One of the more interesting rooms in baseball this week was inside Angel Stadium, down two corridors, around a bend and to the left.
Jim Leyland hung his clothes there for three weekdays. It was aired out for a day, and then Ozzie Guillen pushed his shoes under the desk for a weekend series against the Angels.
They stand a generation apart in life, their teams are 1 1/2 games apart in the American League Central, and they stand shoulder to shoulder in an occupation that typically rewards take-it-or-leave-it individuality with a late-night phone call and a severance check.
The game shrinks in the course of George Mitchell's snooping. It sighs in the drama of Barry Bonds. It drums its fingers at the process of appointing an owner in Washington. It shrieks at the continued failures of small-market franchises, where shared revenue creates profits, not competitive balance.
But, in this room, the game remains strong and appealing. It is held in the ashes that speckle Leyland's midnight blue undershirt, the gestures that accompany his observations and dislodge gray flecks from his shrinking Marlboro. It is possessed by Guillen's conviction, and the excellence he draws from commotion and audacity.
As he neared the end of a three-city trip, in which his Detroit Tigers won six of nine games and stayed with Guillen's powerful Chicago White Sox, Leyland granted that the time had moved quickly.
"But, you know," he added, "when you get to my age it seems like everything goes fast."
He is 61, still wears his uniform pants above the calves, still drops references to Casey Stengel and Earl Weaver as though they were in the opposite dugout, and still expects players to be on time, do their work and be accountable.
Between jobs in Colorado and Detroit, he spent six years out of the dugout, most of those scouting for the St. Louis Cardinals and raising his two children in Pittsburgh. But no matter. It's still baseball, near as he can tell.
"There's a lot of things that still hold true," he said. "I haven't changed a lot. There's so much information now, with this stat craze that's going on in baseball. To be honest with you, I'm not smart enough to remember all that stuff during a game.... My brain is not big enough for that. I like to handle the players, keep them playing the right way."
So, rather than carry a computer or a binder, he'll jot a few notes on the lineup card. This guy hits left-handers. That guy has a decent move to first. The hot zones are always down the middle, the cold zones always low and outside.
