Hickey to return

The Rays announced Thursday that pitching coach Jim Hickey will return to the team on a one-year contract. Hickey's future was in question following his arrest on DUI and other charges after returning from the Sept. 30 season finale.

"Im extremely grateful for the opportunity to continue coaching the Rays,'' Hickey said in a statement released by the team. "Last month, I let down my family, the organization, and the Tampa Bay community. I am truly sorry for my actions.''

On Monday, Hickey pleaded no contest to charges of DUI and leaving the scene of an accident. He had his license revoked for six months and was placed on probation for one year, though the term may be reduced. A seperate charge of resisting arrest was folded into the DUI charge. He has performed 50 hours of court-ordered community service, and will perform more under team direction.

"Ever since the incident, Jim has shown contrition and taken full responsibility for his actions,'' Rays executive VP Andrew Friedman said in a statement. "We are confident he has learned from his mistakes, and we are ready for him to resume his responsibilities with our club.''

Hickey joined the Rays last October after being let go by the Astros. Under Hickey, the Rays finished with a major-league high 5.53 ERA but led the AL with 1,194 strikeouts.

Also, INF Jorge Velandia and RHP Shawn Camp became free agents after outright assigments to Triple-A Durham. With C Josh Paul filing for free agency, the Rays currently have 37 players on their 40-man roster.

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Comments

[Some Guy]

This will cost the Rays some fans, as it should. How many teams have coaches who are on probation? Way to demonstrate to the area the attitude of this organization toward life-threatening behavior.

[Frantman2]

I was really hoping they'd make a run at Leo Mazzone, but maybe he didn't want the job.

[Ron]

Way to go. Fire the bench coach, an honorable guy who had successfully managed most of the current players at Durham, but keep the drunk who coached the most inept bullpen staff in baseball.

This is just one more step in ownerships ultimate plan. Say hello to the Brooklyn Rays.

[Jeremy]

DUI isn't really a reason to lose your job...a second offense might be, but none of us are perfect (not condoning DUI's before all of you start shooting off at the mouth). What really stinks about this situation is that Bill Evers was let go after raising the current Rays roster through the minors...no one, NO ONE, knows the Rays roster better than he did, and now he's gone...and you're all crazy if you think the Rays are going anywhere...they're set up here, if they move they'd have to spend more money to get set up, and we all know they don't spend money.

[Bob]

I hope MADD pickets Tropicana Field and that attendance sufffers even worse than normal. Matt Silverman, Andrew Freidman and Stu Sternberg should be ashamed of themselves. they just showed that they have no class whatsoever.

[LP]

Unbelievable!! Bring Namoli back!! These guys are as clueless as they look!! Way to run off a large portion of the TINY fan base you have!! While your at it, why don't you guys go ahead and name Elijah Dukes team captain...

[Stephen]

I'm not fuming because they didn't fire him because of his arrest. Rather, I'm angry because they didn't fire him because of his performance. He was an awful coach. Did you see our pitchers last year? AWFUL! He even screwed up Kazmir's mechanics in the first half. The organization only kept him because he is a butt kisser just like that joke of a manager, Maddon.

[MELISSA]

OMG... MADD . LET THE WITCH HUNT BEGIN! GEEZ!! THIS GUY HAS A DUI IT COULD HAPPEN TO ANYONE WHO HAS EVEN ONE DRINK. IT IS HIS FIRST OFFENSE AND HE DID HIS TIME COMMUNITY SERV ETC... SO LET'S HOPE ANY OF YOU JUDGEMENTAL PEOPLE NEVER HAVE A DRINK AND THEN DRIVE AND I MEAN ONE OR TWO DRINKS. I'M NOT TALKING WASTED AND LET'S HOPE IT NEVER HAPPENS TO YOU!

[kathy]

The rays oganization should be so ashamed of themselves....allowing this arrogant underachieving coach back to work with the pitchers is a HUGE mistake.Pitching was so awful last year. We will always remain the worst team in the league if we hang on to talentless people both on the field and in the coaching ranks. What the heck can they be thinking?

[kathy]

The rays oganization should be so ashamed of themselves....allowing this arrogant underachieving coach back to work with the pitchers is a HUGE mistake.Pitching was so awful last year. We will always remain the worst team in the league if we hang on to talentless people both on the field and in the coaching ranks. What the heck can they be thinking?

[John]

The Rays did the right thing as any corporation should do. Hickey paid his dues (and will continue to do so for a long time) and everyone expects him to learn from this.

To those who complain - well, they are complainers regardless of the situation. Picket, boycott all you want, it'll all be forgotten once the Rays contend.

[Bob R.]

You have to really be predisposed to criticize the Rays to criticize retaining Hickey. As someone who despises drunkenness and considers DUI a serious crime, I still see no link between that and retaining his job. I do not recall a lot of criticism of the Cardinals for keeping LaRussa, and if there was, it seems to have dissipated. It is kind of a reversal of the reaction to Bonds/Betancourt. In that case, the supremely talented Bonds is pilloried while Betancourt is admired for his great year (although one has never been officially found guilty of anything and the other was). In this case, LaRussa's fame seems to insulate him while Hickey's lesser status makes him an easy target.

The Rays have been very smart about both Hickey and Dukes; they have decided based on baseball issues not on a sanctimonious public lynching.

As for his skill as a coach, once again a person has to have some kind of bias against the Rays' management and ownership to fix on that issue as another reason to pillory them. As fans and observers, we have some information about the players and some reasonable knowledge of what makes them productive. Over time, we can assess the work done by the front office. We know less about a manager's role in a team's success, but in some cases we can judge. But coaches! Unless you are intimately involved in the day to day routines of the club there is no way to know the kind of job they are doing, and even then, there is no real understanding of how or even whether the coaches have an impact. To criticize the Rays for hiring Hickey or firing Evers makes no sense because it cannot be based on any knowledge or information. Such criticism can only result from a pre-judged decision that the Rays' leadership is poor and therefore anything they do must automatically be deemed wrong.

