ST. LOUIS — Mike Matheny and the Cardinals divorced two years ago, but this week, he's back on visitation privileges. And the Matheny who's back in town with the Royals wants to make something clear. He's spent his time between franchises working on what could make him a better manager the next time he got a shot.
Matheny talked one-on-one with 5 On Your Side sports director Frank Cusumano via Zoom on Wednesday before the Royals and Cardinals completed their three-game series.
Matheny had returned with the Royals for an exhibition game before the season officially got underway, but this is his first time back where it counts. But the Cardinals manager for seven and a half seasons isn't bitter he's not in the first base dugout any more. He's grateful for the time he had.
"I came here and managed here in hopes of always being here. Just like the first team I played for was the Milwaukee Brewers. But the next thing you know they couldn't trade me for a bag of balls and had to release me. And so you just move on, and that's really what's happened here," Matheny said. "I'm so grateful for every day I had in a Cardinals uniform as a player or manager but it was time to move on."
Matheny spent his time away from the dugout preparing for when he'd get another shot. And it might surprise you as to how he did it.
First up, leadership.
The first-year Royals skipper is working on a masters degree in organizational leadership through Colorado State's online university. And he's applying his course work to situations he'll face as a manager.
"Every time I'd turn in a paper, it was going to be baseball related. And I told the professor, this is what I'm doing this for. I want to understand how to help the organization in any capacity I have, but I want to deal well with people," Matheny said. "And that's what leadership is. Leadership is impact, its not necessarily a position."
Another aspect Matheny wanted to improve on was media relations, after reflecting on aspects where he was perhaps "too defensive" when interacting with reporters.
He teamed up with a marketing and communications professor to analyze some of his interactions in the media, to help him better communicate his, and his organization's, message in his second go around in the Majors.
"I came in completely over my skis, everybody knew that. I was unprepared, I was untrained, and my whole thought process was, 'I cannot use this as a self-promotion tool. This isn't about me. This is about my guys and how do I protect my guys.' So I almost attacked every single day and opportunity to get in front of the media to defend," Matheny said. "I felt like I was a shield to defend our guys... And even getting feedback from people that are closest to me of how I almost kind of blocked off my personality, blocked off some of the joy I have in the game because I was so, and still am to some point, always afraid of saying something that's going to get in the way of relationships in the clubhouse, or get in the way of the players."
Another blind spot, Matheny said, was his knowledge of analytics. He wanted to figure out what he was missing, that he could bring to his players.
"Let me know my blind spots. I want my staff to do that, I want the analytics people to do that, I want the gentleman who's helping me with media relations to do that. Help me see what I don't see and let's make a plan on how to fix it. And I think that's probably just a good way to go about life," Matheny said.
