MSL to MLB: Mike Quade Finally Gets Big-League Shot with Oakland

Quade Finally Gets Baseball's Recycling Program to Come His Way

NOTE: This was a column in October 1999 after former Prospect three-sport star Mike Quade finally got a big-league coaching shot with the Oakland A’s after some tremendous success as a minor-league manager. Quade would be part of the “Moneyball” A’s who became famous through the movie that starred Brad Pitt and had a remarkable 20-game winning streak in 2002. Quade would eventually come to the Cubs as a coach under Lou Piniella and would get a big-league managerial shot at the end of 2010 and for the full 2011 season before the new Theo Epstein regime came in and made sweeping changes.

On-field management major league baseball would be the perfect ad campaign for recycling.

Old - and then back in with the old - has long been a hallmark.

One wouldn’t be surprised to see Peanuts Lowrey lurking around in a coaching box again. To use the Lou Boudreau line: “For all you youngsters out there, Peanuts was a coach with the Cubs in the ‘70s.”

Meanwhile, plenty of new coaching and managing possibilities are working in second-thought towns waiting for their first chance at the big time.

Guys like Mike Quade, a baseball, basketball and football standout who graduated from Prospect in 1975.

“People say to me, ‘I guess you’ve paid your dues,’” Quade said with a laugh last week from his winter home in West Palm Beach, Fla. “For 16 years, I would think so.”

After four years in the Oakland organization, major-league manager Art Howe agreed. Quade was promoted Tuesday and will be the Athletics’ first-base coach.

“Mike has paid his dues,” Howe told the Oakland Tribune. “He had a nice year at Triple-A and he’ll help us in Oakland next year.”

The 42-year-old Quade wasn’t even counting the five years he spent as a player in the Pirates’ minor league organization. And he has certainly proved to be one of the more successful dues-payers as a manager.

His Vancouver team won the Class AAA World Series in September. It was the seventh of 13 teams he’s managed at all three minor league classifications to make the postseason.

His West Michigan team won the Midwest League title in 1996. He has more than 900 wins with whatever players came and went from the Pirates, Expos, Phillies and now Athletics organizations.

Now Quade has finally broken through the front door. The one he thought he was ready for previously.

“I think I should have been,” Quade said of being in the majors before now. “But only the people who make those decisions can answer that. I felt I had the knowledge of what you need at the major league level and I’ve fit very well and I didn’t get jobs.”

Then Quade laughs as he quotes the man who brought him in with Oakland, Director of Player Development Keith Leippman.

“That’s life. Everybody’s got a story.”

Quade’s seemed to be reading nicely as he kept moving up the ladder. He took Expos’ Triple-A affiliate Ottawa to the playoffs in 1993 and then joined the Phillies.

But after two years with their Triple-A affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes Barre (Pa.), Quade wound up going back to the beginning.

“It didn’t go well in Philly for a variety of reasons and we parted company,” Quade said. “When they let me go there was nothing at the Triple-A level.”

Lieppman called with an offer to manage one of the Athletics’ Class A teams at West Michigan.

“He said, ‘There’s a possibility for the future in what we think is going to be a very good organization,” Quade said. “I had to swallow hard and say I’d go back to A ball. But I didn’t want to rove. I wanted to manage and some of the other jobs didn’t interest me.”

So he went back to A ball and won a title.

The next year he took a AA team with 1998 American League Rookie of the Year Ben Grieve to a league championship loss. Then he moved to Triple-A Edmonton and finished third in 1998.

“I’ve been lucky,” Quade said. “I’ve had a lot of good clubs.”

Plus a lot of understanding that those clubs are a phone call away from getting a lot worse as talented players move up in class or to the big club.

“I’ve seen a number of managers at our level, usually former major league players, who will say, ‘What do you mean you’re taking our players?’” Quade said. “i pride myself on being a good organizational person. I try to do the best every night with whoever the heck is there.”

Quade now gets an opportunity to be around the best in baseball on a daily basis. And he kept the faith when he saw other dues-payers get rewarded like Jim Leyland (18 years as a minor-league manager and player) and Braves pitching coach Leo Mazzone (23 years).

“When you get to the Triple-A level you hope someone appreciates the job you do and you get an opportunity,” Quade said. “If I need an opportunity to coach at that level, hopefully I can learn the league and try to get opportunities to manage someday.

“And you could get there and maybe find out it’s not for you, either,”

Now he’ll start finding out. But it seems Quade believes he could get the job done whether he was in little, but or the Mid-Suburban League.

“I would be a little presumptuous to say I’d be a real good (major-league) manager,” Quade said. “But I feel in my heart I can manage. I think I communicate well. I think my clubs and people play hard for me and I get the best out of them.”

This year’s reward was a Triple-A World Series title. And not just because it was played in Las Vegas.

“I was still wired and it was still a big deal,” Quade said. “My folks have been pulling for me all these years and they got a chance to turn on the TV (ESPN) and a chance to see what it is I do on TV for a change. It’s an experience I won’t ever forget.”

Quade wasn’t afraid to draw on the knowledge of two of his coaches who have played in baseball’s ultimate games.

Roy White was an outfielder on three World Series teams with the Yankees (1976-78) and pitching coach Pete Richert pitched in three with the Orioles (1969-71).

“It was such a grind getting through the Pacific Coast League championship and for 10 or 11 days I was on edge,” Quade said. “When we got to Vegas, partly because of the distractions and partly because I took a deep breath, I was more relaxed.

“I said, ‘You two guys sit down. Am I nuts?’ They said, ‘No, getting through it is tougher than it is once you get there.’”

Mike Quade could probably say the same about the major jump he finally made from the minors Tuesday.