[Jim]

How quickly we forget the young pitcher Josh Hancock of the St Louis Cardinals who drove drunk and died in a accident earlier this year! And how MLB spoke out against that behavior.

If an organization has leaders who can't make better decisions than this, you wonder about the competence of the organization. Every week in the Tampa Bay area people are injured and die due to DUI. This is not a crime to pass off as irrelevant.

Jim Hickey not only got stopped for DUI, but also was involved in a accident (with a team employee) and fled the scene, hit & run. Next he resisted arrest and had to be physically taken out of his car, then refused to put his hands behind his back and had to be forced into that. And refused to take a Breathalyzer or blood test.

Finally he pled NO CONTEST, which is NOT owning up to what he did. He "lawyered up" and let them get everything reduced and folded up into a neat little package that doesn't sound so bad. This isn't minor, this should be a big deal when lives are at stake.

[Ignatius]

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

[Steve]

Hickey's a moron! He almost messed up Kazmir last year until Kaz told him to "stick it" and he going back to his old position on the rubber.Bringing back Hickey is another stupid mistake by the Stu Crew! The majority of fans would rather have Xavier Hernandez as pitching coach. But since when do the Stu Crew care about fans. His main concern is how much $$ he can save. It was reported that every MLB team now receives an extra 30 Mil a year from the success of MLB.com! How about using that $ to increase payroll Stu!!

[Ron]

Bob R,
You can't be seriously comparing Hickey to a World Series winning manager, can you? Yeah, I called Hickey a drunk in my earlier post, and it's true. I'll call LaRussa a drunk also. The difference is that LaRussa gets the job done, while Hickey has proven he can't coach. He should have been fired, even if he'd never had a drink.

The idea that you must be intimately involved to know whether he is a good coah or not is preposterous. He coaches pitching and the Devil Rays pitching sucked. What more info do you need?

[Some Guy]

Bob R,

The difference between LaRussa and Hickey? LaRussa is in St Louis, and Hickey was driving drunk on the very streets I drive on a daily basis.

Since you love the word so much, DUI, hit and run and resisting arrest offenders would deserve to be pilloried for their crimes, maybe the shame would make them call a cab or get a ride from somebody sober.

[jeff]

Bill, ya shoulda raised a glass (merlot my man) or two with that "boisterous" manager of yours! Ya just might still be around?

[Bob R]

No, I am not comparing Hickey to LaRussa. I am comparing public reaction to his irresponsibility and crime with the reaction to LaRussa's similar action. Surely you do not advocate different responses because one is successful and the other not.

But I will give you the benefit of the doubt and interpret your meaning to be that Hickey is a lousy coach and the DUI is simply the last straw. I still disagree with your analysis.

First, I do not think a person's character can be labeled based on one transgression or failing. We are all far too complicated, and as much as I despise DUI and find drunks indescribably tedious, I still will not assume that tells me the whole story about the man. I hope people would be more tolerant in judging me while considering my character flaws.In any case, his failing has nothing to do with whether he is a good coach.

As for evaluating coaches, it would be far too complex an effort to examine the problems inherent in doing that in this space. Issues of connections to different personalities, specific roles, the nature of the give and take between coach and pitcher and myriad other considerations preclude such conversation here.

But some simple examples will illustrate my point that only intimate knowledge of the situation, and not even that, equip someone to judge. Yes, the Rays' pitching was poor this year. But so was the Orioles' under Mazzone. In fact, except for Bedard, who got injured, and a brief time Guthrie, they were lousy. Not only that, but if there is one area a pitching coach may have a clear role it is in avoiding injury, and while not one Rays' pitcher suffered a serious injury, quite a few Orioles did.

Or take for example the Rays' previous pitching coach. His staff was also awful, but the next year in Chicago, his pitching staff was among the best in the majors. And then, in 2006 it also flopped badly.

One could multiply these examples indefinitely. The point is that criteria for measuring a pitching coaches' ability is entirely unknown, certainly by the general public. If it is simply a matter of listing successful pitchers, then we could identify Shields clearly and make a case that he oversaw significant improvement over the mess that Jackson had become and helped Sonnanstine make a decent transition to the majors. But I do not assert that; I simply do not know what his role has been, and neither do you.

A final point. Leaving room for obvious exceptions, it is the state's role to punish people for crimes. That is not the province of employers. What Hickey did is not forgivable and deserves punishment. The state provided that, whether you think it adequate or not is immaterial to this point. It is not the Rays' job to add their own except insofar as it affects his ability to do his job. If it were, there would be considerably fewer employees of any sort, players, coaches, front office et al, in baseball.

[powerage]

He is the worst pitching coach in MLB. The Rays should have fired him.

[Bob R.]

Ok, let's match evidence.
1997: His AA staff led league in strikeouts
1998: His AAA staff claimed the team's first ever championship
2001: His PCL (AAA) staff was 2nd in league ERA and won the league championship
2002-2003: His staff led PCL in ERA and in 2002 he was named Astros "Player development man of the year".
2005: His Houston Astros staff was 2nd in the NL in ERA and had the NL ERA leader. 3 of his pitchers were in the top 7 in league ERA and the staff allowed the fewest runs and fewest walks in the league. The team advanced to the World Series.
2006: His staff was 2nd in league ERA again, had the ERA champ again and was 2nd in runs and 3rd in BBs with the most shutouts in the league (A number of his other staffs led their league in shutouts.)

I do not think the facts support the view that he is a poor pitching coach.