseball life.
Here's a previously overlooked feather in Hurdle's cap: 94-68 in 2013 moved his three-year record at the Pirates' helm over .500 (245-241), a remarkable achievement given the depression into which he had walked in November 2010.
He had, nevertheless, shown up with a vision, for which he had attracted early scorn. Opening his first Spring Training camp, Hurdle invited people to "laugh if you want, but we'll head into season with the goal of winning the NL Central."
"This is why I came here. I envisioned this," Hurdle said on the eve of the Pirates' first playoff appearance in 21 years. "I believed it would happen. I played my part."
He also played his relatively modest hand well. Often cited but still remarkable, the Bucs won only three fewer games than a St. Louis club that outhit them .330 to .229 with runners in scoring position and scored 149 more runs.
"Sometimes you've got to believe in things other people can't see," he had said of having set lofty 2013 goals in Spring Training for a team that hadn't fielded a winner for 20 years.
More: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article/pit/...&vkey=news_pit
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